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The Grey Nato - EP 18 - In Focus: Take Better Photos

Published on Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:04:37 -0400

Synopsis

In this episode of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacy dive deep into the world of photography, covering everything from camera gear and lenses to underwater shooting and Instagram. The discussion reveals their different approaches to photography: Jason shoots with Nikon while James uses Canon, with Jason covering a wider range of subjects including underwater photography, while James specializes in watches and cars.

The hosts walk through their camera kits in detail, with Jason discussing the Nikon D800, D4S, and Sony A7 Mark II, while James talks about his transition from a Canon 7D to the 5D Mark III. They emphasize an important philosophy throughout: the camera matters far less than the photographer's skill and practice. They recommend learning manual mode, understanding your specific camera's capabilities, and using available resources like YouTube tutorials rather than constantly upgrading gear. For those interested in underwater photography, they discuss various housing options from entry-level to professional, the importance of strobes for color correction, and suggest taking a certification course at a local dive shop. The episode concludes with Jason sharing stories from a recent trip to Glacier National Park, James excitedly discussing a newly acquired vintage Seiko World Timer, and final notes including a unique Rolex from the Trans-Globe Expedition and photographer Paul Nicklen's new ebook.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Welcome to episode eighteen of the Grey NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly wat
James Stacy ches. I'm Jason Heaton. And I'm James Stacy. Today's topic is photography. So cameras, lenses, underwater shooting, Instagram, GoPro, you name it. Jason and I are fairly avid photographers, but have actually come at this hobby slash profession from two different perspectives. Uh one of us shoots canon, one Nikon. I shoot mostly watches and cars, while Jason's cameras cover a wider range of subjects. I I try and keep up with it from the canon perspective, but I I really I I buy gear very slowly and I keep it for a very long time because I have kind of very specialized uses. So uh Jason, what what's kind of your uh main kit and and what sort of subjects do you do you typically photograph with that kit
Jason Heaton ? Well, as you mentioned, uh I'm sort of a what they call a Nikon shop here uh and to sort of preface all of this by saying I do a lot of the photography work that happens here is with with my wife and kind of photography partner Gishani who you know if you followed me on Instagram you see a lot of photos that she's taken of of me diving or of watches that that I'm So Gashani's actually the primary shooter in our house. Um but I do uh take the occasional press trip or or just uh go on various adventures and and take a camera with me. But we're we're kind of a Nikon house. I think, you know, when it comes to gear, people tend to come down on one side or the other when it comes to a specific brand, simply because um, depending on the the the type of camera that you choose, you're kind of limited to a specific lens or mount for for the cameras that you have. And once you start investing in lenses, you know, it adds up fairly quickly. And if you switch over from say an icon to Sony or Nikon to Canon or vice versa, you end up kind of having to ditch or sell your entire collection of gear and then start over again. So we started down the Nikon path a few years ago, starting with like a D70S, which was an old crop sensor, probably a six-megapixel camera at this point. Moved on to a D7000, which was a fairly good step up. Again, a crop sensor camera. We bought an underwater housing for that and started our underwater shooting with that camera. And then we kind of made the big leap to a full frame camera, and we'll talk a little bit about you know the differences between crop sensor and full frame cameras in a minute here. But our current quiver consists of kind of two well actually three primary cameras. One is the the Nikon D800, which is a it's a bit of a monster, it's a full frame, uh 36 megapixel full frame camera, SLR, that Nikon made a few years ago. They've now up to, I think, the D810 is the replacement for it. That camera is used primarily for kind of stuff where you need high resolution for cropping or for a lot of detail in photos because of the the high megapixel count. So we kind of limit that to studio or close-up shots of watches. The the downfall of that camera or the the kind of limitation of that camera is because of that sensor with all of those megapixels on it, it it doesn't do very well in low light. So if we're doing anything sort of more quote unquote photojournalistic where you're shooting, you know, in varying life light conditions or um where you can't always control your lighting, we have uh uh the D4S which is Nikon's kind of flagship journal photojournalist camera and that that only has um it's a sixteen megapixel uh sensor in it, but it does really well in low light, has a really high frame rate. I think it can shoot eleven frames per second. So that's kind of our go-to in the field camera. The third camera that we have is a uh it's a Sony A7 Mark II, which just came out uh last year or earlier this year, and they made three versions of the A7. They made a an A7R which stands for resolution, which is um I believe that one's also 36 megapixels or is that one even higher I can't remember but then they also have the A7S which stands for sensitivity which is their low light camera we just have kind of the middle of the road A7 Mark II, which is kind of splits the difference. It does really well in various conditions. The advantage of that Sony is it's a super light camera, it's a mirrorless camera, so it's not an SLR like the Nikons, but it does allow you to interchange lenses. Um, and and Sony, even though they have kind of a limited quiver of lenses, the lenses that they have are really good. And so we generally we bought that camera specifically to use for underwater photography because it it's a small form factor and you can get a really good nauticam housing for it. Um, so it's become kind of our go-to underwater camera. But then because you're traveling when you're diving, typically when you take it out of the housing, you can use it top side as well. And it's a really light, great portable. Just sling it over the shoulder, hike with it, put it in a backpack kind of camera. So those are kind of our three go-to cameras. I also have an old Nikon DF, whichich I bought a few years ago because I'm I'm kind of a you know if you haven't noticed from the show, I'm a bit of a a Luddite. I kind of like my my manual switches and and um and dials and things. And the DF was a camera that Nikon came out with that sort of had the appearance of an old film camera, but yet it was a it's a full-frame uh SLR, uh digital SLR. So I haven't used that camera much. I'm probably going to sell it. So I don't really kind of include that in sort of our current quiver of cameras that we use. But it was it was fun to use. But if anyone's interested, get in touch. I'd love to love to part with that one. James, you're on the Canon side. I know you' justve kind of upgraded to the 5D what earlier this year, I think it was
