Hey Y'all ! Hope you're having a great week. This week I want to talk about a recent photowalk I did in Washington NC. Not Washington DC. LOL This is a little town population about 10000 and is located in eastern North Carolina in Beaufort County. It is the county seat and is located at the intersection of the Tar River and the Pamlico River and then flows into the Pamlico Sound. It is known to most North Carolinians as "Little Washington" not to get it confused with Washington DC. Little Washington is home to one of the largest historical districts featuring Victorian era homes and ante-bellum homes. Among some of its famous former residents are  journalist Charles Kuralt and film producer Cecil B. DeMille. All of this information I have pulled off of the City of Washington web page. What I can tell you from experience is that being located on the water there are all kind of water activities from fishing, kayaking, sailboarding , and sailing. Also outdoor recreation in hunting. The town has been transformed into a town trying to attract tourist and the downtown is full of shops and restaurants .  Let me tell you about my trip.

I have been cooped up in the house due to weather being cold and also rainy from the holidays last year and I needed to get out. This town is on the list of my photography project "Small towns in Eastern NC" so this was a good preliminary visit. I have been here before but it has been years and I didn't remember much. So me and my wife got in the car and headed about an hour or so north to visit this little town. We parked in the harbor district by the docks and started walking. The streets have been lined with brick but not red brick like you see everywhere these were tan bricks and look very nice. We headed toward main street and noticed that there are crab statues all painted up in various places in town. Kind of a town mascot I guess my county does the same thing with pigs and I have seen it done with bears also in another town Newbern. There is an under ground railroad museum that was closed when we went by but it's housed in a rail car in a pretty yard with a big mural on a wall.  We then started walking through the town at all the quant shops and older buildings. Being in the bible belt there were a few churches but one stood out the Saint Peters Episcopal church established in 1822. Where there was the church and old grave yard with revolutionary era graves there. We had a wonderful time walking the streets and taking photos. There is a North Carolina Estuarium there that is a learning center that we wanted to visit but it was closed also. For lunch we ate hot dogs from Bills Hotdog stand. It one of those local places that have been there since 1928 and is a staple of the community. So we got the specials two  hotdogs all the way chips and drink for 6 dollars and some change. They were pretty good. We jumped in our car and investigated some more stuff before we headed to our next destination which was "Goose Creek State Park" only 20 minutes away. After a short visit there we headed back home. I really enjoyed my trip to Little Washington and can't wait to go back in the spring. 

Until next week get out and explore and shoot!

Hey Everyone! How's your week going? Mine? Fantastic! At the time of writing this blog it is a week before Thanksgiving and I am already in the holiday mood! Too early for my brain but just right for my heart. This week I want to talk about shooting in Super 35mm mode or Crop mode as it may be referred too, I think Nikon calls it DX mode. What is Super 35mm mode? Basically its making your full frame sensor shoot like a crop sensor. Your camera crops the shot only using the middle of the sensor down to the APSC crop sensor size. Now why would you ever want to do this? Well I can think of a couple of reasons why.

If you shoot Sony like I do the crop sensor and the full frame cameras have the same lens mount. Which means you can swap back and forth lenses between each type of camera. Now why would you want to do that? One reason is just for practicality .  Instead of buying two lenses  one for each camera you only buy one that can be used by both. Usually people buy full frame lenses and use on both of their camera body types for the reason that the full frame lens is big enough to cover the crop sensor sensor completely. Full frame lenses are larger and can easily be used on crop sensor camera's but you have to add that 1.5 crop factor. Multiplying by 1.5 will give you the full frame equivalent of the lens on your crop sensor camera. The sensor being smaller its like cropping in on a full frame or zooming in. So a 35mm lens on a crop sensor would be like a 50mm on a full frame.  So now that we have that explanation out of the way back to the why would you need to swap lenses between cameras. I've recently started using a full frame camera again after years of using a crop sensor camera. Now I'm transitioning back over to a full frame camera. I have fantastic lenses for my crop sensor camera especially my long lens. A 70-350mm which is a 105-525mm equivalent lens. Now I don't shoot much past 100mm but if for some reason I need to shoot longer I could use this crop sensor lens on my full frame camera and my camera will know what type of lens is on and automatically switch to Super 35mm or Crop mode giving me that 105-525mm reach. This will save me lots of money on a full frame equivalent to this lens that I won't use too much. So that's a positive of Super 35mm.

