Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to episode five. I've been there,
Speaker 1: Dean that.
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoyed the last episode. I have
Speaker 2: been considering having guests on the podcast that I've traveled with,
Speaker 2: because there's quite a few.
Speaker 1: I know, I've done quite a few alone.
Speaker 2: It's probably like fifty to fifty fifty percent friends or
Speaker 2: family fifty percent solo. And even before having hand on
Speaker 2: last week, I had been reaching out to some friends,
Speaker 2: like my friends that I went to India with, or
Speaker 2: my brother who I've done a lot of cool trips with,
Speaker 2: or some of my other travel friends, whatever you might have,
Speaker 2: and they're all down. So hopefully you guys like that
Speaker 2: format of having them on and sharing their experiences and
Speaker 2: their tips and tricks, because I do feel like if
Speaker 2: it's just me every single week, it'll get a little
Speaker 2: stale after a while. So I'm gonna sprinkle those in
Speaker 2: every once in a while and keep it going. But
Speaker 2: if you really don't like it. But if you really
Speaker 2: don't like it, just keep it to yourself, because I'm
Speaker 2: gonna keep doing it anyways.
Speaker 1: No it don't keep it to yourself.
Speaker 2: You can comment on Instagram and maybe let me know
Speaker 2: what you like what you don't like, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get to it.
Speaker 2: So this week I want to talk about not traveling
Speaker 2: per se, but I wanted to get into photography a
Speaker 2: little bit and talk about my journey with photography because
Speaker 2: while I don't necessarily think I'm a good photographer, it's
Speaker 2: something I really enjoy and it's something my lovely wife
Speaker 2: always compliments me on. So I figured I would share
Speaker 2: my journey from start to current and maybe discuss a
Speaker 2: little bit about where I want to go with it too.
Speaker 2: It's just so interesting because the age of social media
Speaker 2: has changed things so much. There are there's such an
Speaker 2: overload of incredible photographers, video makers, content creators that do
Speaker 2: things that I.
Speaker 1: Could only dream of doing.
Speaker 2: And well, I might look like a talented photographer to someone,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm the least talented photographer of anyone
Speaker 2: that I follow.
Speaker 1: So it's just a weird thing.
Speaker 2: And I think that kind of just goes back to
Speaker 2: like an inferiority complex that I always feel, where I
Speaker 2: just never feel like I'm gonna be good enough. But
Speaker 2: here we are, we're trying to figure out as we go.
Speaker 2: Photography is something I really enjoy. It's something I got
Speaker 2: into specifically because I knew that I wanted to travel
Speaker 2: a lot, and I wanted to be able to take
Speaker 2: good quality photos or videos or whatever it might be
Speaker 2: on a trip to a place that you know, I
Speaker 2: knew I was going to want to take a lot
Speaker 2: of photos, like Machu Pichu, for instance, And.
Speaker 1: That's where I started. I took a long.
Speaker 2: Time for me to even learn how to work at camera,
Speaker 2: but I bought my first camera on my way down,
Speaker 2: I guess, right before I left for Patagoon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first time.
Speaker 2: If you go back to episode two and listen to that,
Speaker 2: that's the trip that I took my first camera on.
Speaker 1: It was a thirty five hundred I.
Speaker 2: Remember that because I bought it from Best Buy in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. It was maybe like four hundred dollars for
Speaker 2: the camera body and the lens, and I thought that
Speaker 2: was gonna be good enough for me forever. But on
Speaker 2: the trip down there, on the flight, I was like
Speaker 2: learning how to use a camera via YouTube videos, and
Speaker 2: I'm so bad at learning that way, Like there is
Speaker 2: just so much information. It's like trying to learn Spanish
Speaker 2: or French or Mandarin from zero and then diving into it.
Speaker 2: And they instantly start speaking that language that you're trying
Speaker 2: to learn. Because it just everything was going way over
Speaker 2: my head. I had no idea what they were talking about.
Speaker 2: And I think on that trip I just ended up
Speaker 2: shooting an auto the entire time. Anyways, But yeah, I
Speaker 2: was a D thirty five hundred and I just used
Speaker 2: the kit lens, which we'll get to it later about
Speaker 2: how I if I could go back, I would encourage
Speaker 2: people to start differently than that. But I watched a
Speaker 2: bunch of YouTube videos got to Patagonia, and I'm so stubborn.
