00:00:00               Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are talking with my dear friend, Charlotte Reeves all about gear. We're talking about what gear you might want to start with luckier to get. If you're not, if you're just getting started and you're trying to save some money, mirrorless versus DSLR, and a lot of our experiences with our new Canon are five.

00:00:22               So stay tuned. It's a good one. Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host pet photographer, travel addicts, chocolate Marcina comma sewer, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody. Nicole here from hair of the dog and I have back one of our favorite guests,

00:00:50               my good friend, Charlotte Reeves from Charlotte reads photography and learned pet photography down under in Brisbane, Australia. Welcome back to the podcast, Charlotte. Thank you so much, Nicole. I'm so happy to be here and have another little chat with you. It's always seems to fun. I know. Yeah. We started off with, you know, a good 15 minutes of our normal random chat,

00:01:13               which we spared you guys from. We'll talk photography at first, it was sharing dogs, which is not fun on a podcast cause you can't really see them. If you guys want to hear Charlotte, I don't one of our previous episodes that we had definitely check out podcast, episode number 17, location scouting is what we talked about in that episode. So definitely worth the listen.

00:01:38               That was a great conversation too. But today we're going to be talking all about photography, toys, all the gear. It's fun stuff to talk about. It is. It is. But before we get into that, Charlotte, why don't you give everybody just a quick background on you and where you're from in case they aren't familiar with you. Cool.

00:02:00               Okay. Well, I'm a dog photographer. I live in Brisbane, Australia. I've been doing it for about, Ooh, I'm coming into my 14th year, this year. So I specialize in Douglas and photographer, but you know, it's pretty much all about the dogs. So I have been teaching pet photography since 2013 and I have a dedicated website for that called learn pet photography up at courses and eBooks and all that sort of thing.

00:02:27               So if you want to check that out, that's, Atlona pet photography.com, I guess that's, that's sort of, kind of it, I do a regular critique corner in Nicole's hair of the dog Academy. I'm also a coach in the elevate program and I've just really loved connecting with people live online during critique corner, because it's just a great way of giving people like instant feedback on their work.

00:02:49               So that seems to fun. And I'm so you may have seen me from there, if you're a member of the hair of the dog Academy, if not, I guess I'll see you around in, in the groups that Nicole has. So the podcast group and yeah. Hope to see you soon. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Getting critique from your work,

00:03:07               I think is definitely one of the fastest ways to improve. And you know, a lot of times we start off and maybe friends and family are like, Oh, that's a great image. But if you really want to improve, if you start to get critique from actual professionals, coaches, and mentors, Oh my gosh, it's going to improve so fast.

00:03:27               And really, if you're going to post in like big crazy groups for critique, you got to take it with a grain of salt because some people know what they're doing. And some people maybe don't offer the best critique or, you know, they might not offer a critique in a critical manner. It might just be Sometimes I add on sometimes they tend to be a little bit cautious.

00:03:50               Yeah. So, yeah. So if you're looking for critique on your images, definitely check out the Academy and Charlotte will hook you up in the critique corner. It's definitely one of the favorite little spots, but enough about that, let's talk about some gear, Charlotte URL, Anand girl, just like me. Yeah. Have you always shot pretty much.

00:04:13               So I started out in photography on film, film cameras. So to have a Pentax K 1000, that was my very first camera. And then I had another couple of Pentex film cameras, but, but my first digital SLR was a Canon three 50 D and I've, I've pretty much had Canon ever since. So I've had the three 50 D five D five D Mark,

00:04:35               two, one DX, one DX, MK two. And now the R five. So that's basically my Camden history. I have deli around a Fiji. So a X T3, which I know you have as well. Actually I did, I did. I ended up selling it because I thought I would use it for, I originally got it to,

00:04:59               you know, just kind of play with it. I, I didn't think it would totally replace my Canon gear, but I was like, well, maybe, but I really got it to record videos. And then I was thinking I would use it a lot for just personal stuff of like when I travel with my family and things like that. But then I discovered I still don't want to carry any gear By phone.

00:05:20               So I'm like, yeah, exactly. I must say that's kind of pretty much the same thought process that I had. I was initially hoping the X T3 could be a replacement for my Canon gear because I really liked the idea of a more compact kit had a kit and all that kind of thing. But there are a few little things that it fell short on that it wasn't super happy with as being a replacement for my Canon gear.

00:05:44               So my next idea was then to use it for video and also do personal stuff. And like you, I came to the conclusion, I was happy just using my phone. So yeah. I ended up selling the free stuff. So that was a brief little four, I guess, that we both had into that little world that Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

00:06:04               And the Fuji was great. I mean, if it was a different situation, if I wasn't looking to replace like, you know, high end Canon gear, I think it might've been a little bit different. I actually know a couple of wedding photographers that, that food GX T3, and now the XD four is their main camera and they love it.

00:06:19               So, you know, it is still a great little camera and it is, it can be a professional level camera, Charlotte, and I have just ridiculously high standards and have gotten really addicted to our Canon color and everything else. That's true. Yeah. I found, I found the food. He had pretty good color. I was quite happy with the color I did.

00:06:39               I did. I was thinking about switching to Sony at one stage and the colors just didn't suit me. So I was pretty happy with the foodie color. It was, it was more so I think the biggest thing for me was the fact that it was a crop factor camera, the quote factor. And I just wasn't getting that because I always shoot it very shallow depth of field.

00:06:57               That's part of my style. And I just felt like I wasn't getting that same beautiful, shallow depth of field that I was able to get. So that was one of the big things. And also the other thing was the files looked a little bit funny in light room. I don't know if you know, but I did play around with capture one as a software and the files definitely look better in capture one,

00:07:17               but I've been using that room for a really long time. And I was not, I was not keen on switching because I switched to camera. So I figured that unless Lightroom sort of bought out some sort of proper support for the foodie files, which I feel like they didn't have at that stage. Yeah. It just, it just, wasn't going to feed into,

00:07:36               into the way that I work my workflow and I guess my high standards. Yeah, we are, I'm a control enthusiast. I like to say yes for sure. Well, yeah. Well, you and I both have, have started to move over to the<inaudible> for Canon and yeah. You and Craig had at first because it was back-ordered here in the state.

00:08:01               So you guys had a good couple of months head start on me, but I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. And so far it has not disappointed. I've really enjoyed it. I haven't quite fit the bullet to sell my one DX yet, but I think I'm getting pretty darn close. Well, I have actually completely transitioned now. Yeah.

