Hey Ya'll! How's it going? Hope you've had a great week! This week I want to talk about how I video myself for my "Max's Kitchen Gear Talk" videos I've started to attach to my blogs. It's been a big learning curve for me because I'm not a video guy. I've got a lot of help from my Photography Wingman Robert on this topic as he is much more versed in the video world that I am. Before I get into the gear I wanted to get into the why I started videoing myself. Although I've written over 400 blogs I'm not much of a writer I try to write like I speak and sometimes it comes out okay but sometimes not so much. So I figured if I made a video I could better explain or at least get the punctuation in the right place. LOL I thought for the people that don't like to read maybe they will click on the link and I could talk to them about the subject of the blog. My main purpose of the blog is to share what little knowledge I have and my experience with photography and of course gear. (although most of my gear is old) So let's talk about gear. Most of my videos have been traveling type of videos whether I'm hiking , camping or riding my bike. For these videos GoPros and my Phone have been my main gear. They are nice and easy to use and all you have to do after you've got them set up is push a button. When I first stared doing hiking videos I had a little contraption that could hook to my hiking stick and I could put my phone on it and I had a selfie stick before they became a thing. This actually worked pretty well and the long hiking stick actually dampened the movement of walking and made it look smooth. This was before camera stabilization and I thought the videos looked okay. Then I got into GoPros and have been using them pretty much since. I keep it simple I don't shoot in LOG which is kind  of like shooting in RAW where you would have to edit and color grade the footage. I kept it simple. I shoot in regular profiles or creative styles that the GoPro gives. Like shooting JPEG. All the editing is done in camera. Then I bring the footage into a simple program iMovie which is a simple program that lets you create your movie with simple drag and drop to add things like transitions and titles and music.  The problem with GoPros is that you get that GoPro look. Very wide angle look. Not really good for filming a talking head video. So here's what I did.

Here is a video link to Max's Kitchen Gear Talk where I talk about the video gear I use. It is on my YouTube channel. Pleas like and Subscribe it doesn't cost a dime and it really helps the channel get seen by more people.

My first video of the series I used just my phone on a tripod. It worked okay. I used my apple watch to start and stop the video. I had some LED panels that I used to light myself. And I just started talking. I used the selfie camera on the phone (my first mistake) I got the video done and edited it and it looked okay but not as good as I wanted. The audio was also not good I had to boost it to 400% in post just to make it the right volume. My next video I flipped the camera around and used my watch to frame the scene and the video came out better but still not what I wanted. I also stuck an umbrella on the light to make it a bit softer and not as harsh. The video looked better lighting wise but still not as good as I wanted. Then I looked into the settings of the phone camera and found I was shooting in 1080 instead of 4K. So I changed those settings. But my audio was still bad. I went to my Wingman Robert for some advise and I also wanted to borrow a Mic from him. We went on a photo outing and he brought me a DJI gimbal for the phone and DJI mic mini combo to play with. Now you talk about a learning curve. It took me a couple of days to figure this combo out but after a little bit of research and practice I did figure it out. I redid the video that I had done before and it turned out pretty good and the audio was good also. It was a lot better! He gave me a great deal on the combo that he doesn't use anymore so I got it for myself. I also bought some more stuff too. I'm still keeping it simple but here's the gear that I'm using for my videos.

Video Gear- My main video camera is my iPhone 16pro. I shoot it in 4k and use the Normal camera on the phone. I use my apple watch or with the DJI gimbal I can use had gestures to start and stop the recording. I am using the DJI Mobile 7p gimbal on a light stand to hold the camera. What's nice about the gimbal is that I can start and stop with had gestures but I can also have the gimbal follow me with a hand gesture. It so sensitive that I sometimes have to cut off this feature because if it sees the gesture only for a second it will move the gimbal and follow me. With the gimbal I can hook up and link a DJI Mic Mini wireless microphone directly to the phone onto the video . This really works great and the microphone gives great audio quality and even has noise cancellation that can cut out distracting noise. Now that I've seen the power of these little mics I want to use them on my other cameras also. But the module that is used as a receiver for the gimbal will not work with other cameras. So I got a receiver and another mic that I can use to put on my Sony. I even got an attachment so I can connect to my GoPro and a mobile receiver that can hook to my phone so when it's not on the gimbal I can still use the mic. I'm very excited about the gear I have to use and have been experimenting and shooting more video than photo's lately.  I would like to use my Sony camera more as a video camera and the mics will come in handy if I use it for talking head video.  But I have found that shooting video with my Sony is more complicated than using a GoPro or phone. I'm still learning that now. I'm also still shooting in a basic way. I'm not color grading or doing any LOG shooting. Yet.