James Stacy , right? Yeah, so after uh after many, many years with a 7D, which is a crop sensor, um I assume a lot of people who would be listening to a podcast about cameras know the difference between full frame and crop, but the the practical difference is a crop sensor is a smaller sensor that essentially magnifies the focal distance of the lens. So for Canon and, I just don't know Nikon, I think Nikon's point four. For Canon, it's 0.6. Uh so a 100 millimeter EF lens on a full frame will be good for 160 on a crop sensor. It's not that interesting really, and it I'm not sure it even matters to the majority of shooters. And in fact, if you're mostly shooting watches, the crop sensor may actually get you essentially more zoom, get you closer to your subject, but with a full frame you get a larger sensor, which typically means better sensitivity and a higher resolution. And I had the opportunity recently to move from a 7D to a 5D, which takes you into kind of the canon prosumer entry level professional models with the Mark III. They just recently announced the Mark IV. I have kind of a general disdain for camera gear unless you really believe that the new piece of kit will actually make your photos better. Like you found some describable, provable limitation. And that's where I had gotten with my seven D, but really only in terms of macro photography with watches. And moving to the 5D freed up a greater uh depth of field, a more aggressive depth of field, I guess, and uh and and the ability to shoot better video. So I I do really like the 5D, but I don't think anybody listening needs to buy a 5D to make better watch photos or family photos or whatever. Typically the camera's just way less important than practice. Right. If you want to see that idea put to use, check out a guy, I'm sure lots of you have heard of him, Chase Jarvis. He had originally written a book called uh I think it was something like uh the best camera is the one you have with you or something something similar to that is a few years ago. And they do all sorts of work with varying cameras. He's a professional photographer and and a really kind of dynamic personality, an interesting guy. But he can take a fantastic photo with an old cell phone. It's it's about knowing how light operates, it's about knowing how to best use the gear that you have rather than expect the gear to make up for your lack of knowledge.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I feel like you know just to kind of amplify that point about um you know not kind of getting too crazy about gear, I I do think that uh you know we live in a time when you know we're seeing a lot of these mirrorless cameras um, really excellent point and shoot cameras. The I know both of us have had experience with the the Sony RX one hundred for sure. Which is a perfect example of of that that aphorism of you know the best camera is the one you have with you. It's it's such a great camera to kind of just tuck in a pocket. Um you know, an iPhone, especially I think I don't have it, but the iPhone 7 is supposed to have better low light capabilities. So it's really these things where as cameras advance, it's those features that you need to look for that for instance, my iPhone 6 does not do well in low light. That's the only reason I would buy an iPhone 7, which I don't plan to do. It's simply because if I'm shooting somewhere and it's a little bit darker and I want to just kind of pull out something and take a photo at a dinner or something like that, that would be better. But like with cars, you know, sports cars for instance, oftentimes the limitations are with the driver, or in this case the photographer, not with the gear. I mean you'll never see the limits of, you know, a Porsche 911 you know GTS or something like that as you would with, you know, you'll probably never explore the outer limits of you know a full frame Nikon D4S. I mean it's just it's too much, it's just too good of a camera. There are too many features. So really kind of just focus on what are you shooting, what what needs do you have and and kind of let that drive what gear you get?
James Stacy Yeah, definitely. I I think I got a little sidetracked there. I get a little ranty when it comes to gear because I find that that's the most common question you'll get. You'll take a lovely photograph of something and people, oh what you must have a fantastic camera. And I mean the truth is sometimes that photo came off of my Samsung Note five takes a great photo if you give it enough light. Or my RX one hundred. If I didn't shoot for you know a blog to watch or or a nouveau mag I would probably not have an SLR simply because the RX one hundred is like eighty percent of what you want from an SLR but fits in a coat pocket and charges over USB and is pretty fuss-free, takes great video. If you find that the camera you have now is limiting your ability to take photographs, then sure, fine, find another camera. But otherwise go on YouTube and learn how to best use your camera. You know, if you have an entry-level SLR or or a mirrorless or even something like uh an RX100, learn how to shoot manual. Right. And learn how to kind of judge a scene without needing the camera's uh, you know, onboard exposure meter. But even if you just want to learn the basics, I mean I rem I remember kind of the one of the first cameras where I really started to focus on photography was I had a Canon G7. Do you remember those? Kind of like a precursor precursor. Those are great cameras, yeah. Yeah, and uh that one had a a dial that that would control the aperture and a dial that would control the um shutter speed and and what you could do is essentially rotate either dial and see the effect that it had on the screen. Yeah. And it was like a cheat to learning how changing your aperture changes not only the amount of light the camera's getting, but the way that it looks at at the scene. Right. And how aggressively it has to focus as you feed it uh less and less light. Mm-hmm. And then the same with shutter speed. And when you learn to blend those it starts it starts to operate better and you can get more out of all cameras when you start to understand like that exposure triangle of uh shutter speed aperture and ISO. And you know to beyond that if if you're into the SLR game, then awesome. Uh, the lenses that I use are fairly steadfast. I had to sell a couple lenses when I moved from the 7D to the 5D, so I now have uh I still have my original 100 millimeter F28 macro. This is what I shoot all of my watch review photos. The really, you know, I don't like to crop anything. I like to use the photo as it hits the sensor. And with the 100 millimeter on a camera like the five D, you just get a great big file that that works really well for various adjustments. And for cars I use a 17 to 40 F4L. It's a fairly inexpensive but higher end Canon lens. Maybe about a thousand dollars Canadian now. I think they're around eight hundred bucks. American. Uh that lens responds really well to a good circular polarizing filter if you're gonna shoot cards I would recommend at least having that filter available they're not a huge investment but they make a big difference in in being able to manage reflection uh so you can certainly uh read up on CPLs and then finally, any wrist shot that you see from my Instagram or you know for Basel or SIHH is all on one lens, and I couldn't say enough good things with this lens. It's the 50mm f2.5 macro and I don't know if there's an equivalent or similar lens on Nikon. I'm sure there is that's usually how it works. But for the Canon this is a fairly inexpensive it's a maybe $300. Plastic lens, it's about a 30-year-old design. It has this really loud focusing motor. It's a little inelegant, but it's razor sharp. Yeah. And at 50 millimeters on a full frame sensor, it's essentially perfect for wrist shots. So it's a very comfortable focal length to actually just shoot what's on your wrist. So when I go to a red bar event or when I go to cover a show, I always have that 50 with me. It doesn't work great for say taking pictures of people. You want something maybe a little longer for that. And of course, at 50, you're not getting a really wide angle. So really with the 100 millimeter, the 17 to 40, and the 50 millimeter, I cover a fairly wide range. So whether I'm hiking, shooting a red shot, or getting some you know real crispy dial macros, I'm pretty much covered and I don't have to ever think. Currently I I can't imagine buying more lenses. Uh I use the Canon 580 EX2 flash, pretty much any wrist shot on Instagram, certainly anything at any of the shows. I use a flash. Yeah, I think flash use is one
Jason Heaton of those art forms that is sort of underappreciated and I think it takes a it takes real skill. Gashani's mastered the use of of you know uh flashes and strobes, but I I I'm a uh self-admitted um sort of flash idiot. I'm terrible with a flash. I I tend to sort of avoid situations where I need a flash, but I fully appreciate the use of them. I admire people that kind of can can make it work. I will vouch for the use of um any sort of a diffuser or bouncing of light. Um you can even buy these um diffusers that'll fit you know on board right on your like a Gary. Yeah a G