00:08:20               So I saw my one DX. I saw my old, all of my EDF lenses and the RF lenses and the<inaudible>. So I currently have a camera body and three RF lenses and that's it. And you have it all covered and you'll love it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I just, I just really, I, I, I had,

00:08:40               I kept the, I kept two lenses that I really liked to stop. Cause I thought I'll just use them with the adapter cause at the adapter as well. Of course. And so that was the 35, if 1.4, which is a lens that I love. So, so, so much I absolutely adore that lens. And also 35 F two prime.

00:08:57               I love that lens as well. So I kept those two to start with, but I found in practical, real life that usage of the system using the adapter and switching between our lenses and EF lenses with the adapter was just a bit clunky during, during a photo session. It just seemed to seem to be spending so much time in my camera bag,

00:09:15               like, you know, taking the adapter off and putting it on and then taking it all off and putting an RF lens on and then switching to the other lens. And it just, it just kind of interrupted my flow. I suppose. I just sort of made the decision that I was going to just switch to all RF lenses, which I'm really happy about because they're amazing the RF lenses.

00:09:34               I think that's one of the big things about the new Canon AR muralists series is I think they're putting all their development into the new RF lenses. I'm not sure that being alerted development, the EF lenses anymore because everything is switching and slowly moving towards the mirrorless side of things. So a lot of the lenses that are coming out, RF lenses, and they're amazing.

00:09:54               They're really light. I want to amaze cause I don't have any RF lenses yet. I got the R five and the adapter and I'm amazed the, my ETF lenses Harper on my R five files on DX. Yup. It's amazing. Even my 85, 1.2, which I was going to sell ages ago. Cause I'd never really used it. It was,

00:10:18               it's beautiful for people, but it's, I always found it slightly slow to focus for dogs. So it made me kind of crazy. And even that was focused a little bit faster and gosh, the images from that are just beautiful. So yeah, I have been so pleasantly surprised, but I'm sure yeah, over the next, over the next year,

00:10:39               I probably will end up selling that one DX and all those ETF lenses go full on into the RF world, which I found the adapter, not too much of a problem if, cause they were all so I just leave the adapter on my camera. So all the floods pretty easy. Yeah. It's when it's, when you've got the mix of the RF and the EDF lenses that I found was a bit problematic I suppose.

00:11:02               And I actually found the same thing. So my 35 and my one 35 both worked beautifully with the adapter, like really, really nice. I mean the, the 35 is amazing regardless. Right. But the one 35 could sometimes be a little bit off with focus or a little bit slow on the one DX, but on the RF, on the sorry on the<inaudible> it was,

00:11:25               it was even better. It's amazing. Definitely a viable thing to just get the adapter and just use your ears lenses. I mean, there's, I, yeah, I've talked to a lot of people that have been thinking about going mirrorless and I've been telling every single Canon shooter that if they wanted to go mirrorless, cause they're like, Oh, maybe I should do Sony.

00:11:43               Maybe I should do Fuji. I'm like, no, just you're already Canon, just stay R five. This podcast is not sponsored by Canada. Like, Hey, there's an idea. Maybe we can do that. The fearless name, we love the RFI. So I want to just kind of backtrack for a little bit here and maybe talk a little bit to the people that are maybe earlier in their photographic journey.

00:12:15               And they're like, man, I'm loving, photographing some dogs. Maybe they have just been using a phone or a little point shoot or a consumer level camera. And they're like, I want to get more into this number one. What would you recommend that they spend the money on first bodies or lenses? Or just like, how do you get started?

00:12:34               Because you know, it's sometimes hard to look and be like, Oh my gosh, I've got to spend $5,000 to get like a body and a couple lenses. Holy cow. Yeah, I guess. I mean there's some, and there's that whole thing of whether you go for a crop sensor or a full frame to start with as well. That's the other question.

00:12:50               So I guess if, I mean, if you don't have a camera at all and you're buying your first camera and you're wanting to do pet photography, I do think that you need to have a camera body that has a fairly decent autofocus system because dogs are not easy to photograph to start with because they're small and they're fast moving and they're random. And especially if you want to shoot action,

00:13:11               you will find yourself a little bit held back. If you have a more entry level camera that doesn't have as many focus points or it doesn't do as many frames per second. So I think for lack of a good auto focus system is something that can hold you back at the start. So I would recommend getting a body, even if it's a crop sensor body.

00:13:31               I think it's the, I've been seeing quite a few people using, I think it's the nineties at the 90 D Well, I know the 70, I, that was my first camera for like once I started my business. So it was the 70 and it was like, mainly for sports photography was a crop sensor. Didn't want to start it on crop.

00:13:50               I didn't mind it cause I didn't know any different. And, but after I found the same thing, when I went Fuji, that was cropped, I would now so used to shooting on a full frame, like just knowing how far to be away from my subject, how much background I'm going to get and going back to crop after that was challenging,

00:14:12               starting on it. Wasn't a problem at all. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it's fine to start on a crop sensor camera, as long as the lenses that you're buying will also fit the full frame as well. When you do upgrade because you probably will upgrade at some stage. I think sometimes the trap people fall into is I think that they need to get full frame right from the very start.

00:14:30               So they go with a real entry level, full frame camera, which unfortunately I'm not sure about the Nissan side of things or Sony or whatever, but with cannon, the entry-level full frame is the 60. Yep. Which is a camera that I don't think is good for pet photographers mainly because especially the early ones, I think there's a 60 and then a 60 Mark too.

00:14:50               But mainly the one, it does not have a great auto focus system. It's full frame, which is awesome. But it's got a very small group of focus points right in the center. And it's also doesn't have any frames per second and it's just not the best. So just because it's full frame doesn't mean it's going to be better specifically photography. I would go at 70,

00:15:11               over 60 any day cause it's got a better focus system. And I think that's more important when it comes to photographing pets. I agree. I agree. I know I noticed a huge difference even upgrading for my cause I had a 70 originally and then I went to five D Mark two or three. I forgot what you want. I had five, three,

00:15:31               I think it was five D Mark three and then yeah, for now said five D Mark three. And then I upgraded to the one DX and the one DX Mark two. And it was night and day. I was like, how did I ever get any of these actions, photos and folks before on my five D because mostly the focus system was fairly good,

00:15:54               but the frames per second was like nothing compared to the one DX. So to all of you guys out there that are like, man, my action photos are so hard. I only get the good ones here and there. Yeah. Until you get often like the one DX or the R five or you know, something that has like incredible frame per second and really good autofocus they are here.

00:16:20               I said, even then, I mean, I still miss sometimes I'm sure you do once in a blue moon too course. I'm often you think. Yeah, definitely. I mean you do, I guess like it's really easy to see all these amazing action photos of dogs and sort of think, Oh, I should be able to do that with my camera if it's like an entry-level sort of camera and it's sometimes it's actually just Possible.