Maybe in the future I will get a fancy program like Final Cut Pro and stop using iMovie. But for now I'm going to keep it as simple as I can. But I'm sure in the future I will try to advance my video as well. If you are interested in watching the videos they are on my YouTube channel Max Stansell Photography. You can look at the playlist and there is one for "Max's Kitchen Gear Talk". You can watch the other videos also. I'm told that if you have trouble falling to sleep watch one of my hiking videos. LOL You can also subscribe to my channel and get notified when the videos come out. Hopefully you will see the progression in video quality. So until next week "Get out and Shoot" Video!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

If you want to check out my YouTube Channel you can see it here Max Stansell Photography

Hello Everybody! Hope you're having a great week.Me? Not to bad its early in the week and looks like its going to be a hot one with the heat index well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit .  If you've been following me for a while you know that last year I vowed not to buy any photography gear. I'm glad to say that held to that vow. Well it's a new year and I've sold a lot of gear and bought new gear. My main camera has changed from a Sony full frame to a crop sensor Sony. My EDC (Every day Carry) camera changed from a Canon to a Leica. So lots of new. I spent most of last year researching and deciding what I will have in my kits. For my main kit I went back to a Sony crop sensor A6700. I was an early adapter to mirrorless cameras when Sony introduced the A6000 15 years ago. I have used and owned the A6000, A6300 and the A6500 which was my favorite of the series and used it for many years. Most of my photo's in this website were taken with these cameras. I liked them so much that I sold my Nikon Full frame DSLR and never looked back. I am very familiar with this model of camera. When I decided to make a crop sensor camera my main camera I decided to choose the Sony because I was familiar with it physically  and the menus and I had lenses that would fit. So I chose the Sony A6700 the latest version with all the new gismo's and AI capabilities. I researched and made a great kit with APSC lenses that are smaller but had better specs than my full frame that I just replaced as my main camera. So what's the problem? Well I got complacent. I thought that I could just pickup where I
left off with my last and beloved A6500. But a lot has changed.

Here is a link of a video from my YouTube channel I made on the subject Max's Kitchen Gear Talk "Familiar but Frustrating".  Please feel free to like and subscribe it really helps out the channel and doesn't cost you a dime.

First of all the menu's have changed. Sony has always been know for complicated and hard to navigate menus .  But I did pretty well with the older models but this was a different beast altogether. The menus have totally changed and even more things to choose from. Things that the older cameras couldn't do either because of hardware or software in the camera. Or they just hadn't been thought of yet in the older cameras. My first couple of outings I struggled getting the settings correct or finding things in the menu. I did a night shoot and I had problems focusing because I couldn't find the bright monitor setting in the menus. There are also touch menus on this camera that the others didn't have and I usually have the touch screen turned off because during shooting my nose would change the focus point. So I did the same on this one but there is a way to turn off the touch focus and still have the touch for the menus. The camera is Familiar but Frustrating. The frustration comes down to me not knowing the camera as much as I thought I would because so much had changed. Not to mention stuff that it can do that that the older ones couldn't do. Like Focus Bracketing. Lots of other cameras have this feature but the older Sony's didn't. So on the older camera's I would have to manually do the focus stacking by changing the focus point manually but now you get it set up and press a button and it takes all the shots and moves the focus point for you. The same with long exposures with the camera's shutter in bulb mode. On the old cameras you would just have to hold the shutter button down or have a remote release that you could lock and use a timer to do long exposures past 30 seconds. With this camera you can dial in the time you want say 2 min. and it will show you a countdown on the back of the screen. Now these features are buried in the menus. There is a way you can save the settings to a favorites tab so you can find the things you need . 

What is going to help me the most? Taking my time with this camera and going through all of the different senecios that I can think of and practicing them over and over again. Things like exposure bracketing. Focus stacking, and focusing in Low light like when doing astro photography. I need to practice over and over again until I can go through all of the settings and procedures in my sleep. Thats the advice that I would give anyone else. I have some trips coming up that I want to be on the top of my game with. The first one is with my camera club for our fall trip. I want to be able to handle my camera with no hiccups and it be just an extension of my hands. I also have another epic trip coming up next year that I won't talk about but it will rival the trip that I took to Utah 4 years ago. I don't even want to think about the how to's of photography on that trip but it to be an extension of my hand and eye. So practice I will and get the controls and menus under control so all I have to do is think about composition. So until next week Get Out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

If you want to check out my YouTube Channel you can see it here Max Stansell Photography Please like and subscribe. It helps the channel get to more folks like you.
 

