Shooting with the Sony A7R II and the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM

I picked up the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM lens today to complete the Sony setup.  I have the Sony a7R II body which has the 42.4 megapixel sensor.  I really didn't get to test it out today as the conditions weren't right.  High winds and hardly any light.

I have to say I am impressed with the Sony a7R II body and the 24-240MM lens combination.  The files sizes coming out the camera are spectacularly huge.  I am shooting uncompressed RAW files.  They are coming out at roughly 85.6 megabytes.  Those are huge files.  The dynamic range is just amazing.  I can hand hold the camera at 1/5 of a second and the pictures are tact sharp.  The colour science is just as good as any other camera brand although I find Canon's colour science just a tad ahead of Sony although I think Sony is catching up quickly.

I have to knock the image back a bit in jpeg format to 99% quality to get it just under 25 megabytes.  At 100% resolution, the JPEG file is about 42 megabytes in size.  

Tomorrow (March 14, 2020) is supposed to be nice and sunny with a high of 2 degrees Celsius.  I think a trip to either Algonquin Park or Parc Omega is due.  The only reason I want to go to Parc Omega is to go do some photography and got some fresh maple syrup right out of the trees.

I think I will have to take 2 128GB SD cards with me tomorrow.  I have to learn not to spray and pray  with the photography.  The early 2013 MacBook Pro can edit the photos easily.  I'm going to test editing the photos on my Windows 10 machine as well along with the 2018 Apple iPad Pro.

Another walk around the hill

Another nice day and another nice walk around Canada's Parliament Hill.  Photography seems to be the only thing that brings me joy.  Not just lately, but the last 5-6 years.  Considering I went through a battle with cancer and a divorce, you can imagine I was not in a very good place mentally.  The only thing that kept me going were my camera's.  I felt like I had no support anywhere else.  Everything seemed distant and remote.  Except for my cameras.

Adobe Certified Expert Certification

No photo to go with todays blog post as this is more of a rant rather than anything else.

I've been interested in photography since I could remember.  I finally took some classes in 2010 at Algonquin College and finished the Photography Techniques certificate in 2012 all while working and dealing with cancer at the same time.  Since I beat cancer back in 2012 and cleared this year with my 5 year anniversary, I've been thinking that I honestly don't want to do the whole IT industry thing anymore.  I've been in IT since 2001.  The only certification I have is my CompTia A+ certificate along with my diploma of course. 

Since I got cancer back in 2010, it made me realize what I wanted to do with my life.  In the last 5 years, life has really been a struggle with cancer and dealing with the breakdown of my marriage and inevitable divorce.  Over the past year or two, I've been feeling the need to get out there with my cameras and follow my dreams.  It's not just dreams I think.  It's actually more than just dreams.  Something inside me is telling me to go out there and do my photography as a full time job.  I feel it in my bones.  I'm unhappy with where I am in my life.  Being newly single.  Being not where I want to be financially along with my living condition.

The only thing that ever makes me happy is when I'm out doing photography.  Doesn't matter what sort of photography it is.  One of the things that worry me is the finances of going out on my own just to do photography.  I upload and sell my photography on various micro stock sites but I don't get enough sales there to support myself financially.  I don't know if I want to work for someone else.  I've done it all my life and would like to head out on my own.  Just frighteningly scary is all.

I think by this time next year, I will be somewhere else other than Ottawa.  I want to get my Czech citizenship back so I can be a dual citizen of Canada and the Czech Republic.  One thing that I do know is I need to get my Adobe certification in Photoshop CC.  Currently I use Lightroom CC to edit all my photography.  I just need to do my certification.  I think that will be my goal in the next couple of months.  Get my Adobe certification and get out of Ottawa.  As one of my Photoshop teachers used to say a lot in class: "Who's with me?"

Surfing the waves to catching the night sky

I spent the whole day yesterday (4/23/2016) doing photography.  Woke up really early Saturday morning at 4:30am and didn't get to bed till past midnight after shooting the stars.  We started early at 8:30am to go see some kayakers surfing the waves at Bates Island in Ottawa.  Considering the amount of water rushing on the Ottawa river this spring, I'd say all had a good time.  It was a very chilly morning with just above zero degrees celsius feeling like a negative five celsius.  It actually felt colder with the wind.

This is how I ended my day under the starts till the full moon came out at about 10:30ish.  It was time to pack up and head home.  Got home just past midnight and it was really hard to wake up this morning.  But I'm glad I spent the whole day doing what I love and spending  time with good friends who enjoy the same things as I do.

Yes today is kind of a short blog but it's nice and sunny outside again.  So off for other adventures with the Canon EOS 6D's and the Canon L series lenses.  Have a great day everyone.  :)

Night fall.

I was supposed to meet up a with a fellow photographer friend to do some astrophotography today as we got clear skies and warm weather.  But alas, she had exams and bailed out on me.  Now, I was not going to have a few thousand dollars worth of astronomy and photography equipment with me alone in the middle of no where at night.

So at the last minute, I decided to go down to Nepean Point in downtown Ottawa to do some night photography instead.  I only stayed for about an hour and half since I had to walk back to my car which was a good half hour walk for me lugging 3 camera bodies, 3 lenses and a pretty solid tripod and head.  

In this shot I managed to get the constellation of Orion above the city of Hull, Quebec.  This shot I think worked out pretty well.  Seems I got the exposure right and managed to get a nice sky behind the bridge and city.

All images can be purchased at my website by clicking on the following link.

Night fall over the gulf

So I love shooting wide field landscape shots with my Canon EOS 6D and the Canon EF f2.8 L 16-35MM lens.