00:16:41               I get to get really lucky, Totally increase your chances of getting awesome action photos. If you pay attention to other things such as, you know, the lighting and your position and the way that you shoot and lots and lots of practice, of course. So you can increase your chances of, of getting great action shots and make it easier for your camera if your camera's not quite up to scratch in that area,

00:17:04               but it sort of gets to a point where you really just do need some better features on your camera, I guess, to be able to capture those sorts of shots. Having said that you don't need a one DX, you don't even need a five D I've seen some amazing action photos on like a seven day. And I'm pretty sure it's the 90,

00:17:24               is it 90 D or 80 D or something like that on the Canon? I don't know that one actually has a really good autofocus system. Yeah. I was looking into it the other day because someone asks me a question of like, should I get the 70 or the I'm pretty sure it's a 90 day. And they've got pretty much the same order focus system.

00:17:41               It's crazy. They're putting amazing auto focus system in like a more entry level sort of<inaudible> sort of style camera. So that could be a really good option for people getting into it. So the other thing that you asked about before I just backtracking a little bit with lenses and should you invest your money in lenses or the camera body? I think once you've got the camera body sorted,

00:18:01               then you need to turn to lenses. Generally the, and I would recommend buying a camera body without a kit lens. So by the body because Caitlin's is generally not good. So they're a cheap mass produced lens that they just stick on the camera so they can sell the camera. Basically a lot of the time they have there all the time, there's a lens and they've got a variable aperture throughout the zoom range as well.

00:18:28               So they might start off zoomed all the way out of F four. And then as soon as you zoom in the app to changes to like F 6.3, which is really prohibitive when you're shooting pets, because you really need as much light as you can getting it through the lens, big, No would change if you're trying to shoot manual, that would change your exposure if you're actors changing as you're going to.

00:18:49               Exactly. Yeah. So you end up with all kinds of problems and those lenses, generally the optics just aren't as good. They're not, they're not super clear. They're not a great quality. They're not sharp that aren't focused very quickly. So generally when you're photographing dogs, you need the camera. As soon as you press that focus button, you need the camera to find focus on lot focus really quickly.

00:19:07               And those lenses, they tend to hunt. They're not very accurate. So I would definitely recommend buying the camera body and then buying a lens separately, paying more for the lens than you would obviously with a kit lens that comes with the camera, but it's 100% worth it and getting something with a fixed aperture all through the zoom range as well. So I always say that the most useful lens for pet photography is the 70 to 200 millimeter F 2.8

00:19:31               lens. I agree. I think that's probably the most widely used lens for pet photography. And I think there's a really good, like there's multiple really good reasons for that. I think the biggest thing is that it allows you to kind of hang back a little bit and gives you some flexibility to sort of zoom in, which is a really good way of shooting.

00:19:49               I mean, you can get up close portraits and they're beautiful as well, but just that ability to be able to hang back, zoom in and have that have the most amount of light getting in through the lens to get your experiences, your exposure as good, keep your shutter speed high. So I think that's probably the most, I agree that if I had to choose one lens that like I couldn't live without,

00:20:09               it would definitely be my 70 to 200. There are, you know, that one, well, I'm back up for a second. You know, one of the nice things about investing in the lenses is generally once you get to those nicer lenses, they are an investment and they're going to last for a long time. You know, even if you are on a,

00:20:27               you know, a 70 camera, body and Canon, and you eventually want to get a one DX or want to move up to a different camera, those lenses are still going to work. So I mean, and heck even switching over from the DSLR to the mirrorless, my lens is still work with the adapter. So, you know, so they,

00:20:45               they can be a long-term investment, but that even being said, Charlotte, what's your opinion. Cause they have the 70 to 200, 2.8 and I know some people opt to do the 70 to 204.0, which is fixed, fixed up. It's lighter because a lot of people think that that, I mean that's 7,200 is a bit of a beast. It's pretty heavy,

00:21:06               you know, and it's lighter and it's less expensive, but you're losing that aperture. So for me, I love that lens at 2.8, pretty much constantly. So that's a deal breaker for me, but what's your recommendation. Yeah. Well, I guess it depends like if you, if your budget is really can't stretch to the 2.8 version, the four version is definitely a good like stop gap solution.

00:21:27               I suppose they're definitely cheaper. As you said, they're lighter. It can be a little bit restrictive if you, if you find it sort of depends on where you are in the world too, because as you find that you're shooting often in low light. So if you lose some very cloudy, you don't have a lot of sun to play with having that extra stop of light is just,

00:21:45               is just so, so, so helpful. Also keep in mind that the<inaudible> of the lens, the actual optics of the glass, isn't quite as nice as the F 2.8 version as well. So if you're taking a little bit of a cut in quality as well, and also the responsiveness of the autofocus, so there's a few different areas where it's not quite as good.

00:22:06               It's not just the aperture, but I mean, you got to think about your budget too. Like that's pretty important for most people, especially when you're starting out. If you can spring for it, if you can stretch for it, I would definitely recommend the F 2.8, but the effort is going to be fine for you and you probably will find the limits of it at some stage.

00:22:23               And then you'll probably want to upgrade. Most people don't get the F four version and then just kinda stick with it. Generally people can't afford to upgrade. They will. So if you can get, if you can skip that and just go straight to the F 2.8, that's ideal. The other thing is too, and it's, it's kind of one of those topics that is probably divides people a little bit is brand as well with the lenses.

00:22:47               Because I personally, I, I prefer, I have played around with Sigma lenses. I personally prefer the Canon brand lenses. I find that they work a lot better. They don't need any sort of micro adjustment in camera to get the focus exactly. Right. And I actually, I have come across people who have been using say Sigma or Tamron lenses at workshops who have been having problems with the focus and having problems,

00:23:15               trying to get that in micro adjustment, right. Or having issues with the images, just not being sharp and the glass just not being good enough. So again, if, and generally it's, it's often about your budget as well, kind of comes back to if you can spring for it, do try and get the Canon lens or the Nicole lens,

00:23:34               if you're, you know, if you're on Nicole as well, They're just built to work with that body. And I find the same from people that have had Sigma and tamarin that they often do need to take it in and either calibrate it themselves or they can take it to the camera shop that will help them do that. And, and that does help them.