Speaker 2: All I wanted to do was shoot manual mode because
Speaker 2: that's what my photographer friends said I should be doing eventually,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, oh, I'll just do this now,
Speaker 2: be bad at it for a few days, and then
Speaker 2: I'll figure it out and be good at it.
Speaker 1: And I just wasn't. I was really, really, really bad
Speaker 1: at it for a long time.
Speaker 2: I think even on that entire trip, I probably used
Speaker 2: my camera I don't know, a dozen times over the
Speaker 2: course of two or three weeks. So I think all
Speaker 2: of this stuff that I, you know, ended up posting
Speaker 2: online or pictures that I showed my friends or whatever,
Speaker 2: it was were just taking on my on my iPhone,
Speaker 2: and I was really discouraged from that trip because, like
Speaker 2: I said, I wanted to pick it up and be
Speaker 2: pretty good at it right away, and it's just I
Speaker 2: mean people. I'm sure people can do it and have
Speaker 2: done it before, but I was not one of those people.
Speaker 2: So I use that D thirty five hundred for a while.
Speaker 2: I think I eventually reached out to my photographer friend
Speaker 2: and I said, Hey, do you have any advice for
Speaker 2: me on what I could do? He said, get a
Speaker 2: prime lens. So I jumped online and tried to figure
Speaker 2: out what a prime lens was really quick and for
Speaker 2: the and I'm going to try to explain some of
Speaker 2: this stuff, but I'm probably gonna be wrong on most
Speaker 2: of it, or you know, not entirely right on a
Speaker 2: lot of it. Prime lens is just a fixed focal length,
Speaker 2: so I think he told me to get a fifty
Speaker 2: millimeter the nifty.
Speaker 1: To fifty they call it.
Speaker 2: It's just a fixed focal length of fifty millimeters, and
Speaker 2: the benefit of it is the aperture can can open
Speaker 2: up a lot more so the aperture on a fifty
Speaker 2: on this specific fifty Milli lens was one point eight,
Speaker 2: which is typically what you'll find with these prime lens
Speaker 2: is the one point eight is really good aperture at
Speaker 2: a pretty good price usually. And the nice thing about
Speaker 2: having that lower aperture or higher apperture, I guess I
Speaker 2: never really understand what to how to refer to it,
Speaker 2: but lower apperture just because the number is lower is
Speaker 2: how I'm going to refer to it here. The nice
Speaker 2: thing about that lower aperture is it gives you a
Speaker 2: lot better boca and boca for those that might not
Speaker 2: know what that is, is kind of like that background blur.
Speaker 2: So if you're taking a photo of your subject, they're
Speaker 2: perfectly in focus, it looks all beautiful, and then the
Speaker 2: boka is how much the background blurs behind them. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a better explanation as to what boka
Speaker 2: is and how it applies to photography and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: but that's my understanding of it. It's essentially the background blur.
Speaker 2: It kind of reduces the plane that is focused within
Speaker 2: the focus area, and it just even just getting that
Speaker 2: camera and I don't even think I was shooting on
Speaker 2: manual at this point yet or I'm sorry even on
Speaker 2: getting that lens having not even been shooting on manual.
