Hey Ya'll!  How's everything going? Me? Well that's what this blog is about. I've had to have a minor surgery that has kept me in the house for a couple of weeks. (don't worry nothing serious ) Couldn't have picked a worse time for this to happen. I've got two photo projects I'm working on and the weather has been great and I'm tied to the house for a couple of weeks. So what have I been doing with my time? I'm trying to do as much photography stuff that I can to keep me in touch with the art that I love so much. Even writing this blog is one of the things that is keeping me busy and in touch with Photography. So in this blog I will give some advice if you end up like me all raring to go but can't .  So here I go with some suggestions.

-Go back in your catalog of photos and re-process them. Go find a photo you like from 5 or 10 years ago and process it like you do now. With all of the advancements in Lightroom and Photoshop I bet you can do all sorts of things that you couldn't do then and really make some of those old photo's really pop. This will give you something to do that will improve your skills and bring back to life old photos.

-Go through all of your equipment and make sure it's spotless and clean and ready to go. This will get the camera back in your hands and while you're going through your gear you might find that you need some gadget that you can order online and they will bring it right to your doorstep. Someone recently gave me an old film camera so I cleaned it and ran some test film through it to make sure everything worked fine. And of course I ordered some stuff like a new lens off of eBay to make this camera into a Kit. 

-Listen to photography related podcast. They are great and you can learn lots of stuff from them. Some of my favorites are "The Digital Story", "PetaPixel", "This week in Photo" , "Picture this" and " The Future of Photography" and there are many more.

-Do some indoor Photography. Set up a table and start photographing things from still-life  to water drops. There are all kinds of things. You can go on Youtube and look up a specific shot and see how they did it. Look up Photography ideas and there will be all kinds of neat stuff that you can find to shoot.  I took my medium format film camera and figured how to hook it up to modern strobes. You could also do some sort of macro photography indoors. Table top photography has endless possibilities. 

-I can't believe I'm going to say this but you can read a photography book. I have several (don't tell anyone Im a Nerd) They are pretty cool and you can learn a lot. Looking at a photo in print is much different than on a screen. You can study the greats without leaving your couch.

-Go on to YouTube and search for the type of photography that you like. There will be all kinds of tutorials on how to do stuff and short videos of trips if your into street and travel like I am . I can spend hours going through YouTube watching the how to's and the where they went.

-Do some online learning with Kelby One or Creative Live. Lots of learning from some of the best in their fields there may be some cost but its well worth it. You can learn things from iPhone photography to Astro or even using your iPhone to do Astro photography. Everything from editing to portrait lighting can be learned through these online courses.

These are just a few of the things that you can do that are photography related if you get stuck in the house for a while like I have or in the winter when its too cold to go outside. In Photography there is so much to learn and do that you could and I have almost spend a life time learning. And these days it's as easy as typing on your computer. I'm sure you have some ideas that I haven't even thought about please share. So until next week Get out and shoot!

Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great week! Me? Not too bad. This week I want to talk about the most familiar focal length that you're not shooting. Now we've always been told that the 50mm focal length is the closest to the human eye can see. I would even broaden that out a bit to 40-60mm somewhere in there is the sweet spot of the human eye. I think that back in the film days that 50 mm was the most familiar focal length and that was the lens that you always got with your new camera was the nifty fifty. But I think that in modern times that the familiar focal length has changed. In this modern age of photography everyone has a camera on them (Smart Phone)  and most of the normal lenses are set to 28mm range give or take a few millimeters. Everyone has a camera and they are used to seeing the world through that 28mm focal range. We take selfies, photo's of family and friends, events, landscapes almost everything is taken with our phones and we've got used to the focal length. The look of it. How it frames a scene. It's fairly wide compared to the 50mm and distorts the face of someone a little but we've got used to it. We like the look. Why don't you have a 28mm lens for your camera then? Well to tell you the truth there aren't that many to choose from. 