00:23:55               I know some people that have a Sigma lens that once that was done worked beautifully and they loved it, but yeah, and I prefer just to have all my gear and one brand. So that way, you know, I, I just have one brand, one company to go to if I need something fixed or if something's not working. Right. So you don't have,

00:24:14               you know, both companies pointing the other way, like it's the lenses fault. It's the point actually. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a helpful thing for people that are, you know, everybody always has some budgetary concerns for used gear. Like if you were starting off and you're like, all right, I can't afford the 7,200, 2.8. I'm going to start with the 4.0

00:24:38               like one thing I would recommend is probably look for a used 7204.0 that you can buy, you can use for a little bit, you can make a little bit of money and then you can sell that and upgrade to the 2.8 so long as you are, you know, really buying from there's so many reputable resellers from camera shops to, you know, resellers online of,

00:24:58               you know, actual companies like BNH or K or, or, yeah, K E H I think. But yeah. Do you have the same recommendation? I think so. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I myself have sold lenses and I know they're perfectly fine lenses and definitely helpful. It's cheaper than buying them brand new and there's absolutely nothing wrong with them.

00:25:16               Yep. Yeah. It's definitely an option. If you can, like, you don't always need to buy new, I guess you just need to be a little bit careful about things about where you buy them from. And do you see if you can fully properly inspect them first, even even ask if you can maybe test or see images from them as well?

00:25:32               Yeah. Yeah. Some, sometimes people do have issues with lenses and that's why they sell them. Yeah. So I, I find definitely the companies, cause they'll stand behind it or if you're buying from a person, if you're buying from someone that you know, or you have friends in common with, or someone in a local group that you know,

00:25:51               that you can kind of check and like, you know, that just to have some sort of connection, not like a random Joe Schmo on the internet that you have no connection to because you do need to be careful for all the random scams, like selling your equipment where they're like, okay, I'll pay you then. So then, Oh, I'm going to be here.

00:26:09               Can you send it instead? I had somebody I was trying to sell, speaking of perfect ear. I have that the Fuji telephotos my only lens left is the 50 to one 40, which is the 70 to 200 equivalent that I've used like three times. So it is essentially new anyone out there in the us. But anyway, I was selling it in like Fuji gear.

00:26:33               I had it up and somebody contacted me and they're like, Oh yeah, I'll pay full price. And they started to send it to my PayPal, but it was like pending or thick. I said voice, but they never paid. And then they're like, okay. I said it, send it now to this address. And I'm like, well,

00:26:49               no, it hasn't gone through yet. And they're like, just got really pushy. And I Googled the well, and then I looked at the address they sent, which was Miami, but the person who sent it to me lived in New York and I Googled that Miami address. And it was total scam, like yeah, no chance. So you've got to be really,

00:27:04               really careful. And if you guys have any, I like inkling of a thought of like, Oh, this doesn't feel right. You can ask in the hair doc or the dog podcast community. Like none of us have been through these scams before, or like gotten really close to getting ripped off. So it could be like red flag. Don't go through with that deal.

00:27:24               Definitely just the CLIA. It's definitely. Yeah. It's definitely a lot of traps to fall into and anything buying anything online, like in hand? Yeah. That's crazy for sure. That's definitely a good option if you can't spring for the brand new cost. Yeah. Yeah. When you're buying gear. Yeah. I love it. Another lens that I really recommend to people just starting out and it's a lens that I got and it's a lens that sort of when I was early on in my journey and it's a lens that I felt really helped me improve is a 50 mil prime.

00:27:57               Oh, I'm so nifty, 50 nifty 50 gender. He refers to the super cheap F 1.8 version. If you can go for like an a 1.4 version, that's generally a pretty good it's, it's not quite the nifty 50 to slightly more expensive 50, but it's still pretty cheap compared to the It's super affordable compared to like, Yeah, definitely. And that if 1.4

00:28:22               gives you a beautiful, shallow depth of field, it forces you to be really accurate with your focusing. So it helps you improve your focusing because you've got such a shallow slice of focus. You have to be very accurate in what you focus on. There's not a lot of leeway for error. So it kind of forces you to improve your skills with focusing as well.

00:28:39               So that's all really good for practicing when I was first starting out and I was mostly photographing my own dogs. I used to just stick the next 50 50 on where if 1.4, four version anyway, and go for a walk with my dogs or go to a park or go somewhere new and just shoot with that lens and just see what I could do just with that one lens,

00:28:58               because it's actually very versatile. You can get some great closeups, you can get some great wider shots. It's just a really good way of improving your skills, sticking with one fixed focus, length. You learn to zoom with your feet, which when you're photographing dogs is basically zoom with your hands and knees shorter much on the ground. Most of the time when you're photographing dogs.

00:29:21               But yeah, that's, that would probably be my other recommendation for Lance. It also gives you a wider angle of view as well, especially when compared to the 70 to 200. So it just opens up some different possibilities for shooting. And it's a really like budget conscious lens lens as well. I love, I love the focal length of 50 on a full frame camera.

00:29:40               It's a beautiful length actually, when I switched to mirrorless, that was one of the big things that prompted me to switch was because Canon brought out and you RF 50 millet F F 1.2 lens. And I was like, yes, I am getting that straight away. And I did. And I absolutely love it. It is, Oh, you've hired me to pull out my 50 more.

00:30:05               I've rarely used my 50 really switch one thing you have 1.2, 1.2. Yeah. So it's a great lens. I just find, I find the focal length. Isn't my favorite, but I love what you said about just going out and like forcing yourself to use that focal length or really any focal length, you know, don't do it on a client session,

00:30:25               but go out and just shoot. Yep. And challenge yourself to say how many different, like how much different variety, how many different looks and views and just images can I create from this one lens? And it just forces you to start to see things a little bit differently and to get more creative. So it's a great, a great thing. I think why I don't love that one as much as the others is because it is,

00:30:51               you know, they say the 15 millimeters, like closest to what our human eye sees. I like having either a little bit more of the distortion of like 24 is like if I had to only shoot with two lenses for the rest of my life, it would be my 24, 1.4 and my 70 to 200, 2.8, the two extreme, yeah.

00:31:13               It's either a 200 or 24, but mostly I would say 90% of the images that I love, you know, that kind of speak to me and my style and like, you know, field like me and my portfolio or what that 7,200, 200, 2.8 with negative space. Definitely, definitely negative space in the call. What they call me at the park.

00:31:43               Good thing. My name's not like Rachel, that's funny. That's funny. All right. One other question about our gear, the kind of jumps back to mirrorless versus DSLR is we were talking about the difference in the focusing systems and things like that. I haven't totally looked into it, but I think you might know a little bit more than me versus the<inaudible> versus the<inaudible> is the only difference between those two really like the video in the file size.