James Stacy ary Fong. Yes exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't use any of those, I just fire it up at the ceiling. And then the trick that I typically use when I'm doing shows or if you see a a wrist shot on on um Instagram is I'll wear a white t-shirt. Oh yeah. Or a shirt that's of a bright enough color to reflect some light into the underside of the watch. Mm-hmm. And then just shoot from kind of an oblique angle, and you get a lot of fall-off light from the ceiling and the wall, and then some fill underneath. And when I'm at home, sometimes I'll actually just hold a pillow. Oh, sure. Kind of against my stomach. Yeah. And it fills in. So you can get a lot done with one flash or even no flashes. For many years, before I had my 580 when I was, you know, just getting into shooting watches, I actually just bought a big piece of cardstock from a um, you know, like a craft store. Yeah. And then cut myself these little squares with little triangle stands. Mm-hmm. And you could actually position these squares to bounce light. And I some of them I would cover with tinfoil. So I mean you're talking about like you can buy the professional version of these, like macro reflectors, but maybe ten dollars, maybe. I mean, I I didn't factor for the cost of the tin foil that was already in my kitchen. Yeah. So like three or four bucks and some time. And then you could kind of set these up so they were just outside the frame of your lens, but filled in all these blank spots. So then all you really needed was a really bright room. Natural light is fantastic. It's usually diffused. You know, w at worst wait for a really cloudy day. I find that lighting is usually great in bathrooms. Mm-hmm. Typically, you know, white ceilings and maybe there's mirrors around things like that to get kind of more light. More light is better. Yeah, and you get sort of those um clouded windows or sort of privacy windows that diffuse the light. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then and then beyond that, my main accessories, you know, I use a Samsung Note 5, and I love that phone. I love the format. It takes a decent photo. I'm you get spoiled when you're used to uh an SLR, everything kind of sucks. The low light on my RX 100 is terrible in comparison, but it's excellent for what that camera is. Mm-hmm. So you kind of have to treat a camera for what it is, and the Note 5 does a great job, but I really like that I can take the memory card right out of my five D, plug it into a card reader, plug the card reader into my note, and then push the photo directly to Instagram. Sure. Yeah. Without ever actually copying the file. So that's kind of a strength of Android. You could do that on any Android phone. Um and and I'm sure there's some methodology for doing it on iOS, although there's no file system in iOS, so I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it's really easy in Android, and that's how we do these really nice crispy wrist shots at the shows is with a $5 card reader and a little like female USB to male USB micro adapter from Amazon. And uh and you can just plug whatever you want into the phone and it sees it kind of like a memory card. You know, like a uh USB drive. Sure. And you can just pull the file right from there. You don't even have to copy it. Jason, do you have any like strong feelings about straps? Well ways to carry the camera? Because I really hate straps. Ye
Jason Heaton ah. I mean, well, here's one tip that uh I've learned the hard way, and that is uh if you're shooting anything reflective, i.e. a watch, don't wear a colored strap. Don't wear something that is red or yellow or bright colored. Um a lot of Oh sure, I cover I cover like all the logos on my camera in black tape. Yeah, I mean you get like they show up in the crystal. The Nikon straps that come with the the the cameras are um you know they have yellow writing on on a black background and that's just a big no no. I I have a couple of Peak Designs, you know, that's a brand we've talked about in the show. Um Peak Designs makes a really nice camera strap. It's it's the same material as um seat belts and cars, so it's that kind of thin, slippery, um I guess it's a nylon, uh finely worked. Yeah, and then it has this um adjustment sort of handle or grip that um as you have it around your neck, it's on both sides, and you sort of rotate up this little handle and then the it just slides up and down very quickly, very easily for quick kind of shortening or lengthening. So what I do is let's say I'm hiking with the uh the Sony A7 or with a Nikon is I I've got the camera sort of slung you know sideways over my over one shoulder like you'd carry like a messenger bag cross body. And then if I'm swinging it around I can quickly just sort of shorten up the strap as I'm shooting so it's kind of up higher on my chest. And that works out really well. And what else is nice about that strap is that it has these quick release sort of little button attachments that go from the strap onto the sort of close to the camera where you loop through into the loops on the camera, it has these little button attachments. So let's say you're moving it onto a tripod or you want to move that strap onto a different camera, all you're you're moving around is the main strap itself. You just leave these little sort of tails um fed the fed through the eyelids. Sure, eye camera. And then you can kind of quickly move it around, which is it's it's really slick. So I that's kind of the best strap I've seen. Now I have an old you know film Nikon that I carry around a lot just for fun. And on that one I have uh a a really kind of basic strap that I got from Topo Designs, which is another brand I know you and I both like, and they make a a camera strap that's that's actually kind of out of like static climbing rope. And it's it's it's green and yellow, it's colorful, and it's it just uses the existing highlights on the camera with no frills. Um it that that strap's actually been surprisingly versatile for me, other than the bright colors, but I'm not using it for shooting watches or anything like that. General generally when I get a camera, the first thing to go is the strap. I almost never even take that out of the package. I'm always going with with something else. I mean I've tried leather straps, I've tried nylon straps. The peak designs are kind of the ones that have stuck
James Stacy . Yeah, I I find the you know the included strap, at least with Canon it says the model of camera. Mm-hmm. Which is I find from for security reasons. Oh yeah. Problematic. So I I like to cover any any of the um branding on the camera with like electrical tape or black tape. Grip grip tape works really well, especially on like the left side of the camera where you might reach for just a second, like a little bit extra purchase. Yeah. Um, you know, being right-handed. And for me, I I have um I have a few straps. I I bought a uh Tanner Goods leather strap, and it's this beautiful strap that kind of reminds me of like the seat leather of like a mirror. It has this kind of like very vintagey European sort of design, and it's very well made, and they're quite expensive. And I used it a few times and it puts the weight of the camera just high enough on your neck that your shoulders are completely taken out of the equation and it's very uncomfortable. I think I've got the same strap. I think I've got a Tanner Goods leather strap. I think with a lighter camera, it would be great. It looks awesome. It's it's uh it's very well made, it's very, you know, kind of sturdy and and keeps the camera roughly, you know, in the center of your chest, but uh it just with the weight of of uh of a big camera with a big lens and maybe even a flash, it's uh it doesn't work at all. So I I went with um I think probably a competitor to your peak design sling with the uh black rapid. So this is the uh you know it's a sling style strap, goes over one shoulder, and it has um these two clips that control where the camera can go on the webbing. Yeah, so you can clip it down at the bottom. So it mounts into an eyelet in the tripod mount. So unlike the peak design one, you can't just remove the strap quickly and put it on a tripod. You actually have