Now I really didn't notice the 28mm range until I started shooting film again. My film cameras I either had a fixed 40 or 45mm lens or had on interchangeable lens camera's had a 50 on them. But when I started shooting them they seemed tight. Too close and I was always backing up. Back in the film days I din't do that, the nifty fifty was just right. The reason is the smart phone camera that I have with me all the time taking shots of all kinds of stuff my eye had readjusted from the 50 to the 28mm of the phone. I had a 28mm for my Pentax but didn't use it too much I decided one day just to shoot the 28mm and I loved it!. It stayed on my camera almost all of the time. I would only pull the 50 out to shoot something across the street long distance for my street and travel stuff. Otherwise the 28mm was just right to my eye.  I loved this combination so much (28 and 50) I even got a 28 for my digital cameras and have a 28 and a 50 that I take with me when I'm shooting digital street to emulate the film set up that I have with the same focal lengths. I just love the combination of the 28mm (the new familiar) with the 50mm (my old familiar) when I'm shooting street or travel type photowalks. I just got a "new to me"  film camera system and the first thing I did was order a 28mm for my new system. Even in my medium format system set up I have a 30mm equivalent and a 50 equivalent focal length which matches my 35mm film and full frame digital cameras set up closely.

The new familiar ,28mm, has that look and is very versatile. It's great when shooting environmental portraits. It's wide enough without distorting the scene. It's great for landscapes rural or urban wide enough to get all of the scene in. Its great for taking a photo of someone your having lunch with or something close up like in street photography. This is a great lens for family photos during holidays. There are lots of advantages of the new familiar 28mm.  The 28mm is small and lightweight and great for carrying with you when you're on the go. The prices aren't much different than the nifty fifty maybe a little more but well worth it. I bought one used for a couple of hundred for my digital and even less than a hundred for my film cameras. There is not much bad to say about this little lens. For me it has become one of my favorite lenses and focal lengths. If you haven't shot with one I highly recommend getting one and trying it out. Until next week get out and shoot! Maybe the new Familiar.

Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great week. This week I want to talk about the final adjustment of me going back full frame. My long Telephoto solution.  As you can see from the title of this blog I have Chosen the Sony 100-400mm lens for this section of my photography kit. But I wanted to give you a review of the lens and why I chose it instead of other lenses in this range. When I was shooting crop sensor I had an effective full frame equivalent of 15-525mm focal length. But since I've gone back to full frame I could only go to 105mm. So I needed a long telephoto. Previously when I was shooting full frame Nikon my longest lens was a 70-200 mm that I used for portraits and landscape. It was a fantastic lens . But I rarely shoot portraits anymore. The 70-200 is a great lens but I wanted something a little more. I mainly shoot travel landscape Cockspur Lighthouse and occasionally wildlife. The 70-200 would be great for landscapes but for travel a little big and for wildlife too short.  When I was shooting crop sensor I liked that I had the option to shoot up to 525mm.  But I rarely shot at the very long end of that focal length.  I could get a third party lens from Tamron or Sigma that would fit this focal length and work great but I wanted to stay with Sony lenses. I also wanted to buy used to keep the cost down. I could have gone 200-600mm but I thought that was just too much especially on how I would use it.  So the Sony 100-400 seemed the right lens for me but there are two versions. The original came out in 2017 and the newer one  in 2022. I decided to go with the older one after watching many reviews and articles on both of them. So the lens I got was the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 G-Master OSS. What does all that mean? It's a 100-400mm focal length. Maximum aperture is F4.5 at 100mm and 5.6 at 400mm. It's a G- Green Heron Master lens which means it's the top of the line , one of the premium lenses the only one in my kit. And The OSS means that it's optically stabilized . 

So that was my reasoning behind getting the lens that I did let me talk about the lens itself . First of all the build quality is fantastic. Built like a tank! Much like my 70-200 that I had with Nikon. It's a weather sealed lens that means I can get it in a little weather. It has all of the seals to protect it and your camera. It has 4 switches on the side of the lens. It has a AF/MF switch .  It has a range switch Full to Infinity to 3meters, It has a OSS off and on switch. And a mode switch with 2 modes. Mode 1 is for everyday shooting and Mode 2 is for Panning.  It has 3 buttons on it that can be used to control something on your camera like turning Eye Auto Focusing on or off.  It Also has a switch that will tighten or loosen the lens to Zoom more smoothly depending on your taste.  It also has Snowy Egret a removable tripod collar that can be adjusted or removed as needed.  As of this blog I've only used just a couple of times and it is sharp and easy to use.  There is an art to using longer lenses which I am learning but not great at yet. Maybe it's the weight or the size of the lens but it may take me a while to get used to it. It is a great lens that will give me many years of service.

Well that's it for this week and hopefully the end for all of the gear change blogs that I have been writing lately. LOL So until next week make sure you get out and shoot!