00:32:20               Yeah. And it's a full frame. The R six is full frame as well, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, if I was looking for an entry-level camera, I think the<inaudible> six isn't that expensive compared to, I imagine it's about the same as like the, so I haven't looked at the prices of them recently the 70,

00:32:38               but think it's less than The five D I think it's about the same, the way that they did the numbering with the mirrorless. I think R five is meant to be the equivalent of like a five D and R six is equivalent of like a 60, but it was way better auto focused. So I think the pricing might be fairly similar as well.

00:32:59               I'm not sure I'd have to leave you to that, but the RCX is definitely a really, really good option if you're wanting to jump straight into the muralist, I guess, framework, and you wanted to jump straight into those mirrorless lenses, then why not get the RCX like it's perfect. Absolutely perfect photographers. I think the number one thing that was holding would hold people back from the R six is the resolution.

00:33:23               Yeah. So I think there are 20 megapixel camera. So it was the five D is that famous? The five D yeah. What's that 22 D is not 20. So that the one DX is I think 20. Yeah. The one DX, the actual original one DX was 18. And I think the God Jack's mocked two and maybe Mark, he is like 20 megapixels.

00:33:47               So even, yeah, it was either 20, 22. I can't remember. So even the one DX, which is like Canon's flagship, DSLR is still only 20. And I mean, I've been shooting with the one DX camera's seen, I think 2013, and I do large printing, you know, large size prints for clients. I haven't really had too much of a problem with it.

00:34:14               I think if you're going to go really massive, like 40 by 60 inches or something like that, you would probably want the serverless solution, but I have a 40 by 60 acrylic right across from me that I shot with a, I would have to look, no, that one would have been my five D five D Mark three and it is beautiful.

00:34:33               Yeah. So I think the five days that like, honey, I'm going to say 22, I think upgraded to the one DX. It was the same megapixels really? I believe so. I know. All right. So we just took a pause to look up cause Charlotte and I decided instead of just totally like guessing what these mega pixels were and conversational should probably look on Canada site and give you guys actual.

00:34:57               Yep. And then the R five it's 45 megapixels, which is crazy town. I was just telling Charlotte, I was shooting some extra shots with dog on a beach when I was in Florida a couple of weeks ago. And I'm like, Oh, wait, I think I want to make this vertical and zoom in a little bit. And I did that and it was still the same size as my previous five D Mark three final files.

00:35:20               But yeah, we were talking about blowing up for bigger resolution. So I had used my five D Mark three for this big 40 by 60 acrylic. And it looks great. And the five D Mark three was 22.3 mega pixels, five D Mark four is 30.4, But the one DX is 20.1. So that our six, you know, comes in around that one DX size,

00:35:47               which is still, still plenty, big enough, really to do anything large with, unless you're going to do a lot of cropping. If you're going to do a lot of cropping, then you know, you don't have a lot to work. Yeah. You do need Show that you're shooting to get your composition pretty much riding camera. If you're planning to print big,

00:36:02               we spent that money megapixel camera, because you don't want to crop in too much and then enlarge it because it's not running into problems. But so my largest wallet, art size that I used to offer when I was shooting with my one DX was 28 by 40 inches. And I'll be absolutely fine with doing that. Even just using Photoshop to slightly raise the image up a little bit,

00:36:22               if need be. And it would, it just looks absolutely fine. So I think the us six at 20 megapixels is perfectly fine. I don't think have to be something that would hold you back from getting it or make you think that you need the<inaudible> Right, right. Yeah. I mean, cause some of the drawbacks of the R five is just,

00:36:41               you need to make sure you have a computer, a computer that can handle the size of those files because it will use a bit more Ram than managing the smaller files. And it, it takes a little bit longer and light Lightroom. I know I have a heart attack every time. I'm like, Oh my God, these are all soft. Oh it's because Lightroom on it to get that much data.

00:37:00               Yeah. I even find that. Yeah. While I'm importing the images, I pretty much just have to am I should do it anyway, but I pretty much just have to let it import the images, walk away from the computer because when I try to use the computer, when it's importing those really large files, it does tend to chug a little.

00:37:16               Yeah. So yeah, you do need to sort of make sure that your computer can handle it as well. And you also have the latest version of librarian as well. Otherwise you've got no support for the CR three files from the Asics and the<inaudible>, but it definitely has support now. So yeah. You just need to upgrade. Yeah. And you know,

00:37:34               you guys are gonna find that. Cause I, every once in a while I'll still talk to somebody that's like, Oh, I'm still writing CSX, which was, Oh gosh, I mean, three, four, five years ago at this point they had the C essence before they went to the cloud and you know, holding onto those for a year or two is,

00:37:50               is fine. But you know, if, and if you're doing this as a hobbyist, that's cool, you know, hold onto that as long as you can. But you know, if we're doing this professionally, the amount of gosh, extra tools and better, just better use of all those tools in the current versions versus one of us back at CS is night and day.

00:38:14               And you know, I've got to hand it to Adobe that it is still really affordable in all those years. They really haven't raised the price. It's like $10 a month for Lightroom and Photoshop and $20 a year. And you know, which is you would spend that much upgrading at least one of the programs every year anyway. So yeah, it's definitely affordable.

00:38:37               And you know, anytime that new gear comes out, like it always takes a minute or two for your editing software to catch up and you know, there is a workaround, so you could import them and change them to DNG. Right. Digital negative, right. DNG. Yeah. That's what I'm. She said, I did it with the app because I got the<inaudible> so early I was on a pre-order and all,

00:39:03               I think it was probably one of the first people in Australia to get the five, which was so exciting. It also meant that there was no support in Lightroom. So I just converted them. I just got a, I think it's an actual little program from cannon that I downloaded that converts those CSV files to DNG files. Oh nice. And so I just did that for the first couple of shoots that I used it for.

00:39:22               And then the support came in because I've always got the latest version of Lightroom because I've got the creative cloud subscription and it was fun. So yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I love it. This has been such a good conversation before we wrap up. I don't know. I feel like we should do like one question. If you are trapped on a desert Island and can only have one lens,

00:39:45               although I think we probably would have, Oh, I know. I know what we'll do. How about a dream lens that you don't have and just feels like too, too much of a splurge. So you're like, man, I would love to have that lens, but that just seems crazy. Do you have one of those? I have one I,

00:40:03               I do, or I did before I switched to realists. So how about you go first? All right. I, I kind of drool over the 200 F two. That's it? That's it Just spend $5,000 on a lens. I'm like 200, 2.8. You know, my 7202.8 is fine. Tuned fucker look like a beast. It looks really,

00:40:31               really big and heavy. It looks amazing. And I think specifically design, it's like a sports lenders it's designed for really fast. Auto-focus just incredible faction shots. I do know some people who have it and yes, incredible lens jealousy. But yeah, now that I've moved to, I don't know, you never know. Canada might bring out like an RF version that's right.