to remove this mount. Yes. But it holds the camera upside down and kind of against your hip if you have it sized correctly and it works really well. I I like this strap as much as I like any strap and I still aggressively avoid using it. I I made for a little while I was making these little loops of high density nylon with like gun with rifle clips. Mm-hmm. And I would feed my so when I was hiking, I would feed my belt through that, and I it would hold the camera kind of right on the top of my thigh, and could be unlashed with one hand, so one holding the camera, one with the clip. And I liked that quite a bit, and I still use that with some frequency. But the one I go back to that I use for all the shows is um like just your standard $20 cotton carrier hand strap. So that mounts into the the tripod port as well and then into the kind of strap mount on the hand on the right hand side of the camera. Oh yeah. And it just gives you a little bit of support if you're, you know, to hold the camera into the grip of your hand without actually gripping the camera. And I absolutely love that. You know, moving around at watch shows or events, I have a bag, which is where I put the camera. So I don't need a strap, but I do need a way to kind of ensure the camera stays in my hand. You know, you might be holding the camera over a quarter million dollars of watches. And some of these rooms are very hot, and you've been drinking a ton of coffee, and you might even still be very tired. So I I like having the hand strap for kind of the security and comfort and and that's my favorite way to ha to use the cameras with the uh the these you know kind of basic hand strap. It works pretty well. Yeah
Jason Heaton I've got I've got one of those hand straps as well. I the one I have is um a couple of years ago, actually might have been last year, Gear Patrol was partnered with uh dispatch, DSP TCH. It's a company I think out of San Francisco that makes um you know various little accessories, keychains and straps and things like that. And it's kind of this woven like paracord sort of strap that um it has a loop t to put your wrist through and then it it feeds through the the eyelid on the camera. And it's it it's really nice, it's well made, it's great for that purpose, exactly what you're talking about. Um I've made the mistake of like going on a hike with that alone and you end up sort of hiking carrying the camera in one hand and it ends up Cramping up your forearm and and whatever else. The other downfall of that one is that it's it's like fluorescent bright orange, so again there's that reflection issue. But um i it kind of comes down to how you're using the camera. If you're hiking, you know, we've talked on past shows about the bags we use, um, you know, whether it's a backpack or a shoulder bag or your your agua uh bag that you use. Yeah, for sure. That's a waterproofing great bag. But you know, if you're if you're just kind of casually walking around a city or uh a car show or something like that, you know, maybe just uh the sling or or this uh black rapid strap is is adequate where you don't need a bag and you know you, don't want to just use a hand strap. So
James Stacy you know, you gotta have a few different options. Yeah, for sure. And I think uh I think I think that it just comes down to yeah, how long how heavy the camera is, how long you're gonna carry it for, and how you plan on using it. Like a car show is a great example of where I would probably elect to use the Black Rapid because I might want to have both hands free or I want the ability to kind of have the camera in conspicuously at my side. Or in in some ways you could you could easily use the strap under your jacket. Right. Which is uh which is nice when you're touring a city. You can keep the camera out of the rain and kind of keep it very securely just just under your arm basically. I I like the Black Rapid, like I said, as much as any strap. I I think I'm just not maybe one for camera straps in general. Outside of the gear, Jason, you know, you shoot some watches, you shoot some obviously a lot of like adventure, you know, you have some great experience, experience I don't have shooting underwater. If someone listening is maybe into kind of advanced photography and would like to get into shooting underwater, can you walk them through a few different options? I mean obviously you'd start at GoPro, but but people are gonna quickly outpace what that camera's capable of, especially from a photo standpoint, right?
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely. I mean I I I do have a GoPro and and it's great for what it is. You know, it's kind of a great sort of backup. In fact you can get mounts that you could put a GoPro on top of a big sort of SLR housing if you want to take that underwater and shoot video with one and stills with the other. But the GoPro, you know, like you said, it has limitations. So the first kind of underwater foray into photography that I had was with an old Olympus um point-and-shoot. I can't remember the exact uh model number of one of the WP models. Yes, exactly. Which on its own is waterproof to you know like 30 feet or something like that. So that clearly wasn't great for diving. And but it it came with a little plastic housing that you could buy and it even had a tray. Um the tray goes underneath the housing to to mount handles on and then you can attach a strobe on an arm uh on that tray. And it was all a very compact system, but you know, we're talking close to ten years ago, so that camera's kind of outdated now. So sold that one off. Uh when when we moved to the the Nikon D7000, the SLR, great, you know, great crop sensor SLR camera. Um we wanted to take it underwater and uh pull the trigger on um Ike light and Ike there are a lot of different housing companies that make housings for a variety of of cameras, both SLRs and point-and-shoots and anything in between. Ike Lite by and large is the most affordable of that kind of line of housings that you can get, kind of on the the higher end and and what they do is they make them out of sort of a clear composite you know plastic um that is custom made for every kind of camera that you can you can get so they basically make one housing that will fit over the camera itself and then they drill holes and put these levers and switches that will activate the buttons on the camera up accordingly. Right, okay. So that was kind of you know the housing that we used, it was a big clunky, heavy operation to haul around the world at different dive sites. That kind of led us to the the next step was to go to the something really small, kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum, which was that Sony RX one hundred, which when it came out, you know, was touted as as one of the better underwater cameras and James, I know you've used it yours underwater as well. Yeah, certainly. is uh I would say a step up from Ike Lite. They're they use a sort of an anodized machined aluminum uh housing that has uh some added features to it. It has a uh you know water sensor, it has the ability to plug in strobe cables. Uh they're much more customized for very specific cameras, but they also come with a a steeper price tag. The RX one hundred, the the the downfall that we found with that for shooting underwater was the the the shutter response is relatively slow with that camera. So you don't get that crisp quick response, uh quick autofocus uh or quick shutter response that you get with an SLR camera, as well as the the low light uh inability that it has that you mentioned earlier. And so that kind of led it kind of we kind of reached the limitation of that camera for use underwater, and now what we're using is this A7, which we also have in a nauticam housing. And it's it's pretty darn good. I mean, it's it's I would say, you know, to go beyond the capabilities of the A7 would be to go to like get a housing for the D4S or something like that, which we're talking a big giant heavy, heavy system. Yeah, for sure. But I I can't recommend nautical enough. Icolite's also a great option for a housing, but with that housing, then you get this this tray, you get two sturdy arms and then I I can't recommend enough getting a set of strobes to use underwater because what happens is if you see any photos taken underwater without strobes uh you you just lose light so quickly as you descend past you know 20, 30, 40 feet until all the colors that you see underwater turn to kind of a gray, dull gray color. And what adding strobes does is you bring back that color, whether it's coral or a or w a watchetsuit or a pair of fins, it just kind of pops that that color back into a photo. That said, there's a certain skill you have to have to using strobes underwater because what happens, especially in kind of the murky water that that we saw when we went diving at Vancouver or any of the lakes around here, is you get what's called backscatter, which is where the particulate that's floating around in the water reflects back the light from the strobes that you're firing uh as you're taking the photos. And so you get like this snow effect in the foreground of your photo. And so you end up moving the arms of the strobes around to kind of eliminate that and angling them. And there's just there's just a whole art and sort of trial and error as
