Hey Everyone! Hope you having a great week. Me? Pretty good thanks for asking. This week I want to start a Landscape photography gear series. This will be a 4 part series going over what I think you need to take quality landscape shots. If you are into landscape photography you don't need to break the bank for photography gear to get great shots. It can be done very simply with minimal gear. This series in Landscape camera gear I will try to explain what is important and what is not. I have been shooting Landscape photography for quite a few decades and will try to pass on what I have learned by trial and error. This first part is on the camera body.

First let me start by saying it doesn't matter what brand of camera you get. All of the manufacturers of modern cameras (within the last 10 years) will work for great landscape photography. If you look through magazines or any photographs that have inspired you by any photographer to become a Landscape photographer probably took those photos on a camera that is quite a few years old. Those are fantastic photo's and you don't know what brand or how old the camera is they are just good photos. The most important factors in choosing a camera brand is how does it fit in your hand. Do you like the menus. Does it work for you ergonomically . Will you be happy with it in your hand. So if you don't already have a camera this is how I would choose brand is how does it feel in your hand.

Let's talk about sensor size. Camera sensors come in all sizes from Micro 4/3, APSC, full frame and Medium format. Let me be the first to say that sensor size in Landscape photography does not matter! You can take great photos on a cell phone with the sensor size smaller that your pinky fingernail. If you are just getting into photography I would steer you away from Medium Format because the size of the sensor and file size is just overkill for landscape photography. AMT2016-sony-a6300-review-0423-2Photographer: Anthony Thurston But everything from a cell phone to full frame sensor will work. Micro 4/3 cameras OM Systems (formally Olympus) or Panasonic will work just fine. These small camera systems will have small lenses which will be great for hiking into the backcountry for landscapes. APSC (Crop Sensor)  from Sony, Canon, Nikon or Pentax will all work great! Over 90% of the photos on my website came from a APSC sized sensor on various cameras. Full frame cameras give a little better low light performance due to the size of the sensor and also shallower depth of field which is not really a desired feature in landscape photography. But theses sensors may be better for Astro/Landscape photography. If that is what you are interested in. 

Should I buy new or used? If you are worried about warrantees then go new. But as I said earlier you don't need the newest or latest and greatest camera to shoot landscape. Landscape subjects don't really move much so high speed tracking and focusing isn't necessary. Mirrorless camera's rule the camera bodies now a days but DSLRs are still valid if you are trying to save a buck. An example is a Nikon D850. One of the best DSLR cameras ever made but just remember with the older cameras that if you upgrade you might have to upgrade the lenses also because when Nikon and Canon switched to mirrorless they also changed the mounts of their cameras. I personally use a Sony A7III that came out in 2018. They have came out with many upgrades since this camera came out but this camera still takes great photo's for me. I don't see the need to upgrade in the near future. So if you do buy used do some research take into account lens mounts and the source of your purchase. I would buy from a place that specializes in selling used like KEH or MPB they give smaller warranties on items purchased from them. Either way just know that simple gear works great for Landscape photography and all of the video stuff that they put on the newer cameras won't help you at all in Landscape Photography.

Like I said this is the first of a 4 part series on Landscape photography camera gear.  The next blog will be on Lenses used in Landscape Photography. 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 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

What's up Ya'll? Hope you're having a great day! This week I want to talk about something I have never discussed before. Because I just figured it out! LOL Shooting in different Aspect Ratio's. I have always just shot in what ever default the camera came in and cropped in post to the Aspect Ratio that I wanted. Sometime this works fine but others I end up chopping something off that I didn't want to like the top of someone's head. But if you shot in that Aspect ratio to start with you would not have that problem. Now if your not familiar with Aspect ratio's lets do a little review.

Aspect ratio in photography is the ratio of an image's width to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. For example, a 3:2 aspect ratio means the image is three times wider than it is tall. Most common aspect ratio's in still photography are 3:2 , 4:3 , 1:1 and most recently 16:9.  To put in more common terms 3:2 equals a 6x4 print you used get with film photography, 4;3 ratio is like the old computer monitors more square, of course 1:1 is square like old 6X6 film cameras and instagram loves this format. And more recently the 16:9 ratio is modern HD moitor and TV size. The latter is the one that I make all of my Title pages for the blog with the titles on them. They fill up the screen. Now there are other aspect ratios especially in printing. But cameras mostly shoot in these 4. My older camera only has two but my newer one has all 4.