00:40:54               Deeper. But it won't be because orally, our lenses are kind of expensive. Yeah. Yeah. They might come down later once the technology is more mainstream for them, I guess, maybe. But, So yeah. Do you think he needed to talk about animal auto-focus at all? Do you think people should? That's one of the number one things that I get asked about with alpha,

00:41:17               so it's worth mentioning. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So let's talk about that. I know for me, I would I'll share what I kind of do it that I would love to hear what you do. I've only shot with my camera. I mean, a couple of times was Zoe in the backyard and then I took it with me to client session.

00:41:35               I took my one DX and I'm like, well, I'll take this and maybe play with it a little bit. And I ended up using it for the whole session. I'm like, whatever, Are you on DX? See you later. Well, I get to a point where I'm like, wait, I'm not sure what Oh, Hmm. Like,

00:41:51               you know, like, cause the new cameras sometimes you're like, well wait, what's the setting. How do I find that other study? No, I need to change this. But anyway. Yeah. So I have found that the animal I focus works really, really, really amazingly well, but I have that whole control enthusiasm problem. So I have found that I still really enjoy having a single point focus that I choose where it is and shooting back button focus for the portraits,

00:42:19               but then switching it to animal. I focus for act because then it's just one less thing to kind of think about. And it did an amazing job. Okay. All right. That's interesting. Yeah. Well, the reason that I really like by control enthusiasm of choosing my focal point for portraits is when I'm shooting two dogs or a dog and an owner,

00:42:40               I like to have my focal point on the dog's eye for one and then move to the other subject for a couple shots too. So I'm pulling it in a couple of shots with my knowing that my focus is tack sharp on both of them in case my depth of field was a little shallow when they want a big print. And I need to merge images where if I was letting the camera choose,

00:42:59               I found it was just picking one and getting that one. And I'm like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. I need my backup, you know, security blanket. Yeah. Do you have, do you have, when you're using animal, would I focus, do you have it set to start off with a single focus point that you can put on whichever subject you want or is it just,

00:43:19               no, it was selected, you know, I didn't think I could find that one. I thought I tried and it looked like it was like basically autofocus what the animal, why? Yeah. So that was one thing that I changed really early on with the camera. So I think generally it comes standard waste. When you put it into the animal auto focus or the face detection,

00:43:37               it will just choose whatever it thinks in the sense that it wants to focus on. So if you've got multiple subjects, it's like, Ooh, which one is it going to choose? What you can do. There is a setting that maybe we can put in the notes or something like that. They actually set it to start off with a single focus point that you can place wherever you wanted in the scene.

00:43:53               And then you put that focus points start focusing and it animal like, or face detection focus is starting on that point. So subjects, you can put the little square on that and then take a few shots on that. And then you can either move that focus point over or just reframe and then put that point on the other subject in there. Yep.

00:44:18               Okay. So that's, that's a really good way of, it's kind of a best of both worlds sort of thing. Yeah. I'd have to test that out. So it gives you more control, so you can still be controlled enthusiast, but it also has The benefits of that animal order focus as well, which is really cool. Yeah. Do you still have that set on back button focus?

00:44:40               Yeah, I find, I find it just, it's more intuitive to me and I've been using that button focus for so long. It just makes sense to me to just have, use my thumb for the focus and my finger for taking it further. I did play around with it because I thought switching to using animal auto focus. Most of the time there isn't really a lot of advantage in using background and focus.

00:45:03               So not the same advantage than if you were using having, moving that point around and having to recompose and stuff like that. So I don't, I think it just, just totally boils down to personal preference and what you're used to and what makes sense from like a dexterity point. I guess if you think isn't a muscle memory and stuff like that, I think you're using backbone and focus before you like me.

00:45:25               You probably might decide to just keep on using it. If you've never used back button focus, then there's probably no reason to start using it because it works pretty much exactly the same. I've found. One thing that I love back button focus for is if I'm taking a picture of a dog and the owner is holding them and I'm going to want to take like a back plate of the image.

00:45:44               So I take the picture of the dog, the owner, but I want to take just an image to like basically paint the owner out. I love having the back button focus for that because then they can get out of the way and I just hit the shutter again. And if I had that focus point attached to the shutter, of course, it's going to focus that on the background cause there's no subject left in the image anymore.

00:46:07               And then, you know, you don't have that shallow depth of field to bring them together. So yeah, I like back button focus forever and ever. Amen. Nice. Yeah. Then I, some people who, instead of using the back button focus as back button focus, they have it set up to stop focus or loss. So it's kind of like a reverse it switches.

00:46:29               So you can still use the shutter button for focus and taking the photo. And if you want to lock the focus and not have it refocused, when you go to take the picture, you can use that same back button to stop it focusing. Nice. I never thought about that Different ways you can set it up, I guess, depending on what makes sense to you and stuff.

00:46:49               See, that's the thing like there's no right and way right. And wrong way to do things. I think, especially because cameras is so customizable now. I mean, whatever you can think up, you can pretty much do because you can customize thing. So yeah, really good to keep that in mind, especially with the really new cameras, they're just so customizable.

00:47:07               It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, no, let's see some of the things I can remember off the top of my head that I customized is I always hold it and I'm like, okay, which button makes the most sense for my thumb? I've got on hands. So, you know, some people might want one closer, but I need one over a little bit because otherwise I'm like barely holding onto the camera.

00:47:27               So What's that? What did you call your hands? Him hands. Hands. Okay. My husband and I have the same size wedding ring and I'm my brother's is actually smaller and he's like 16. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. And my rings, like you could give me a million dollars right now and tell me to get my wedding rings off my finger without dipping my hand and a whole bunch of ice.

00:47:52               And like then putting soap on my finger and I couldn't do it. There's no chance. Oh my goodness. So you basically have no problem reaching buttons, but you want to just select the most comfortable button for your hair, for your finger. Yup. So yeah, so I, I did that and I figured out which button to focus on. And then it's so funny because it becomes such a just muscle memory of shooting.

00:48:18               Like someone always asks me, which button do you press for this? I'm like, I don't know. Let me hold your camera. Okay. This one Really You've made me look at my camera and tell me which button I push without holding. It. I'd be like, it might be that one or that one. But the other custom thing I did was I took off the cause to move the focus point around.

00:48:42               You had to press a button first and then move it. So I moved, it changed it. So if I just moved that joystick, then I can just move my vocal point without having to press anything first. Cause I've got my focal lot. Yeah, That's true. Oh, I actually do you know something else and funny story. So sorry.