Speaker 2: If you can maybe set to like aperture priority mode,
Speaker 2: you can keep the aperture at one point eight or
Speaker 2: whatever you choose to keep it at one point, it's
Speaker 2: wide open, so it gives you the best boka. It
Speaker 2: instantly makes your photography just look better in terms of
Speaker 2: like more professional but obviously not professional, but it just
Speaker 2: looks better when you have these kit lenses. I am
Speaker 2: so anti kit lens. Whenever anyone asks me, now that
Speaker 2: I have maybe a more general, better understanding of photography,
Speaker 2: I say, if you're gonna buy a camera, just buy
Speaker 2: the body and then buy your lens separate, because every
Speaker 2: kit lens more or less for a lot of these
Speaker 2: cameras are going to be rubbish. It'll be like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, thirty to eighty millimeter and that's not right,
Speaker 2: but something like that like F four and a half
Speaker 2: to F six, and so with the aperture so high,
Speaker 2: you get basically noboka, and it just it's easy to
Speaker 2: get discouraged when you're taking when you're investing money into
Speaker 2: a product like that in order to up your photography game,
Speaker 2: and then it's not yielding the results that you want
Speaker 2: it to like if you use great photographers could use
Speaker 2: a kit lens and get in fantastic photographs. But for
Speaker 2: the normal person like me, you spend all this money,
Speaker 2: buy a camera, buy a kit, get the kit lens
Speaker 2: with it, start using it, and then you start looking
Speaker 2: at the pictures and they look just as normal as
Speaker 2: your iPhone pictures. And in my case, it just discouraged
Speaker 2: me because in my head, I was like, well, I
Speaker 2: just spent four hundred dollars on this camera. Don't don't
Speaker 2: really notice much of a difference between this and my iPhone?
Speaker 2: Why would I keep using this camera when my iPhone
Speaker 2: takes just as good as photos as much smaller, and
Speaker 2: I already have it with me no matter what. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So I had that D thirty five hundred for a while.
Speaker 2: What I ended up doing, what really made me go
Speaker 2: from very beginner, very new bish to at least semi adequate,
Speaker 2: was I would go on trips with my friends who
Speaker 2: are photographers or no photography well enough to be able
Speaker 2: to explain things to me a little bit better. And
Speaker 2: so I went on a trip to I think it
Speaker 2: was Japan, was maybe the first trip that I went
Speaker 2: on with one of my buddies, Elliott, went on a
Speaker 2: trip with him. He's a talented photographer. He and I
Speaker 2: spent two weeks together just driving through Japan taking pictures.
Speaker 2: We were working for like A and A Airlines at
Speaker 2: the time, so I was like, come with me, I'll
Speaker 2: pay for everything, just kind of like help me get
Speaker 2: shots and teach me photography along the way. So he
Speaker 2: was kind of like helping me understand the book, the apperture,
Speaker 2: the shutter speed, all that kind of stuff that at
Speaker 2: first I was so completely perplexed by. I had no
Speaker 2: actual understanding of what any of that stuff was. Like,
Speaker 2: I generally consider myself a pretty smart guy, but learning
Speaker 2: a new skill in your late twenties is it can
Speaker 2: be challenging. So he was doing his best to explain
Speaker 2: it to me like I was five years old, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of when.
Speaker 1: It started to click for me.
Speaker 2: And then I went on a trip to Egypt with
Speaker 2: my with my friend Elliott different Elliott though separate. Elliott,
Speaker 2: and he is a He's so talented. He is big
Speaker 2: on social media, travels all these amusing places and take
Speaker 2: some of the most beautiful photographs I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: In my entire life.
Speaker 2: I remember we were standing behind like this iron window
Speaker 2: and we were trying to shoot through it, and I
Speaker 2: had my little fifty millimeter on my D thirty five
Speaker 2: hundred crop sensor camera and he had this, you know,
Speaker 2: standard twenty four to seventy f two point eight lens
Speaker 2: on his nice full frame Sony A seven whatever it was.
Speaker 2: And I was like, why does your picture look so
Speaker 2: much different than mine? He goes, Oh, I'm shooting at
Speaker 2: a different focal length than you are, And I was like,
Speaker 2: what the heck does that mean?
Speaker 1: Different focal length?
Speaker 2: And then so then on that trip, we spent about
Speaker 2: a week together there, and he was explaining everything else
Speaker 2: to me in terms of not everything else, but just
Speaker 2: kind of driving home a lot of the information that
Speaker 2: the other Elliott had taught me in Japan not too
Speaker 2: long before that, And that's really how I started to
Speaker 2: understand it. Those YouTube videos are tough. It was hard
Speaker 2: for me to get like a baseline understanding of cameras
Speaker 2: and lenses and shutter speed and aperture and ISO and
Speaker 2: all that stuff until I was able to talk to
Speaker 2: my friends and kind of see them use it in
Speaker 2: the field. So if you are interested in getting into photography,
Speaker 2: definitely see if you can take that route and like
Speaker 2: learn from someone rather than learn from the internet. I
Speaker 2: use YouTube for everything and anything from anything within home
Speaker 2: repair to DIY stuff to basic car stuff that I
Speaker 2: want to work on without having to take it to
Speaker 2: the mechanic or certain travel tips too.