Another way to use the Super 35mm or Crop mode is with prime lenses. Let me give you an example. Say I'm out doing street photography and I have a 50mm lens on my full frame camera. I see something a little out of reach that I can't walk to. I can push a button on my camera that I have programed to put my camera in Super 35 mode and it automatically switches into crop mode and my lens is now equivalent to a 75mm without me having to change lenses. When I'm through I can hit the button again and I'm back at 50mm. Very convenient when you're out shooting and not having to change lenses all of the time. Another great advantage of  Super 35mm mode.

So if Super 35mm mode is so great why isn't everyone using it all of the time? Well for one reason most people just don't know about it. Or maybe their camera system doesn't offer it. I'm not sure about other camera systems just Sony but I'm sure they have something similar. The biggest disadvantage to shooting a full frame camera in crop mode or Super 35mm mode is that when you crop into a full frame sensor you lose megapixels. 1.5 times the megapixels to be exact.  That can be a lot. If you have a 24 megapixel camera and you use crop mode its down to 10 megapixel which is small compared to today's standards. But if you have a larger megapixel like say a 60 megapixel camera your still shooting a 37 megapixels. So depending on what kind of camera you have I really don't think that this is such a disadvantage as smaller sensor camera's are.

Knowing what your camera can and can't do can really impact your photography and your wallet .  You may not need to buy that new equipment or gear to do what you need to do or you might just need to read the manual of your camera.  Hopefully I have brought something new into your photography. Until next week get out and shoot! 

Hey Everyone! Hope your week is going great! Mine pretty well. This week I want to talk about yet another change in my camera kit set up. I know it's been nothing but changes so far this year. My current EDC (every day carry) camera is a Canon G7XII which I got a few years ago to take on a trip with my wife to Washington DC instead of my regular camera Kit. It became my EDC camera for when I traveled back and forth to work and to the store and such. So if I needed a camera or a shot that suddenly appeared I would use it. Now it's in my hiking backpack and I only used it when I'm hiking but it does stay  with my backpack and rides in my car everywhere I go. But since I've retired I really don't need something as small and compact as the little camera that the Canon Point and Shoot is. I have a little more room and I'm not in such of a hurry as I have no place I have to get to in a hurry. As I joke with all of my friends " Every Day is Saturday except Sunday" LOL  As you have read in my previous blogs I have gone full time full frame sensor shooting and not crop sensor shooting anymore.  My main camera is a full sized Sony Mirrorless camera and all the full frame large lenses that come with it.  Too big of a kit for everyday and casual shooting that the EDC takes care of. I have always liked range finder cameras for this type of photography especially the Leica's. But buying a Leica is like buying a sports car they are very expensive for what you get. I do like the Fujifilm camera's' for this also the X-Pro Series of camera's . But they are crop sensor camera's and I would have to get different lenses to fit them and they become expensive and I'll have two separate kits one of the things I was trying to avoid. In 2020 Sony came out with a camera that is compact and rangefinder shape and to me was trying to compete with Fujifilm with a retro look that Fuji cameras definitely have. Most Sony camera's are all black and this one had an option for a silver top like the older camera's and Fuji's come with. I chose to use the A7C as my EDC camera for all of those reasons and more. The A7C is a full frame camera and uses the same sensor as my full frame camera. It is basically the same size and shape as my crop sensor Sony's that I have been shooting for years. It can use all of the lenses that I have for my full frame Sony so it works for a great Backup camera.  I also ordered a 50mm 2.5 compact lens that was really designed for the A7C which will pair great with the A7C and my Full sized Sony. I believe that this camera will be great for casual shooting and street photography. It looks good is small and compact and packs just as much as a punch as my Full Sized camera does.  It doesn't have as many custom buttons as my Full sized Sony but I kind of like that it makes it simple to shoot and I won't have to think as much. As you know I'm not a big thinker! LOL!  I am very excited about taking this little camera everywhere I go whether it's the coffee shop or to a Camera Club Meeting. Well that's it for this week . Whats your EDC? Is it just your phone or do you have a specific camera set aside just for a EDC? Until next week Get out and Shoot!