00:48:57               This is turning into a, quite a long thing, but people love it. Oh good. It's all good. The one of me and Kaylee was the longest so far, which is I can imagine. Yeah, that totally makes sense to me anyway. Yeah. So funny story. The first, one of the first shoots that I did with the RFI,

00:49:15               I do, I shoot the dogs for a calender for a rescue organization every year I've been doing it for like the last seven years or something. And basically we just do an afternoon of shoots and there's like four dogs that turn up. So it was the last and I, of course I always make sure it ends up right on sunset. We're at the seat side,

00:49:34               it was beautiful Twilight, those beautiful colors in the sky. And it had this dog who had previously been crazy and running around all over the place, just went for this massive swim to the point where he thought he, he, we thought he might not even come back to shore. Like he would, he was gone. He was gone. Anyway,

00:49:49               he came back. He was exhausted, which was awesome because it meant he stayed in the one place for more than two seconds. He was sitting there on the stand beautiful Twilight. There was a jetty and I was trying to get this photo. And I'm like, where the hell has my focus point gone? Like I was trying to focus. I was trying to see where the focus point was.

00:50:09               And the problem was is when you're looking at the LCD screen on the back, or even when you're looking through the V Fonda, there's so many little icons all around the edges of the screen and this focus point was sitting directly over. I led her on an icon to make it. And the forks won't actually look like part of the icon. Right.

00:50:30               I didn't see it there. And I'm like, my focus point is vanished. I was turning the camera on and off. I was like, that's it it's broken. There's something wrong with it. It's broken. I can't get this final shot that I really wanted. I was like devastated. Anyway. So I had an assistant in there who was actually a good photographer friend of mine.

00:50:44               And she, she uses a Sony mirrorless cameras, Canon, and she came over and she's like, you showed that study just there. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's where it is. Anyway, I moved it down. I'm like, Oh my gosh, my focus point it's back. Yes. I legit Lost my focus point because it got,

00:51:01               you know, wide over in the corner on the edge. Anyway, I decided that I needed a quick way of getting this focus point back to the middle. And I did my research and looked in the advanced manual. And I found out that if you press that, so this was something that wasn't on the one DX, you couldn't actually click that little toggle on the backseat,

00:51:22               but on the off five you can. And what it does is sentence the focus point back into the middle point, if it goes off onto one side and it's like, and because the focus points have such tiny little increments, right. Actually it's quite a few clicks to get it back into the middle if it's on the edges. So I found out that by pressing this little toggle right in the middle bang centers,

00:51:44               the focus 0.0, good to know, mind blowing. It was amazing. Yeah. I love it. That's one of the fun, little tricks that a yeah. You like her, you know, getting a little stressed out at the session at the moment and you're like, Oh, well, there it is. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:01               Yeah. So what have for moving from like DSLR to mirrorless? What have been some of the, I, I, that challenging per se, but just, you know, some of the things that took a little bit more getting used to it, cause it is a sweat, even staying in the cannon system. There were still little things that just took me a little getting used to with making the switch.

00:52:20               Definitely. I think one of the biggest things that I've been trying to get used to incorporate into the way that I shoot is the flippy screen. So I haven't had a camera. That's had a flip out screen other than the food you, I guess, which was quite good. Yeah. And so I really loved the idea of, you know, as you get older,

00:52:37               your niece, that playing up a little bit and so you don't want to be on the ground all the time. So one of the big advantages that I thought would be the flip out screen, because you can hold the camera right down on the ground. And I have loved playing around with that and starting to incorporate that into my shooting. But I found the challenging thing with that.

00:52:58               If you're shooting the dog and the dog was quite close to the camera, so it's fine. If you're in a distance and you zoomed in quite a long way, but the line of sight is generally towards your face. And if the camera's down on the ground and you'll faces, you know, off the ground, it actually the dog isn't looking at the camera,

00:53:18               the dog is looking at you was actually looking up, Right? So you have to be really careful to make that their line of sight is following something that's on the ground. So you definitely need to lower their gaze down. And I found it, especially with my dogs and I didn't realize before how much they look at my face, I hold the camera up to my face.

00:53:39               They're still looking at my face, which makes it look like they're looking at the camera. As soon as I type away, they're still looking at my face. So I had to work really hard to either stick my face down there anyway, which kind of defeats the point of the camera down, or actually make sure that they're looking at something else. So you're looking at a treat or looking at a toy or a crunchy leaf or a stick or something that I then also hold down at camera levels.

00:54:04               So they're looking at the camera. They're not looking up. Cause I have so many photos when I was playing around with my own dogs. When I first got the camera of them looking up because I'm holding the camera down. One of the biggest things that is both, it's both an advantage. So it's a good thing. And also something that I had to really tweak to get working for me.

00:54:23               But now that I have tweaked it and it's, it's, it's amazing. It's probably the, one of the biggest things that I lack about, about having a new outfit. I started playing with using the flip out screen for shooting blind for like the dog walking towards me and like me walking and shooting backwards so much easier. And I, I was playing a little bit too of just,

00:54:43               you know, testing the, the automatic, like animal. I focus for that or like hitting the screen. Cause you know, you can touch the screen to say, I want my focus here. And I found that the animal eye tracking was working easier for me. At least some people might find it easier to tap the screen, but moving and holding and there was too much going on.

00:55:02               But yeah, so that's worked out fairly well and been pretty fun to play with. I would say the biggest challenge, not challenge getting used to the biggest change for me switching was that since it's set electronic viewfinder, like, it feels weird. You know, when you look through you see your exposure, number one, but then also like you look through and it's when you move it,

00:55:29               it just takes a minute for the, the, you know, like the world to re to regroup. Cause there's, you know, it's like when you're an led light and you're like, moving your hands, you're like, there's a tracer. So it's like, you're looking at it, you're moving over and your camera. And you're like, Whoa,

00:55:42               what's going on? Because you're used to seeing like the actual light moving from a mirror, like a normal view. Yeah. An actual view of it to like of a reconstructed perceive you have it. And it's just a funny little, tiny, little bit different. Yeah. Yeah. So it was just weird, you know, still works. One of those weird little things,

00:56:00               you're like, Oh, this is a little odd. I do. However, loves the fact that you get an actual preview of the exposure through the viewfinder or on the back of the camera as you're shooting, it's such a good way. I mean, I've been shooting in manual forever. Right. And so I'm very used to having to change my exposure settings when the light changes or whatever,

00:56:19               but being able to actually see that happening through the viewfinder. That was the thing that I really, really love Agreed because I have been guilty on more than one occasion. Even recently, like a random session, you go from one area and then you go to a new area and like the dog's doing something cute and you start shooting. You're like, Oh the lights totally different here.