Speaker 1: When it comes to me, be like a drone or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to photography at least I needed
Speaker 2: to learn a little more hands on. So then I
Speaker 2: upgraded maybe a few months. I probably had that D
Speaker 2: thirty five hundred for like two years, and Kaylin and
Speaker 2: I started dating, and we were going to Hawaii for
Speaker 2: my friend's wedding, and I decided to upgrade my body
Speaker 2: from a D thirty five hundred to a D fifty
Speaker 2: three hundred for no other reason than I thought the
Speaker 2: number was bigger, so the camera had to have been better,
Speaker 2: and to be honest, it was. It was a significantly
Speaker 2: better body, but not a huge jump up.
Speaker 1: It was a slight jump up.
Speaker 2: And what I did with my old one was I
Speaker 2: gave it to Kaylan and I said, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: if photography is something you're interested in, here's this camera.
Speaker 2: Try to you know, have some fun with it and
Speaker 2: see what happens. And so for the longest time she
Speaker 2: was shooting on that D thirty five hundred, I was
Speaker 2: shooting on my D fifty three hundred. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: my lenses because I kept most of my SLR lenses
Speaker 2: and it's so funny to look at the collection between
Speaker 2: my old ones and my current ones, because I had
Speaker 2: a few primes. I had like a one hundred and
Speaker 2: five millimeter prime, that fifty millimeter prime, the thirty five
Speaker 2: millimeter prime, which I ended up liking the most, and
Speaker 2: then like a fourteen to twenty four you know, four
Speaker 2: point five sigmal lens that I got for super cheap too.
Speaker 2: This was back before I wanted to really invest any
Speaker 2: money into it, because I wanted to make sure it
Speaker 2: was something that I enjoyed enough to sink a little
Speaker 2: bit of money into it. So we shut on those
Speaker 2: two cameras for a while, and Kaylin is like, she's
Speaker 2: so talented and so creative, but she was still learning
Speaker 2: the basics of the camera as well, so she was
Speaker 2: kind of like leaning on me to teach her things.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of funny because I was always kind
Speaker 2: of like one lesson ahead of her, So if she
Speaker 2: asked me about something, even if I had just learned
Speaker 2: it like a week prior, I could at least share
Speaker 2: that information with her. I do think she's kind of
Speaker 2: surpassed me now in her skill set and her ability,
Speaker 2: although there are certain things where maybe we like ask
Speaker 2: each other questions, and I guess I kind of understand
Speaker 2: the whole technical aspect of the cameras a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But I got super lucky.
Speaker 2: What happened was I wrote a blog post on my blog,
Speaker 2: Danebabies dot com about how much I loved my Nikon
Speaker 2: D fifty three hundred, what lenses I use the most,
Speaker 2: how I got into photography, what I like about photography,
Speaker 2: wrote that didn't even like reach out to Nikon, didn't
Speaker 2: ask for anything from them. They somehow got a hold
Speaker 2: of it and that little blog post it didn't get
Speaker 2: a lot of us, but enough they reached out and
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, we saw your blog post. We
Speaker 2: love that you're a Nikon user. Would you like us
Speaker 2: to send you a mirrorless camera? Because they Nikon kind
Speaker 2: of came late to the game with mirrorless versus like
Speaker 2: Sony or Canon. The Sony was kind of the pioneer
Speaker 2: and the mirrorless camera world, and Nikon obviously knew that
Speaker 2: it could compete, so it started making some marless cameras.
Speaker 2: This is probably like four years ago, maybe a little
Speaker 2: more for yeah, I know, four years ago sounds about right.
Speaker 2: So they reached out and they said, hey, we're coming
Speaker 2: out with this nice new mirrorless line, the Z six
Speaker 2: and Z seven.
Speaker 1: Do you want one of them?
