Lessons

Lesson Info

My Camera Gear

Let's get into actually my camera gear so what'll I really shoot with and I use a one camera that I like using is the sony a seven s and it is a full frame camera and it is super tiny this is full frame folks right? They sell a seven full frame this for fifteen hundred bucks ok, I like the fact that I could squeeze two of these in a bag and it doesn't take up a whole heck of a lot of room right? And you know from a professional point of view yeah the ninety nine which I'll show a little bit better is easier to get to it controls but really I ride manual most of the time all I need to know is my f stop my shutter speed my eyes so and my wife balance that's on ly the four buttons that I really need to know about and so if I'm only managing four buttons all the time then this could work for me but it's really small and that's what I like it and I like the fact that I could shoot it any ice so it goes it's rated upto half of freakin million I s o I've never done before but you could put it...

up a twelve thousand I'll sell no biggie right and with wedding photography if you're in low light or just or using video light a lot times this is perfect hi I still so I like that ability to do high iess so that's why you're going to find out if your camera can't shoot at high iess so if you don't feel comfortable shooting at thirty two hundred guess what go out and buy yourself a new camera today you deserve it ok you've got to be able to shoot at high isil and take advantage of technology why? Because the new guy coming in for fifteen hundred bucks right? Well he can't get this one but he could get a seven which certainly could go up to thirty two hundred no problem is and so they can do all the things that you can't do especially with video light so high I sl is imperative you must I feel that today's photographer has to be able to do it if you want to earn money with your craft and this is a career situation for yourself okay um and also I do like a ninety nine the one thing that I like a ninety nine to about is it does have bilton image stabilization in the body okay, so what I like about this is that if I put this twenty thirty year old lands on here that's auto focus I still get image stabilization with it this is a little bit more user friendly the battery lasts a little bit longer it's a bigger grip all the buttons air here so you know, if you're if you're writing your view one of those guys who really loves toe fine tune things and get the things real fast and change your focus and to do all that kind of stuff like me I'm really based on you know believe it or not I'm a still center focus reposition trying to guy on dso you know, because kind of going up growing up using those other focus points in the beginning they weren't very like the focus point on the side didn't focus as fast as the focus point in the middle and I still is that still kind of true today I don't know I haven't really tested it out, but I always found that in the centre was the fastest focus so that's why I was doing that but if you want to change the focus points and stuff like this, this camera's definitely a little bit easier to do that in the other camera but I'm not that kind of guy I'm very simplistic and my approach to photography so there is reasons for me to do that also these this camera here without an adapter can use a mountain lenses which are old minolta lenses to on so I have more variety of lenses and I just don't have to use an adapter with it um and it's easier and so that's the reason why I used this particular camera here um let's get into what I normally shoot with lens I'm basically a portrait photographer so I like my eighty five millimeter lens the most for portrait pse and I like to look at this has actually the adaptor on it to use with the a seven but I love this lands now there's a lot of different eighty five's out there but I like this carl zeiss one that's it's really nice so I d for most of my portrait sce you're going toe that you're going to see a lot of it was shot with the eighty five or the fifty millimeter but lately I've been loving the eighty five because it gives me a little bit of length to which I like and I'll show you why I like using your two okay um who this is so I'm I'm a kind of guy boohoo I don't like the middle range of a lens because that's the normal so I'm trying to give my photography a different look so I'm really going to go kind of blurred background long lands look or a nickel wide I'm not going to give you the middle and so I don't like that so I like my photography to kind of hits you and be a little bit different and so I kind of use two lenses at the ends of the spectrum okay and I where to when I go on a shoot I put on to camera bodies why right. Less time to change the lands and if it ain't easy, you're not going to do it right. And I've been there let's say your lose using this lens and you get the fifteen millimeter and you're going you know what? I kind of see a really nice shot. Now, if I could go wide, you know, I want to go into my bad pullout that and switched lenses right now. Uh, it's okay, I can get on just stand back a little bit for their right. So what? So I find that I was compromising my vision all the time. So when I'm like, for example, when I'm on the job shooting a wedding, I have to have two on me because I tried that one time, right? Being the nice chief asian guy I am. Maybe I can get by with one body, right? It was like I just changed