James Stacy pect to to using strobes. Yeah, I use a um I I picked up uh what's called the Mekon housing. It's kind of the entry-level Chinese-made housing for the RX one hundred. Oh, sure. And if you want to use the R X one hundred similar to the way you would use a GoPro, I think this housing is fine. Mm-hmm. I think it's nicely made, it's easy to put the camera in and all of those sorts of issues. It doesn't allow full manual control of the camera. It's missing the ability to spin the rear dial, if I remember correctly. It's a lot easier when you have it in your hand. There's YouTube videos explaining what you can and can't do with the Mekon housing. I think I paid like $120 for it, which is fantastic. That's really good. Yeah. And it's good to 40 or 50 meters, which is plenty. I've used it a few times and you I you end up having to run the RX one hundred in um program mode. Yeah. Which is fine. It's not great, but it's it's fine. And then you of course have um the RX one hundred has a dedicated video button. So at any point, you can just tap the video button and it starts taking video and the video's really good. Yeah. Um from the Rx one hundred. Certainly on par with what you would get from a a GoPro. Maybe a little bit more fiddly as far as the settings to get it there. Mm-hmm GoPro's really point like literally point and shoot by design. But uh I I would say that if you just want to break into the underwater photography and you don't want to spend the same amount on a case or more that you did on the camera, the Mekon might be a good proof of concept for you where you're really only spending a small amount of money to see if you even really enjoy underwater photography. It's really a task when you're diving to take photos. I I can see why the GoPro really really brought about more use of that uh uh you know, use of underwater photography because it is just a little bit more user-friendly. Even the Mekon and and I had an underwater case for that G7 way back. Yeah. Despite living in Ontario and having seen the ocean twice. You really have to kind of sit there with your gloves on on the couch and just fiddle with all the buttons until you start to get some response that you can predict. Because obviously that's that's how you get that's how a camera works well for you is when you know what it's gonna do when you hit a button. Like I can operate my 5D in the dark. I don't have to take my eye away from the uh diopter. I don't have to you know it tells me what I need to know it in the little you know, lower thirds indication, but if I need to change a focus point, I don't have to look at the screen, I have all that disabled. And as soon as you take that away and add in all of the general stress of diving, yeah. It it really is something that I would say kind of move your progression through and and actually my my general recommendation would be that go go wherever it is that you got certified, go to your dive shop and see if they offer a photography course where they supply the camera because that'll cost you, you'll get the course and it's a s it's a a level of certification within Patty uh as part of your specialization courses if you want to move to is it master scuba diver? I believe you need five of those. And it counts as one of the five. And if if they supply the cameras, that's a pretty good shakedown for not only will you get proper instruction on how to use it, presumably the person teaching the course is kind of an avid underwater photographer. But you'll get to use gear that's that's proven itself to be worth investing at a shop level. And I think that's probably the most user-friendly way to step into underwater photography. And then and then of course I think if you enjoy it, you're going to end up like uh like Jason and and just move from one setup to another as you up the bar and kind of find the limitations of those uh more entry-level options. Yeah, and I'm I I'm
Jason Heaton a uh you know, despite the fact that I have sort of a love-hate relationship with a GoPro because I I I've for many years, several years I should say, um I've kind of hated the user interface of the GoPro. They continue to get better as the generations go past, but what it's really good at is stuff like underwater or mountain biking or skiing or something where you all you want to do is press one button and just have it record. And I have the the Hero 4, and it is um very basic camera. But I bought a what's called the three-way, which is a kind of a fold-out for lack of a better term, selfie stick that you mount the the GoPro on the end of it, and you can turn it backwards, forwards, facing you, facing away, and it folds down very quickly. You can tuck it into the pocket of your BC or just clip it on, and it's right there. And I used it recently in Mauritius, I've used it in Lake Superior, and it you know the Go,Pro, for better or for worse, it takes great, really great wide angle video. It's almost perfect for diving in good light. And you can actually get pretty decent sort of screen grabs off of it for for Instagram photos or you know sharing on Facebook or whatever you want to do. So don't I I I'm not too quick to discount the GoPro certainly for anything that uh that we're doing for you know magazines or for uh you know web reviews of watches and things like that it's it's gonna be inadequate. But for what it is for sharing and for just you know great sort of vacation cool snaps and videos, it's you it really can't be
James Stacy beat. If you're looking for kind of a uh to do video, I think GoPro's the natural choice because the the the bar's very high and small consumer tip if you weren't paying attention GoPro announced the Hero 5 this week meaning this Christmas the Hero 4 will be discounted. I I think something like a Hero 4 or the new Hero 5 is going to be probably what most people are going to want and need, and is probably a nice entry point into the overall format
Jason Heaton . Yeah, I agree. And GoPro's um tools, the applications that you can put on your desktop or even on your uh on your phone are are really user friendly for editing video or for doing screen captures or or sharing so it it it really makes for a nice package so I can't be too
James Stacy snobby about GoPro. Yeah, for sure. So I I think to uh to kind of put a bow on this, I think we should just end with some tips of things that maybe we learned that we could help people skip a few steps. Yeah. Or wasted money or things like that. With the types of photography that that you do, Jason, w what are some things that you figure you could probably like short road? Well I would say you