Speaker 2: And I or in the Z fifth and so I
Speaker 2: said yes, absolutely, I would love that. They sent me
Speaker 2: a Z seven. They actually offered to send me the
Speaker 2: Z six and I said, again foolishly thinking since it
Speaker 2: was a higher number, the seven would be a better camera,
Speaker 2: and it probably is. I think the sensor is a
Speaker 2: little bit bigger, more megapixels, but the Z six is
Speaker 2: would have been a better option for me at the time.
Speaker 2: And they also sent Kaln to Z fifty. So we
Speaker 2: both got these nice, fancied new mirrorless cameras from Nikon
Speaker 2: free of charge, just because we started kind of promoting
Speaker 2: it and telling people that's what we were using. As
Speaker 2: we got better, people started asking us questions about like
Speaker 2: which camera brand we use, So I guess it was
Speaker 2: kind of like they're a marketing a marketing angle from them.
Speaker 1: So she got a Z fifty.
Speaker 2: I got a Z seven, and it was the first
Speaker 2: time that I had used the what's probably widely considered
Speaker 2: the flagship lens in most cameras is the twenty four
Speaker 2: to seventy f two point eight. It covers a great range.
Speaker 2: You can go wide angle at twenty four and you
Speaker 2: can get real close with the seventy millimeter full push
Speaker 2: on zoom and two point eight. You know, it's not
Speaker 2: as good as like a prime one point eight, but
Speaker 2: it's still. In order for it to be a one
Speaker 2: point in all the way through, I think the lens would
Speaker 2: have to be massive. I don't even know if that's
Speaker 2: a possibility, But so you lose a little bit of
Speaker 2: the bookuet, but you get a lot of a lot
Speaker 2: more range with it. You know, you can take one
Speaker 2: lens with you on a backpacking trip and get everything
Speaker 2: from the whole landscape to tight shots of your friends
Speaker 2: hiking or whatever it is. So they send us those cameras,
Speaker 2: we start using them for a long time. After a while,
Speaker 2: I forget exactly how it happened, but I think I
Speaker 2: was just like pestering nikon, Hey, I love you guys
Speaker 2: so much. The Z seven is great. I just see
Speaker 2: you release the Z seven two. Would you guys mind
Speaker 2: sending me one of those? And I think after like
Speaker 2: enough pestering, they eventually were like, fine, fine, let's get
Speaker 2: this guy off or back. We'll send them a Z
Speaker 2: seven two. So they sent me the Z seven two.
Speaker 2: I gave Kaylin my Z seven and so then we
Speaker 2: What was nice about that too, is the Z fifty
Speaker 2: is a crop sensor. Z seven is a full frame sensor,
Speaker 2: which doesn't make that big of a difference. Honestly, like
Speaker 2: you know, if you're just a hobbyist shooter kind of
Speaker 2: like I am, it doesn't really make that big of
Speaker 2: a difference. A crop sensor pushes in the focal length
Speaker 2: one and a half time, So if you have a
Speaker 2: fifty millimeter prime on a full frame it's really seventy
Speaker 2: five millimeters on a crop sensor camera.
Speaker 1: Not that big of a deal.
Speaker 2: If you want to get a wider shot, just get
Speaker 2: a wider lens, shorter focal length or shorter, yeah, shorter
Speaker 2: focal length. So then we were for the longest time
Speaker 2: shooting the Z seven and Z seven two and those
Speaker 2: were great cameras.
Speaker 1: We beat them up.
Speaker 2: We had a blast. I just recently actually have been
Speaker 2: dying to get this Nikon Z nine, which is like
Speaker 2: they're it's so it's so annoying with electronics because new
Speaker 2: electronics become obsolete in two years, you know. They're everything
Speaker 2: advances so fast and moves so quickly. They kept updating
Speaker 2: the software on the kind of like the first rollout
Speaker 2: of their mirrorless cameras, but it got to this point
Speaker 2: where the hardware wasn't strong enough to support the software
Speaker 2: that they were coming out with. And so with the
Speaker 2: release of the Z nine and Kalen who just recently
Speaker 2: got a zf, it just it kind of changed a
Speaker 2: lot of things in like the terms of auto focus
Speaker 2: and video recording, and the Z nine I got I
Speaker 2: want to say I got that in like November, just
Speaker 2: before our trip to Tanzania. We went on this trip
Speaker 2: to Tanzania with that geo, and it's something I've always wanted.