Now that we know what aspect ratios are why would we change them in camera? Well for one reason is if you plan to print in a specific ratio you can make sure that it's framed correctly. When you look at your screen and your electronic view finder it's already cropped to the ratio that you picked. Lets say you picked 16:9 when you look at your camera there is a black bar above and below the photo giving you the aspect ratio of 16:9 when you view back on the screen its the same. If you don't like it and shot in raw and import to Lightroom you can go to cropping and put in original aspect ration and it becomes 3:2 again showing all of the photo that was in the black bar part of your camera screen. Older film cameras you used to get focusing screens that would show the lines where the different aspect ratio's would be. So back to the question why would I change ratios in camera? To me it puts a restriction on shooting which makes you think. Kind of like using one prime lens for a shoot for a whole day.  It makes you look at the world a little different making your creative juices flow again. And that's a good thing. If you're in a rut one way to get out of it is shooting restricted a little.  Say shoot 1:1 (square) all day. You will be surprised the shots you will get. And your mind will start seeing that way. It's much like shooting in black and white for a day the same thing happens. For a bonus it's a fun way to get your mojo working again without spending money!

Most camera's will have this feature you just have to look for it . I'm using older cameras and both of mine have it. The older one only has two choices but the newer one has 4 choices. I'm going to start experimenting more shooting like this. So until next week get out and shoot and experiment with Aspect Ratios ! 

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

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Everyone! How's your week going? Mine is going pretty well. This week I want to talk about my 2025 Film Photography Project. Last year I brought film back into my photography and had a great time doing it. I relearned how to process my own film and create negatives.  How to scan with my camera to get digital copies into my computer where I could do editing and send to screen or print. The whole point of that project was to relearn and perfect those processes to get nice film shots. Images through chemistry not electrons. I got to use some old camera's of mine and purchases a few more camera's. I got to shoot with camera's from the 1960's , 70's and 80's. Perfected using in camera meters (when they worked) and hand held meters to get the proper exposure. I got to see how less critical some camera settings were for certain
film stocks. It put me back in time when I first was learning photography in the 1970's. I truly enjoyed the experience although there are some parts that I didn't like. The price of film is very expensive. Especially for professional film. So I shot mostly on consumer based films which weren't too bad but still pricy. But I was lucky I had most of the equipment that I needed to develop the film and found the best way for me to scan the negatives that I created into digital. It was a great learning experience. But this year will be different.

Last year I shot mostly 35mm film stock. I shot it full and half frame. I took lots of photo's and even made a book of my prints. This year I'll still shoot a little 35mm but mostly 120 film. Medium format. Last year I purchased a Bronica ETR SI 645 camera . I got very lucky in the purchase and you can read about it in this blog. Bronica ETR SI first thoughts With an almost new vintage 1990's camera I plan on taking this camera around with me on other photo projects and trips and using it to make images. Hopefully I will get well thought out and planned fine art photos. This is not the camera for taking snap shots. I hope to take Landscapes and Cityscapes of places I travel to. It will be going on my big trips with the club but maybe not on trips where I have to travel in a plane. It's fairly big and bulky .  I've got at least one trip that I'm in the works of planning that will require plane travel. But mostly everywhere else. I really only took test shots last year with the camera to test the camera gear and my ability to process the film. I took the camera out today and started playing with it again and I'm not ashamed to say that I had to pull out the manual a few times to figure things out. The 645 format of this camera is the smallest of the medium format and it gives me about 2.5 times the surface area of a 35mm. I did this size to save on film. I'll get 15 shots per roll instead of 12 of 6X7 film or 6x6 film. I do like the format of 6X6 so maybe a camera will be in the future but until I find a great deal I'll be shooting this Bronica.  I plan on shooting black and white and Color film. For color I will be shooting mostly Kodak Gold 200 a consumer film stock. Maybe a roll of Kodak Portra every now and then a professional film stock. And for black and white most likely Illford, Kodak, or Shanghai film. I do like the look of color but will have black and white with me always. What's nice about this camera is the removable film backs so I can switch between color and black and white in mid roll to save on film. Hopefully my skill will improve and I get some dramatic Landscapes is what I'm hoping. 

Hopefully at the end of the year I'll have a book made of medium format film shots made with my Bronica. 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 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link