Hey Ya'll! Its Fall! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Pretty excited getting ready for a fall trip with my Photography Club. The Goldsboro Area Photography Club (GAPC). I have been part of this club for quite a while and love these annual trips. Sometimes we go to the North Carolina Mountains, West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia and have even taken a trip to Washington DC. This year we are going to Pennsylvania. Covered Bridges, the Amish , and Philadelphia just to mention a few stops this year. I'm very excited to be with my photo buddies for a week of photography and fun. What gear I'm going to bring is an ever evolving question that I have to go through each year and this year is no different. I want to have the right gear but I don't want to be bogged down with gear and decisions on what to use for each shot. Paralysis by analysis .  The types of photography will also make a difference in what I bring. When we're there we will be shooting Street, Landscape, Astro and just general photography. I also want to record my experiences with video like I have in the past. I usually bring a GoPro with me and record and make a video at the end of the trip. This year no GoPro but I will be recording my experience. So something different . I'm also using this trip as a practice run for a larger trip I'm taking next year. I'll get into the details of that trip in a later blog it's still a secret for now. I've got 99% of my gear figured out and this blog is going to come out a day before I go on the trip. I probably won't make the final decision until I stuff things into the bag. Now I'm pretty methodical about gear and packing I even have a spread sheet that covers everything from Camera gear to underwear  and everything in-between . I'm always tweaking this spreadsheet trying to get it just right and to make sure I don't forget anything. I even do a practice pack a month or so before to make sure things fit in my bags I'm bringing. So I have time to adjust bags or buy new ones that work. So what am I bringing? Let's start with Video.

Like I said in years past I always brought some sort of GoPro. Everywhere I went I had a one to record small short clips that later on at home I could combine into a travel video. Now I'm not a high tech video guy. My photography wingman Robert is really into video and does a great job at it. He has GoPros , Drones and big camera that he uses to make cinematic movies. He uses high tech post processing editors to blend his video clips into a cinematic beauty he color blends and does things I only dream of doing. He has been dragging me down the video rabbit hole for years and most of the gear I have are his hand me downs. Which I appreciate . This year I will use my phone a iPhone 16 Pro as one of my cameras. I always have it with me and it does pretty good. I have a wireless mike and receiver that I can plug into the phone and have good audio if I want to do some talking. I will also be using my Sony A6700 as a video camera. This is a hybrid camera and I only use it for photography so I've been practicing using it and trying to get the settings right for simple video clips. This camera is capable of Professional Video but that's too complicated for me right now. You could say that to compare what I do in video compared to what Robert does is the difference between shooting JPEG(me) to shooting in RAW(Robert) LOL This should keep my gear load down as I'm not taking a extra camera and the only thing I'm taking is a wireless mic to hook to my phone.

Here is a link to "Max's Kitchen Gear Talk" Fall Colors Workshop where you can see me show and tell about the gear I'm taking. The link takes you to my YouTube channel where It would be awesome if you like and subscribe. Doesn't cost a dime and it helps the channel get seen by more folks.

UPDATE: Well I wasn't planning on bringing a action camera for POV type of  shooting but the DJI Osmo Nano a little small wearable camera (that I had my eye on) went on sale so I got it last minute and will be bringing it with me also. I'll Still use my phone and Sony for a lot of the video but will be using this as well. I'm sure there will be a blog about the Nano coming in the future. What about Photography Cameras and Lenses?

This year my main camera will be the Sony A6700. It's a powerhouse of a camera in Video and Photography. As you know I have downsized from full frame to crop sensor this year keeping my kit smaller. I plan on carrying 3 lenses with me. Which three isn't set in stone yet. My number one lens will be the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8. It will give me an equivalent full frame 27-75mm. It's a fantastic lens and will probably be on the camera 90% of the time. My Telephoto lens will be the Tamron 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 which gives me a 105-450mm equivalent. This is a super sharp lens and should get me some good compression and if I get to do some wildlife this lens will work great. The next focal range is the iffy one. The wide angle range. Do I bring a prime or do I use a zoom at this range. I was initially going to only bring my Sigma 10-18mm f/2.8 lens which would give me a 15-27mm full frame range. I have recently gotten a Sony 11mm f1.8 a 16ish mm full frame equivalent. Now I'm trying to keep the gear down. Do I bring the 11mm instead of the zoom or do I use the zoom instead of the prime? Or do I just bring both? Not sure I will make the decision until the last minute. I will also be bringing my Lieca D-Lux 8 as a backup and my street photography camera. It sports a 10.9-34mm f/1.8-2.8 lens giving it a 21.8-78mm full frame equivalent. This is a super little micro 4/3 camera that I just love to shoot. It's a shooters camera. I use it as my everyday camera but will make a great backup and Street camera. I have polarizer filters and ND filters that will fit all of the cameras. I use step down rings on my ND filters. I'll be bringing my travel tripod which I've had for years its a Pro-master Carbon fiber. I also will have a mini tripod that might come in handy in some locations. All this stuff and batteries and accessories will be carried in a Shimoda Side Lite 22 camera bag that I talked about in a previous blog. I'll also be bringing my Moutainsmith shoulder bag that I call my purse that I've had for many years for short trips from the car. 

That should be about it for camera and video gear that I'm going to take with me. I'm looking very forward to going on this trip and with this gear I should be able to get great photo's. If I don't it won't be the gears fault it will be mine. So until next week Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link  Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

If you want to check out my YouTube Channel you can see it here Max Stansell Photography