Speaker 1: The Z nine.
Speaker 2: It was so expensive. It was like six thousand dollars
Speaker 2: just for the body, going from a four hundred dollars
Speaker 2: camera six years ago in the D thirty five hundred
Speaker 2: to a six thousand dollars camera.
Speaker 1: Now it was tough. It was a tough pill to swallow.
Speaker 2: I was able to sell my Z seven two and
Speaker 2: a couple of other lenses and things like that that
Speaker 2: I had bought throughout the years to eat into a
Speaker 2: fair amount of that price tag. But I'm really glad
Speaker 2: I did, because when we went to Tanzania, I felt
Speaker 2: like I had the best equipment available to me to
Speaker 2: get the shots that I wanted to get, and especially
Speaker 2: being there with that GEO, like, I wanted to make
Speaker 2: sure I was able and capable to do the things
Speaker 2: that they wanted me to do.
Speaker 1: But that's where we're at. Now.
Speaker 2: I've got a Z nine, Kalen's got a ZF. I
Speaker 2: also have a ZFC, which is like the crop sensor
Speaker 2: version of the ZF. It's not quite as nice, but
Speaker 2: it's significantly cheap. It was not significant, like half the price.
Speaker 2: But it's so interesting because now I know so much
Speaker 2: more about the components of a camera, how to how
Speaker 2: to like light a picture when it comes to shutter speed,
Speaker 2: iso aperture and all that stuff. But there's still so
Speaker 2: much I don't know, and so now I feel like
Speaker 2: I've kind of reached a point where I've plateaued where
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily feel like I have to learn more
Speaker 2: because I know the basics well enough. But I'm always
Speaker 2: gonna be this like middling photographer because of that, because
Speaker 2: I don't have like this unsatiable urge to learn the
Speaker 2: next thing, whatever it might be. But I still do
Speaker 2: travel with my friends who are a photographers, sometimes not as
Speaker 2: much as I used to, and not as much, not
Speaker 2: as like deliberately as I used to. I guess where
Speaker 2: I used to go on these trips just so I
Speaker 2: could learn from them. Now it's like, let's go on
Speaker 2: the trip as equals, I guess, rather than like me
Speaker 2: asking you a million questions. I still do ask a
Speaker 2: lot of questions. I think asking questions is the number
Speaker 2: one best thing anyone can do for themselves whenever they're
Speaker 2: trying to learn a new skill. But it's gotten to
Speaker 2: the point now where I just like to travel and
Speaker 2: fail and learn from my own failures and see what
Speaker 2: works and what doesn't work. That's kind of my quick
Speaker 2: thirty thousand foot view of my camera journey. I do
Speaker 2: want to whenever anyone reaches out to me. I love
Speaker 2: nicon so much. I suggest getting like an entry level
Speaker 2: mirrorless camera. The nice thing about mirrorless two is the viewfinder.
Speaker 2: The electronic viewfinder on the mirrorless camera shows you an
Speaker 2: image of what the picture is going to look like
Speaker 2: before before you even take it, whereas the old DSLRs
Speaker 2: you're just looking through a.
Speaker 1: Piece of glass.
Speaker 2: Send it a mirror that projects out through the lens,
Speaker 2: and so it's not electronic, which is a lot of
Speaker 2: people do like it. It's it's good because it more natural,
Speaker 2: more organic, I guess. But you don't see the picture
Speaker 2: before you take it. You you have the frame of
Speaker 2: the picture, but you don't know how it's going to
Speaker 2: be lit, because you know, you change the shutter speed
Speaker 2: and aperture on your mirror list and it changes it
Speaker 2: to you on the display, so you know exactly what
Speaker 2: it's going to look like, whereas you probably have to
Speaker 2: take a couple of test shots with the DSLR see
Speaker 2: what it's going to look like and then kind of
Speaker 2: go from there. Well, I'm talking so fast and running
Speaker 2: myself out of breath here, So I do recommend always
Speaker 2: two people to get a mirrorless camera to start. I
Speaker 2: think I think like the most inexpensive Nikon mirrorless cameras are,
Speaker 2: you know, somewhere in the five hundred to eight hundred
Speaker 2: dollars range, which is kind of close to where I started.