Jason Heaton know first of all, identify the types of photography that you're going to do. Don't get the for instance, don't get the D eight hundred if you plan on doing all sort of rugged outdoor low-light, mixed light situations. Get get the camera that is best suited for for your venue. Um not everybody's out there doing macro watch photography where they control the light. Not everybody's doing underwater photography. Not everybody's doing, you know, w everybody's not a war correspondent. So oftentimes the camera you think you should buy is more than what you need. It's more expensive than what you need. Also that that same thing applies to lenses. I would say um I I believe they say sort of the the human eye sort of sees it sort of somewhere between a thirty five and a fifty millimeter sort of focal range and and I I find that sometimes just packing one or two lenses along on a trip if you're say going hiking in the mountains or traveling to a different city or a different country. A good sort of mid range, you know, thirty five I use a thirty five millimeter lens a lot or or something like a twenty four to seventy is a very versatile lens. Yeah that,'s where I like my seventeen to forty. Yeah, rather than packing, you know, a whole quiver, whole bag full of lenses, which gets heavy, expensive, you know, potentially uh uh you know targets for theft, whatever, um you know, just identify kind of just the right lens. You know, some a lot of uh camera shops will rent lenses and it's a good way to kind of try some out. Also buying used. Another you know thing that I like to do is there's a camera shop here in town that has an annual tent sale. And uh at least with Nikon, you know, the the new cameras, the new DSLRs will still accept lenses, you know, going back to the 1950s that Nikon produced. And you can get some really great deals on some really great prime lenses, you know. Um granted they aren't uh autofocus lenses, but great lenses for you know a hundred bucks, two hundred bucks for lenses that have good metal bodies, good glass, and will work with the cameras. So keep an eye out on you know Craigslist or camera shops for the used stuff. I think it's a great way to kind of up your quiver without you sp knowending a fortune. It's a
James Stacy great tip. I find that there's like a a bit of trepidation among users about lenses that don't support the current autofocus standards, which means the non- the manual focusing lenses are usually really cheap. So if you're planning on shooting macro, like say for watches or bugs or whatever you're gonna shoot in macro or landscapes, neither of those require autofocus really. Yeah, right. you You can with a modern camera like you know any a lot of modern SLRs, you can actually plug the camera into your computer and verify on a great big screen that you've got it as tack sharp as you want it to be. But I mean, you're just instead of allowing the camera to choose the focus point, which you wouldn't do that commonly in macro anyways, you're gonna select that yourself. You're just rotating a little wheel, it's gonna be on a tripod. All the other reasons you would want to have autofocus won't be present in a studio sit scenario when you're shooting a watch, for example. Which means a manual focus macro lens will be very cheap and capable likely of taking very great photos, and all you'll have to do is learn one little trick, which is to focus manually, and then maybe confirm the focus by shooting tethered or using the you know the zoom feature on the LCD on the back of your DSLR. And I think that's probably the best advice I could give you is try and find a few loopholes because cameras, you know, cameras and camera gear is quite expensive. What about you? What are your kind of tips? Use all of the resources available to you to learn how to use the gear you have. And if if you end up in a position where you do want to buy more gear, you want to invest in more gear, again, research. Research, research, research. Because the internet and and and there's so many great resources, whether it's user reviews on popular websites like B and H photo or I mean it anybody who's Googled camera gear will know Ken Rockwell. I love his reviews and yeah no know your subject know what you plan to shoot I would say from the canon standpoint don't let people tell you that you can't make amazing photos with the kit lens I haven't shot the Nikon, but I'm like really sure it's the same. But the the Canon eighteen to fifty five, for anybody who's been following my work with a blog to watch, you know, for the last nearly five years that have been with them, every Basel World and and show and event that I've been to up until uh let's see this year I shot with an eighteen to fifty five. So all the wrist shots you, can crank that, zoom it into 55. It focuses, I think, within nine centimeters of the front of the lens. So that's plenty for macro. Uh, it works really well with a crop sensor, and that lens is a hundred dollars. So I broke one once in Texas and I bought another one at the airport. It was the only lens I had with me, and it was a hundred bucks. Really reliable, really simple, fast focusing. Are they fancy? No. Do they have a red line around them to let everybody around you know that you're serious? I'm sorry they don't. But you'll be able to take fantastic photos and if your goal is to shoot watches, I actually think it's a great lens and just use that until you find that you really need the macro and then buy the hundred millimeter. I think that's the safe way to go. Again, I do want to stress that the camera is way less important than practice. Even if all you have at your disposal right now is your phone. If you're listening on SoundCloud or in iTunes or whatever on your phone, that device can take a great photo of a watch or your family or of a sunset or whatever. Just practice. Take more photos with that w with that camera and you'll learn how to get the most out of it. Learn to use the software of the trade. If you're serious about this, get a creative live subscription for Lightroom and Photoshop. There's nothing really all that intimidating about either piece of software because YouTube will explain anything. So you can go into Photoshop and have no idea what any of the tools do, and you hover your mouse over the tool and it tells you what it's called, and then you just google that, select videos, and then just watch a three-minute video explaining how to use the tool. And in no time, you'll find that the learning curve on Photoshop is actually quite fast. You'll learn the tools, you'll learn how to find the menu that you can't find. That's where I always got lost. I couldn't find a menu. And I would just give up. Like I couldn't find out why I couldn't select the color for what I wanted. Once you get past those hurdles, you'll find that Photoshop and especially Lightroom, I mean, I my my entire photographic existence is within Lightroom. And if you just watch a brief tutorial on how to bring bring photos into your computers for organization standpoint and then how to take a good photo and get it ready for Instagram or Flickr or whatever you choose, I think that's that's part of the whole thing. And if you're only working on shooting the camera and you're not learning how to treat the photo on its way to where it will be printed or displayed. I think you're only learning kind of part of the overall structure. Learn to use your camera in manual mode. I mean if you're using auto currently switch to program which is auto without the flash if I see another person taking a photograph in broad daylight of a landscape with a flash I mean you just want to walk over and rotate that little dial to program and be like, there you go, buddy. Keep at it. But learn how to how to know when you should be using aperture priority or shutter priority or pro or manual. I mean my preference is to just always use manual. Learn your specific camera's ISO tolerances. So what's too high for your camera. You know, Jason, like your D4 can go way higher in ISO with before it starts to degrade the image than my 5D can.. Sure So just learning the difference will let you know what where the thresholds are for that camera. And finally, if you're uh this because this is the email and the questions I get on on Instagram and such, if you'reing really ask me what camera you should buy and you want to shoot photos, no video, if you put a gun to my head, I'm going to tell you to buy a used 5D Mark II. So this is the now two generations back of Canon's kind of most popular prosumer line camera. It's 21 megapixels, it's full frame. Any EF lens will work with it. And this is a vastly better camera than most people will ever be photographers. This is a better camera than I am a photographer. And that means the sky's the limit as to what you could really use it for. I mean the 5D Mark II is a camera that produced numerous covers of magazines, probably for years. And you're looking at a used price of say maybe