lenses. A lot of people do it, I find it in chains lens. I just want I kept shooting with the same lands, maybe you know, when I had to, I did, but it most part I was just compromising my vision constantly, so I wanted to make it easy for myself, so I have two bodies, one with the wide and I like this tone, tina, I'm sorry I just blew it now because they're not even there's may be only a thousand more in the world but I'm just telling the world right now I love this lands it's super sharp and it's cheap you could get this thing for two hundred bucks maybe maybe less um and I know this photo right here I took with it right it's you know the one thing about this lens and I'm going to get this in the last day I'm going to tell you about all my lens secrets how do you like that? But anyway what I like about this land anybody on this lens? Yeah, because I told you to buy it. Okay, right now look at this lands and I want you to feel it right now I feel nice feel nice, right? Feel the weight of that. Does that feel like a two hundred dollars kit lends no right here given that leads back before you go I know you get but you know what? That's what I love about the older lenses they are built better because of inflation because of the way our dollar has deflated, right? You don't buy as much as what you used to buy for a dollar anymore by so that older stuff that's actually twenty, thirty years old is solidly built man the kit lenses that they built back then were really, really good but now you get that kit lenses like literally plastic it's like you know it's really cheap so the older stuff a lot of times is built a lot better so that's why sometimes I like using all their lands is okay uh if I got to go long here's another great lands the sony seventy two two hundred which is a nice choice but which is bigger right on I'll show you a little bit later on the minolta seventy two two hundred three five to four five a mountain I like that linds that is a sleeper lands nobody knows about it. It actually focuses pretty darn fast. Okay, I think actually sony sells a version of it too. Might be more but you could buy this minolta you could probably if you can find it. I know you're definitely right now. You could probably get it for less than one hundred dollars. Hey, is this big? And because I can shoot at high I s o thirty two hundred sixty four hundred twelve thousand do I really care that my f stop has to be a little bit higher on it, right? Who cares? I zoom it out, even zoomed out at two hundred and four point five the background is blurry still might see you still get that effect uh and taking advantage of technology I rather invest in a camera that can shoot higher ice. So that means I have more choices for my lenses, right? I could use very good, very sharp lenses, but maybe they just need a little bit more light. Well, who cares now? Half a million eyes. So we got it covered. No problem. Ok, so I like investing in the camera body and then using different lenses. Andi, you can keep those forever, okay? And then then you have the adaptors that so I have a name out, len a mount camera, and then I haven't emailed, and some of you might have that issue, too. Where? Use a, you know, maybe used two different bodies with different mounts. I haven't adapter, so I can use either lands with either body and so that's. Why this works for me if the a seven if I wasn't able to use a ninety nine lenses with it, I probably you know, I wouldn't go with it because there's not a whole lot of variety in lenses in this mountain. Yet because it's just new, they haven't developed a lot of lanza's for it. So if you're in a situation where you can't use all your lenses with both bodies, I would hold back on it, because now you can't use everything that you get right and you have to buy one lens for maybe the experiences if you have a crop sensor camera and you have a full sensor and some lenses like oh shoot it doesn't work with that and you're stuck right? So make sure you can use all of your lenses and be able to use different bodies and so forth and utilize them okay? Why? I mean, why sony? I mean, I'm not plugging sony because you know, they're paying me or anything like that to say this but I'm just I'm telling you why I like it they literally have revolutionary features I mean generally the other brands you know, nikon and cannon there basically similar right? But the sony just has some things that other brands don't and one of them is the live view and the live view is it's full function on the live you I know a lot of cameras oh yeah I have live you but I have to look at the screen right here right? And look that wolf your bright light that screening helping you a lot right? This does have live you in it and what live you is is when I changed my shutter I can change you can see it immediately, okay, so where you change your f stop, you change so you change the white balance you see it immediately really time so you're doing you're trying to set up something and get the right like I can shoot a thirty to forty percent faster do it with that that's why I like this and I can see it inside here because inside my viewfinder is is a actual lcd screen okay on dh so it's an earlier led viewfinder and so when you make that screen digital there's a lot of things that it's not actual optical but it's really visual you could put things like a level in it you can do things what I call they call focus speaking so you could put a manual lands on it and when you're