Speaker 2: Like I said, don't get the kit lens. I always
Speaker 2: advise people just buy a body, get a thirty five
Speaker 2: millimeter or fifty millimeter f one point eight lens. Learn
Speaker 2: how to frame photos with your feet rather than with
Speaker 2: the zoom ring. I think that's a big thing too.
Speaker 2: I look back an old picture sometime, like when I
Speaker 2: went to China, and I'm like, these pictures are so
Speaker 2: much better than the pictures I take now.
Speaker 1: I wonder why, and.
Speaker 2: I think it really is because I was using solely
Speaker 2: prime lenses back then, and so I'd have to get
Speaker 2: more creative with the shots. I'd have to move myself
Speaker 2: around instead of zooming in or zooming out, whereas now
Speaker 2: with all these you know, I've got a fourteen twenty four,
Speaker 2: twenty four to seventy seventy two hundred and then one
Speaker 2: eighty six hundred, so I could literally stand in one
Speaker 2: spot and get a million different angles of the same picture,
Speaker 2: whereas before you have to like really try to learn
Speaker 2: and focus and teach yourself how to frame a picture
Speaker 2: and what to do when you're kind of restricted by
Speaker 2: the focal length of your lens. So do that Get
Speaker 2: an entry level camera body, get a thirty five millimeter
Speaker 2: one point eight lens. I bet you could probably get
Speaker 2: both those things for less than a thousand dollars. Sony's
Speaker 2: great at mirror list. They've been doing it for so long.
Speaker 2: Nikon is good, is good. I just I love Nikon's aesthetic.
Speaker 2: I think they're the prettiest looking cameras on the market,
Speaker 2: just the camera itself, which is such a silly thing
Speaker 2: to say. It's like, who cares what it looks like
Speaker 2: as long as it takes good pictures. But I something
Speaker 2: about Canon just don't like the way the bodies look.
Speaker 2: They do take really good pictures, though. Fujifilm's really nice.
Speaker 2: Sony's are super nice. I do kind of advise people
Speaker 2: to get into Sony just because, like the you can
Speaker 2: use markets a lot better for Sony, so if you
Speaker 2: wanted to buy more affordably, you could go that route,
Speaker 2: whereas the Nikon marrorless market is like kind of newer,
Speaker 2: so there's not as much use stuff out there, which
Speaker 2: is kind of a bummer sometimes. But yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: my quick little podcast on my photography journey. I don't
Speaker 2: know where it's gonna go. Kalin really wants us to
Speaker 2: sell prints. I don't think that we're talented enough of
Speaker 2: photographers to print and sell pictures that we take, but
Speaker 2: maybe one day, you know, we go to some interesting
Speaker 2: places and some of our shots are good, But then
Speaker 2: you go into a gallery and you see someone that's
Speaker 2: actually doing it as a career profession and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm light years behind this person.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the beauty of it.
Speaker 2: You're always going to improve, Like the best way you
Speaker 2: can improve is just getting out there and doing it.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I don't pick up my camera for a
Speaker 2: few months and I feel like I have lost touch
Speaker 2: with myself or I'm not as creatively free as I
Speaker 2: used to be.
Speaker 1: It can be depressive.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there are certain trips we go on where it's
Speaker 2: like a quote unquote work trip where we're getting paid
Speaker 2: for it, or it's a free exchange trip or whatever
Speaker 2: it is, and that can just really suck the fun
Speaker 2: out of it for me too, because it feels like
Speaker 2: I'm working. You know, like you don't want your hobbies
Speaker 2: to become your work. It's great when they do, and
Speaker 2: it's great when you can get paid for your hobbies,
Speaker 2: but when your hobbies become your work, then what are
Speaker 2: your hobbies?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: I love woodworking and photography. If I got paid to
Speaker 2: be a woodworker or a photographer, then that wouldn't be
Speaker 2: my hobby anymore, be my occupation. And while I do
Speaker 2: love it, I just think that doing it for the
Speaker 2: fun of it is really the best part. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like the whole essence of it, in my opinion.