around a thousand dollars US, whereas an entry-level Canon full frame, the 60 is 1700 US dollars. So it's a huge savings. That's money for lenses or set you know second batteries. Yeah. I would also say that make sure you even need that because for half that price you can get into a Rebel or what I think is a 5,000 series for Nikon, or maybe it's now a 3200 their entry level. Yeah. Amazing cameras, you're into a crop sensor, so just just know what that means. It's not necessarily good or bad. It's just different. So know what that means. But again, know that' your cameras probably better than you at at taking photos and you're the limitation, and just learn from there. I think that's a great place to be because it doesn't necessarily require any money from you, just some time and effort, and you're buying cam aera to take pictures anyway, so just take more pictures. And I think you'll you'll quickly learn not only what you like to photograph, which will lead to better purchasing decisions in the future, but also you'll learn all sorts of uh limitations of the gear and and and and kind of better inform your craft as far as whether it's just taking pictures of your kids at the park or cars at a car show or watches or landscapes or whatever. But hey if you have any specific questions, certainly about photography, underwater watches, something else. Please, please feel free to email us. We're answer uh you know further questions in a uh an upcoming QA episode. But it's uh thegranado at gmail.com and send send us an email. We'd love to hear what you think. Love to hear if you've got a favorite camera or something you think is a better idea than a you know a big Nikon or a big cannon or an R X one hundred or whatever. Jason, what do you think? You want to uh move on to the next part of the show? Yeah, and I think we should uh just close
Jason Heaton with that quote that you mentioned earlier that the best camera is the one you have with you
James Stacy . Alright, well let's dig into some new business. Uh Jason, you're back from a trip. Let's hear about it. How'd it go? Yeah, so it's it kind of a good segue from our
Jason Heaton discussion of photography because I went on a really great photographer's trip. I was out in Montana driving throughci Gerla National Park. Uh it was a trip that that uh my wife and I and a friend had planned since back in April, I think it was. Um good time to go, you know, it's the hundredth anniversary of the US. National. Parks. Um, but also, you know, we went in kind of mid-September, so it was post post-summer holidays. Most kids are back in school. The park was I wouldn't say empty, but it was um it was a a really good time to go the fall colors were starting we even had a bit of snow kind of up in the high country which lent some good contrast to the mountains uh this was actually my second trip to glacier and you know for, anyone that hasn't been there, uh I've I've been to you know probably a dozen national parks and it's probably up in the top two or three in my mind. It's really a wonderful it's it's it's a really kind of a driver's or photographer's national park. The the hiking certainly is wonderful and we did a couple of kind of short day hikes while we were there. You know, there's just some great sort of remote roads that you can drive and and picturesque lakes and and high peaks. And uh we were there for probably I think it was four or five days, and we pretty well saw every corner of the park that you can drive to.' There theres you know, I don't know, half a million acres or something in the in the park, so there's a lot more ground to cover. But uh you know, we flew into Great Falls, rented a car, and then spent the first couple of nights at Glacier Park Lodge, which is one of the old historic lodges that were built by the railroad on the east side of the park, and did some driving into the east side of the park, stopped and did some photography, did a couple of day hikes. And then on the third day that we were there, we drove up to uh Alberta across the Canadian border to Waterton Lakes, which is a provincial park that's kind of the sister park to Glacier National Park. And so you do the border crossing and then it's about another 30 minutes into Canada. And right on Waterton Lakes, there's a historic hotel there called the Prince of Wales Hotel. And they do this daily high tea that you sort of sit in this dining room and they come out and serve it with you know great ceremony and you're looking out these big beautiful glass windows over this lake and surrounded by peaks. Just a a really stunning, stunning venue. Sounds amazing. It was amazing. Yeah, it was it was great. And and like I said, you know, we got some snow, we got a little bit of rain for a couple of days, but it didn't really detract from the trip. It kind of lent a a contrast to the to the photos. I actually haven't seen the photos because I took um I took an old film camera with me and and three rolls of film, black and white film, that I have I haven't gotten developed yet, but uh it just seemed like one of those trips. I do so many trips for work that require that I take you know a digital camera for um you know for publication and so whenever I take trips like this just for just for pleasure I like to take uh my old Nikon F three and a few rolls of film. Yeah, that's great. And uh really cool. You know, kind of channel my inner Ansel Adams. So we'll see how this turned out. My iPhone photos turned out great. So you can check out my my Instagram feed from a couple of weeks ago and and see the photos that I took there. But uh yeah, great trip, highly recommend it. Glacier National Park. Um go see it before the snow flies because they don't plow the roads there. You know, another news, my you know, we talked about in our last episode, we talked about the the 50th anniversary sub 300 from Doxa that I had. Um, still have it actually. My write-up, it was a fairly extensive sort of trip report/slash watch review uh was published on uh Revolution Magazine's website a couple of weeks ago. So you can check that out. We'll put a link in the show notes. You know, kind of good, nice to sort of put that one to bed. It was a watch that I've had for coming up on you know a month and a half and uh you know, can't say enough good things about it. It was just uh a really fun watch to have. Um James, I hope you get a chance to check out the uh the fiftieth anniversary piece. Yeah, me too. Because it's uh it's it's one of my one of my favorite watches uh released in twenty sixteen. So
James Stacy Yeah, I um I didn't think it was gonna be here, but it ended up showing up uh just a c an hour or two before we started recording, th thanks to some help from some friends, I was able to source essentially a like new new old stock uh Seiko World Time, the 6117 6400, which I mentioned in a previous episode, and then I looked for quite a long time and didn't really source one that I was happy with. There's some kind of sketchy looking ones on eBay, and the pricing's still fairly high for the sketchy ones. Uh, but thankfully uh a great guy from my local red bar group, Secret Sauce 604 watches, uh his name's Tavis. Uh he had a connection with uh a kind of legendary Instagram Seiko collector, Bertnet69, and happened to s happen to notice that Bertrand had uh 6117 in a video and reached out to him and and turns out he was interested in selling. From there it kind of worked out fairly simply and the watch arrived today and it it literally looks like it came out of a time machine. Wow. I mean by the time this episode goes up, there's gonna be way too many photos of the watch on my Instagram because this is all I'm gonna wear for a while. It looks absolutely brand new. I love the functionality. I'm absolutely thrilled. It was a great price. Watch only, no boxes, no papers, no bracelet, but that's that's fine by me. I plan to wear it and really enjoy it. It's uh it's great. I'm I'm I'm absolutely thrilled. But other than that, I don't really have I don't really have a ton of uh kind of new business. Just kinda you know, the fall is here and uh getting ready for for some cooler weather and some more hikes and stuff, but the uh the Seiko's kind of all I can think about at the moment having it you know just arrive a little while ago. Yeah you sent me a photo.