00:56:37               And I totally forgot to change my settings. And I didn't notice because you're looking at them through the viewfinder. That's just the mirror. You're seeing normal light. Yeah. But you're like, Oh look, it's a little dark or you're totally overexposed here. Oh right. I need to change because Yeah. Actually two people who like at the beginning stages of shooting in manual,

00:57:00               that would be amazing. That would be such an amazing feature to have in a camera because it really, really helps you, especially when you need the reminder to change your exposure when you move into different lighting. So yeah, probably a good thing. Just backtracking a little bit. We were talking about using the animal autofocus in different situations. And you said that you would prefer to use sometimes just prefer to use that single point.

00:57:21               Cause it gives you a bit more control, but you love shooting action with animal auto-focus. So I just wanted to share my experiences with that as well. So I've done about, I think I've done like five or six clients shoots with the<inaudible> now. And a couple of days shoots up shock wide, a lot of action at the beach, which is awesome.

00:57:41               Fun. And I love doing it. It's like my favorite place to shoot action. I did find, and I think I have a theory and I can't find anything concrete on it, but I have a theory that the animal or the focus actually works by detecting catch lights in eyes, the eye autofocus anyway, cause it does recognize the general shape of the animal and it recognizes a face in a head.

00:58:03               But when that subject is closer, it then switches to recognizing actual eyes. And I think it looks for catch lights. And the reason I think this is because one shoot that I had was with a black dog at the beach and it was in the water. It was quite wet. It was a very shiny black dog. It was full sun. It's very high lot.

00:58:22               And I found that the animal order focus didn't work quite so well on this dog when I was shooting it in full sun when it was wet. Yeah. I think it was looking for catch slots And then the whole scenes cut flights between the water and the fur and the, Oh my God, Exactly what black dog just looks like a whole bunch of cash slides.

00:58:42               So I was getting lot more misfocused interestingly enough, when I turned around and shot in the other direction and shot with backlot obviously the front of the dokie shooting with backlog is just like lit by ambient light, which is the shade, which is a much less, a lot, which is a lower contrast light. So it wasn't all these bright highlights over the front of the dog and the catch lights,

00:59:04               I think stood out more to the camera and the camera actually had a higher percentage of keepers and a high percentage of in focus shots when I was shooting with backlot, which is interesting because that's something that's the opposite of what I would expect. My one DX, right. One DX was bam. Absolutely perfect. With a single point, focus, shooting a full sun subjects.

00:59:26               There's lots of contrast. It looks onto it, whereas backlot is a little bit more challenging for that. But yeah, with the<inaudible> with the, with the animal auto focus, it was switched. So it had a lot of people shooting with backlog because the catch lights in the eyes, I think were clearer. I haven't found any actual evidence or technical information online that supports this.

00:59:48               This is just my own, but I'm, I'm pretty confident. This is, this is actually true. Sorry, in, in situations where you're photographing a really high contrast subject, especially if it's like a wet dog, for example, especially a dark colored wet dog, you may be better switching to a single point focus and just make sure you keep that focus point on the eyes on the face and not letting the camera try and detect to text the eyes or detect the face.

01:00:17               But yeah. Anyway, this is a little hot too. And, and what are the signs that it's missing? It's just, you're getting some out of focus or it's just searching, like it's going back and forth. Your lens is like, Oh, here or there as such. It's just so say you're shooting in our Quincy action sequence at 12 frames a second and you've held the shot like a couple of seconds and you've got like 20,

01:00:38               30 shots or whatever. Now, instead of each shot, as the dog moves towards your runs towards you being pretty well perfectly in focus, you will get like eyes in focus, eyes in focus, chest in focus, chest in focus, eyes in focus. So it's, so it's moving back and forth from all the, like all the shoots it's moving sometimes to different spots on the dog.

01:01:03               Yeah. It's almost like a, can't decide where the eyes are. And so looking for the eyes, it's still keeping, like I found that what I did was actually just increased the depth of field. So instead of repeating it at 2.8, I switched it to F four and it was genuinely enough to account for that slightly missed focus. And so I didn't,

01:01:23               you know, I wasn't having to like throw a bunch of shots away in that case when I increase it up the field. But yeah, the first time that I did it, I definitely noticed it was really inconsistent instead of keeping the eyes in focus the whole time, it would kind of, I guess, search a little bit back and forth. So it's,

01:01:40               it's something I'm still definitely experimenting with and playing around with the other situation. I find that the order for the eye detection or focus struggles with a little is when you're shooting with a very shallow depth of field and the subjects faces pretty much filling the frame. So they shoot my 50 mil at F 1.2, which is a super shallow slash but depth of field that focuses even slightly off.

01:02:04               You notice it. So, I mean, it can be to the point where like the, the eyelash is in focus, eye ball, isn't in focus. So it's, it's that it's not forgiving it, all of this focus. And I found that the, the eye focus is not quite as good as it can be is if you just use that single point of focus when they're kind of filling the frame when you like the whole dog is in the frame or when they're in the distance a little bit.

01:02:30               It's absolutely perfect. Bang on always gets the eyes in focus. It's amazing. But up, super close like that with a shallow depth of field, you do notice a little bit of not quite perfect focus. So yeah, they're probably the two situations I would watch out for because any system isn't perfect, right? Like it's never perfect. And, and you know that because they're always bringing out updates,

01:02:51               firmware updates and things like that, which is kind of an admission that like, okay, maybe it wasn't perfect before, but awesome. Oh my gosh, this has been a wealth of knowledge on all things gear and shooting. And I hope you guys have enjoyed, you know, our little, a little peak into the adventures of Nicole and Charlotte shooting misadventures sometimes.

01:03:21               But yeah, thanks again for being with us and Charlotte, you know, of course they could find you in the hair of the dog podcast community and then the hair of the dog Academy and elevate, but where else can they find you again, just in case people want to learn more from you as well? Cool. So obviously I've got like my pet photography business website,

01:03:38               so that's just Charlotte raves.com.edu. And I've also got my learning website, which is learn pet photography.com. So you can just go there. Everything is, everything is there for you. I've got free daily tips series that you can sign up for and you get a, a new email every day with a pet photography tip for 90 days. So that's a really good way to turn a dip your toe into the water of pep Sophie,

01:04:04               the ocean photography. I love it. I love it. You start off in a stream and by the end we're like, Oh, I'm going for a swim in the ocean. This is awesome. That's it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So awesome. Yeah. Nice. Thanks again for being here with us Charlotte and everybody else. I will see you guys next week.

01:04:24               Have a good one and talk to you later. Bye everybody. Thanks, bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss our upcoming episode. One last thing. If you are ready to dive into more resources,

01:04:59               head over to our [email protected]. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.