Speaker 2: So if there is ever money to be made from it,
Speaker 2: I love it, But it's it's a lot more it's
Speaker 2: a lot more fun and more enjoyable when you're just
Speaker 2: out there shooting for the fun of it all. Like
Speaker 2: Brink used to say when he wrote for Team puppin Sutt's,
Speaker 2: he's a soul skater, and I think soul skating is
Speaker 2: the best thing to do.
Speaker 1: Just do it for the fun of it.
Speaker 2: Do it for the love of it, see where it
Speaker 2: takes you. It's just it's also so interesting to see,
Speaker 2: you know. Like when my friends compliment me on photography,
Speaker 2: I'm like, are you sure we're looking at the same picture,
Speaker 2: because there's so many things that are wrong with this,
Speaker 2: but I appreciate the compliment. Nonetheless, I just feel like
Speaker 2: I've got imposter syndrome with it. So the big thing
Speaker 2: about photography too, is in today's landscape, at least with
Speaker 2: social media being how it is, so much of what
Speaker 2: makes like it's like fifty percent photography fifty percent post processing.
Speaker 2: Like you could be a great photographer but a horrible
Speaker 2: photo editor, and your photos are going to just look
Speaker 2: kind of normal compared to everyone else's. That's like maybe
Speaker 2: a worse photographer, but way better at editing photos. That's
Speaker 2: one thing on my trip to an art we did
Speaker 2: kind of focus a little bit of our time with
Speaker 2: like the editing process and finding out your own style,
Speaker 2: going with like a theme, whatever it is, applying masks,
Speaker 2: all that important stuff that did make a big difference.
Speaker 2: It's you can learn as much as you can on
Speaker 2: the photography side, but until you learn how to process
Speaker 2: and edit these photos, I feel like I'm.
Speaker 1: Always going to be a step behind. So keep that
Speaker 1: in mind as well.
Speaker 2: I use like your classic It's a great, great program,
Speaker 2: but I still have so much more to learn on
Speaker 2: that too. I do want to sit down and listen
Speaker 2: to some YouTube and watch some YouTube videos about like
Speaker 2: how to improve that. I know how to work everything,
Speaker 2: but I just don't know how to cohesively bond it
Speaker 2: all together to make the product that I at least
Speaker 2: envision my head. I get so many things, so I
Speaker 2: go so many places where I'm like expecting an image
Speaker 2: to look a certain way. Take the picture, edit it,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't look anything like I thought it was
Speaker 2: going to luck and it can be a little depleting sometimes,
Speaker 2: So keep that in mind. If you're gonna focus on photography,
Speaker 2: get the right lens, get a camera body you're happy with,
Speaker 2: and you have fun using. And then understand too that
Speaker 2: it's going to take an equal amount of work on
Speaker 2: the other side of it too, with editing it to
Speaker 2: make it look like you want it to look like.
Speaker 1: It's an ongoing thing for me. I'm going to keep
Speaker 1: working at it.
Speaker 2: I hope you guys are, if you're interested, could use
Speaker 2: this as a catalyst to give it, give it a shot,
Speaker 2: because like I said, it's opened a lot of doors
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: I love when people ask me to take photos for
Speaker 2: them or of them. It makes me feel like I
Speaker 2: have a purpose. It just makes me feel like that
Speaker 2: they like the things that I take pictures of.
Speaker 1: So it's a nice you know.
Speaker 2: It's just a nice little little hobby to have in
Speaker 2: your back pocket. But yeah, what else do I have
Speaker 2: to say? I could talk about drones, but we're already
Speaker 2: kind of at capacity for this podcast. So thank you
Speaker 2: guys so much for listening to this week's episode have
Speaker 2: Been There Dean That next week, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 2: have some friends come on. So, like I said, if
Speaker 2: you're interested in hearing more from the friends or my
Speaker 2: brother or I guess we haven't heard from them yet,
Speaker 2: But if you're interested in me having guests on to
Speaker 2: share their experiences with our traveling that we've done together,
Speaker 2: please drop a comment on our Instagram page.
Speaker 1: That means a lot to me.
Speaker 2: So thank you guys for tuning in for this week's
Speaker 2: episode of Been There Dean That be sure to tune
Speaker 2: in next week, where maybe we suck just a little
Speaker 2: bit less