Jason Heaton That is uh you got me jealous. I I I love that watch. It has this sort of is it sort of a silver white dial and that's a silvery dial. That bright red uh twenty four hour hand. I mean it's i i it's stunning. What's the size on that watch? I I'm looking at it on your wrist and it looks to be what forty two or so
James Stacy or Yeah, it's about forty-one millimeters. It wears smaller than that because of the case shape. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the dial's immaculate, the case looks essentially untouched. You know, it arrived on uh a gray NATO by chance. I love that it says w
Jason Heaton Seiko I love that it says world time under Seiko. That's just so that's so cool. You know, usually it's like Seiko automatic on these vintage Seiko's, but I love that little tidb
James Stacy it there. Yeah, and it's uh yeah the the crown function feels like it was made yesterday and the the date advance is perfect and wow. Crystals flawless. Uh I I'm like I said, I'm thrilled. Uh sor sorry to everybody who follows me on Instagram if you don't like the way this watch looks, because you're going to be seeing it a lot. But what do you think? You want to hit up some final notes, get this done? Yeah, let's do that. My first one this week is about uh the trans globe expedition and its connection with kind of a strange Rolex. One of our listeners, Matt, wrote wrote us an email pointing us to a link from a 2012 post from Shane Griffin at Wow for Life. Jason and I know Shane, great guy, great site. Yeah. It's called Lessons in Ristery, the Trans Globe Expedition Rolex. Uh so I you know, I I know a little bit about the Trans Globe Expedition because I I read Ranolph Fine's autobiography, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Knome, which is a it's a fantastic book. The expedition was the first successful circumnavigation of the Earth at its poles, and uh Randall Fines was part of the a very large team of people who made this uh kind of trek possible. And as it turns out, it it involved a one-off Rolex, which is a fairly exciting thing for a watch nerd, especially uh watch nerds that are fascinated by kind of adventure watches. Trans Globe Expedition team member Oliver Shepherd was given a 1655 explorer 2, which is a very cool watch. He requested that they swap the dials and hands from a GMT master 2 for better legibility. So basically, what you have is a precursor to the 16550 or the 16570 Explorer 2s, which were ostensibly original style uh Explorer 2 cases, but with a more GMT2-esque uh hand and dial set. Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool that the watch even existed, but certainly that uh the post is up on Wound for Life and I just miss it. So Shane, thanks so much for writing it. Yeah, that's uh
Jason Heaton that's a really cool story and it's such it's such a great one for for us at the Greenado because it's got so many elements that we like. I mean I think we're both sort of Ranolph Fein's fans uh anyway and then then here we've got uh you know two of our favorite Rolex is kind of smashed into one so really really cool I'm kind of sticking with a photography theme here, and it's actually a uh a book that that you recommended and that I went and downloaded. It's an ebook, it's a PDF file actually. Anyone who, you know, might casually look at uh great nature photography on Instagram might know of a guy named Paul Nicklin, L-I-C-K-L-E-N. Paul does a lot of shooting for National Geographic, he's got a background as a biologist. I think he's Canadian, if I'm not mistaken. We talked about him in the past with a TED talk he did about uh the leopard seals, yes. Yeah, yeah. Um interesting guy, great Instagram feed. If you if you don't know him, go and check out uh Paul Nicholin. He just recently published a uh an ebook um which is surprisingly affordable. Uh we'll put a link in the show notes, but you can download it. It's called uh Photographing Wild, and it's Paul's sort of techniques about um techniques and kind of advice about how to rip take just really great photos, um, especially of nature or of people doing extraordinary things, adventure photography, uh basically the kind of stuff we like to do. What's neat about it is, you know, first of all, it has a lot of his great photos in the book, and he kind of explains how he took the photo and even the gear that he took, uh or that he shot it with, the lenses, the aperture, the camera that he used, some of it going back to the film days. But he also inserts kind of some sort of sections or chapters on other photographers that he admires, so he talks a little bit about um sort of does interviews with people like Jimmy Chin, who you know James and I are both big fans of, David Dubalay, who's a great you know legendary underwater photographer, uh and a few others. And then he you know he doesn't overly geek out about gear. He does go into the gear that he uses, and that's an interesting chapter in its own right. But he talks really about things like um you know getting into the mindset for photography, uh achieving the right composition. He talks about something that James mentioned earlier in today's show about you know really getting to know your camera, kind of sitting down with it so that you can just pick it up and go when you need to, keeping it at sort of a home setting so that when you're when you pick up your camera, let's say that the polar bear suddenly appears and you want to take your photo, you know that it's you know, you're at uh F three point five and uh you know one five hundredth shutter speed ISO four hundred or something like that. You know right where the camera's at when you when you pick it up. So it's tips like that that that are coming from a guy that I happen to really respect. And I think the the ebook was you know eight or ten bucks and uh it's just a download of a PDF file. So highly recommend it. We'll throw in the um the link in the show notes.
James Stacy Yeah most certainly I plan to pick that up and uh and take a look at uh you know I I threw it in in my pocket account when I saw it and I sent you the link. Uh I I think it's really cool that they're even making something like this from a photographer of that caliber. And it looks you know, I saw some samples, it looks very nicely produced. I I'm excited to uh kind of dig into that maybe on uh a future break or a flight or something like that.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely worth it. And then just quickly I want to close with a a quick shout out to I I believe he's one of our listeners, a guy named Aaron Cross over in the UK. Aaron has a a really cool blog that I I really enjoy and I read regularly. It's called the All Night Listening Post, which is uh it's got a great title anyway, which I really like. Aaron's kind of into uh things like uh uh some adventure, a little bit of history, uh men's fashion and style, a little bit of watches, um cool boots. He publishes you know pretty regularly, I'd say once a week or once every couple of weeks. He's got a pretty cool Instagram feed. Anyway, check out the AllNight Listening Ps and uh Aaron keep up the good work. So Well
James Stacy , as always, thanks so much for listening. You can hit the show notes for more details, all the links about the dizzying amount of things we spoke about in this episode. You can follow us on Instagram at JCEaton and at JE Stacy and you can follow the show at the Greenado. If you have any questions, please feel free to email thegreenado at gmail.com and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcast, or you can grab the feed directly from thegraynado.com. Music Throughout is Siesta by Jazar via the Free Music Archive.
Jason Heaton And until next time we leave you with this quote from Saint Augustine, who said, The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.