in focus boom anything that lights up in red or yellow or white, whatever you call it it will light up and show you what's in focus because it's an led screen it's like a computer screen and so that's very revolutionary so we're putting a manual lands on your cameras not that big of a deal and that's what I love about that, okay? It has a tilt screen and I like shooting in either extremes, right? So a lot of times I am shooting like this on the ground if I didn't have a till screen what what I have to do right? And if it eight easy, you're not going to do it right so if you had to do this for the shot just simply this you're gonna do this if you had to get on your stomach and shoot most like you're not gonna do it maybe do it wants or whatever and I can do it consistently another thing is I'm short and I like to do portrait's where I'm shooting down on my subject and so this screen allows me to look at something adjusted and tilt it it's like and be taller now I could be six feet now that's also okay I'll shoot I'll take being five ten they'll be great from it okay and so right and so I can see it I could do real time adjust my shutter and I can be taller and shoot down and that's what I love about that ok I think we only got a few minutes left it's the smallest full frame format as you can see it's really teeny I could pack it I do destination work all over the place right and I love it color rendition I love the color just the natural portrait that it takes it seems to do candle in my opinion it seems toe handle reds really well um I usually use other brand and sometimes the reds would just kind of get really bright when I looked at it when I use this camera for some reason the reds seemed of the very natural and I love the color rendition about it and sharp focus I was using some other brands and I had this camera and a lot of times I was shooting anna go I know I focus that, but when you get anything computer street, it looks out of focus now was that me? Was that the camera and you don't know and you keep shooting and they get images and it was like, is that me? Or is it my camera? When I switched, I'm like every picture was just sharp like it wasn't me is the camera and that's what I love about it, um and that's it so I've talked to the place. Now I'm going to teach you the game plan and these air, the seven thing I think went and pretty much with this, uh, how we do it and these air, the six essential lighting skills that we're going to learn, ok? And so I went back and I decided these are the six things a person needs to know to really put it together one light position ok, that is the key thing that I realized that people didn't understand they could get the exposure right, no problem by getting that right that light in the right position, I still have a hard time, I can't do it in one shot all the time, and so that is really what we need to learn bright light situations. You talked about that and then overcast or low contrast situations I didn't really cover that in creative, crazy stupid like now I'm going to specifically cover that situation and what to do with it okay and low light which I did and no light under exposing your image and the last composition and so now I gave you the tools you're going to take those tools and now we're going to create a game plan how do we take these tools go out in the real world assessed the lighting you immediately look out there I got three things I can do right now that I know will work when that be amazing whatever lighting situation you're you go I got a plan for this and that's half of it right there that's have a mint because you're so overwhelmed with everything else you need to be certain that when you walk into a lighting situation you assess the light and go ok it's this kind of like these three things these four things the's one thing this is all my only option, right? And so you can quickly assessed what your options are very quickly and that's what we're going to be doing okay? So I'm going to end with this one thing right? Who has iphone here who has a samsung, right? I know there's a big debate about it and in that whole thing with it right? But I was in new york when they released it and I believe that the iphone is the on ly people have literally lines in new york literally literally a mile long to get the iphone now I'm not saying which one is better which were used but what I'm saying is well customers wait in line a mile long to get a piece of your work that's our goal right we want that we want to be ableto that's them what and guess what will apple when did they start? Nineteen seventy six how many years did they take to get to a point where people were going crazy about their product nineteen said what is that forty years ago right so what does that tell us about us and how long we have to so you know what our journey starts today and it starts when these next three days but listen don't think about what you're gonna accomplish in these three days think about what you're gonna accomplish in five years ten years, fifteen years twenty years you're gonna work hard but you're going to give yourself a break too because you realize this is a multiyear process ok so you're going to try to assimilate these things you might be a little bit frustrated but keep hanging in there because there's a goal at stake here is that we want that mile long line okay people waiting to get our services but it starts slowly and we've got to keep working it. And it may be several years.