If you seriously want to get into photography, buy a decent body like the Canon EOS 80D, the 7D Mark II and buy the L series lenses.  Yes they're expensive but you get what you pay for.  You can see the quality of a good camera, a good lens and a half decent photographer here:  http://goo.gl/cdNR63

Shooting for microstock

Shooting for stock agencies

I shoot mainly nature, wildlife and landscape photography which I sell on my own site and on a few micro stock agencies such as shutterstock.com, fotolia.com, bigstockphoto.com, istockphoto.com.  I also shoot video for shutterstock.com, fotolia.com, videoblocks.com and pond5.com.  I have attached the links below to my portfolios on each site.  For some reason, video is easier to get accepted on each site rather photography.

The equipment I use is pretty standard.  I use two Canon EOS 6D camera bodies with extra battery grips.  With those I use 64GB cards which aren’t all that fast (30MB/s and 400MB/s).  I get up to 4.5 frames in continuous shooting out of this entry level full frame Canon camera.  For lenses I use the Canon f2.8 16-35MM, f2.8 24-70MM, f2.8 70-200MM, f1.8 50MM prime focus, f2.8 100MM Macro prime focus and a Sigma f5.0-6.3 150-500MM.  These are all tact sharp lenses.  I am a huge fan of the 16-35MM and the 70-200MM.  Those two are my two favourite lenses.  I also started doing video with the Canon EOS 6D’s but I found that for wild life videography, I found DSLR cameras to be lacking.  I don’t like the layout and I find that DSLR’s are lacking in video.  So at first I bought the Canon Vixia HFR62 digital camcorder which can shoot up to 1080p at 60fps which is outstanding.  I really love this little camcorder.  It’s really compact and the video that comes out of it is really outstanding.  I also bought a Sony FDR AX33 4k camcorder.  I bought that to future proof myself as 4k is really coming into the mainstream in 2016.  For the Sony FDR-AX33 4k digital camera you will need a faster card.  I currently use a 128GB 633x card.

As far as computer equipment and software goes, you can edit your photos and videos on any decent computer.  Laptop or desktop.  For editing 4k video I’d suggest a computer made in the last 2-3 years.  And I’d go for a desktop to edit your 4k footage just for the screen size and horse power of a desktop over a laptop.  If I’m on the road somewhere and I won’t be near my Apple iMac I can still edit my photography on the go.  I can edit my video as well but I’d shoot with the Canon Vixia HFR62 which shoots 1080p 60fps.  My early 2013 Macbook Pro can’t handle the 4k footage of the Sony FDR-AX33 4k digital camcorder.  Right now shooting 1080p video is still the mainstream thing to shoot with.  Most DSLR’s still shoot 1080p at either 30fps or 60fps.  Some newer camera’s shoot 4k but they have limitations.

As far as video and photo editing software, I run on the Apple platform.  You can use either Apple or a Windows based PC.  There’s plenty of cross platform software to edit video and photography.  For video editing I use Final Cut Pro X 10.2.3 to edit my clips.  For photography, I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC (Creative Cloud).  I hardly use Adobe Photoshop CC but it comes in the Creative Cloud for Photographers package that I subscribe to for $10 a month from Adobe.  You may have a different opinion on Adobe’s subscription based model.  I was using Apple’s Aperture 3 until Apple decided to abandon semi-pro and pro photographers by killing off Aperture and replacing it with Apple Photos which I believe is geared toward iPhone “photographers”.

There are plenty of application you can use to edit your photos and videos that you upload to the various micro stock sites and to your personal website.  Unfortunately you will not get rich by selling your videos and photos but if you work hard and specialize in a niche, you will make some good passive income.  As you build your portfolio on each site, you will see your sales increase.  I think in the past year, I’ve gone one day without making a sale on at least one site that I upload to.  For this reason I am not exclusive with any site.  Some sites, such as Shutterstock and Bigstockphoto do not offer exclusivity.  Fotolia and iStockphoto do offer exclusivity.  Exclusivity is great if you have a high acceptance rate and you sell a lot of photos with that one agency.  Personally, I sell more with more agencies.  If one photo doesn’t get accepted on, let’s say Shutterstock, but gets accepted on Fotolia and sells there, more money for me.

Diversification is key.  Mind you, I shoot mainly wildlife, landscape and nature photography.  I’ve recently entered the videography field as well capturing mainly wildlife, landscape and nature videos.  I’ve been only doing it for maybe three to four months and have made a few sales on the various micro stock agencies.  Depending on if you’re going to shoot in 1080p @ 60fps or at 4k, a fast computer is key.  For 1080p, a reasonably new laptop with an SSD drive and lots of RAM will do.  I work on an early 2013 Macbook Pro using Final Cut Pro X.  If I’m shooting 4k footage, I edit on my late 2015 iMac with a 5k display with 32GB of RAM.  I should upgrade the RAM to 64GB as 4k footage is a resource hog.  Extremely large files do to it being 4k which is 4 times the size of 1080p.

If you asked me when I was going to school for photography if I would end up shooting photography and video footage, I’d call you a crazy loon.  I did not like shooting video footage.  To this day I still hate being “on camera” as they say.  I prefer being behind the camera and camcorder to this day.

There are at least two tiers of micro stock agencies.  Agencies such as Fotolia, Getty Images, Shutterstock, Pond5 are the top tier.  At least for me as far as sales go.  Agencies such as 123RF.com, dreamstime.com and canstockphoto.com are the bottom rung agencies.  You may sell better on the bottom rung agencies but may do better with the top tier agencies.  That being said, it’s difficult to get onto Getty Images, Shutterstock and Fotolia.  I’ve had pretty good success with Shutterstock and Fotolia as far as sales go.  Bigstockphoto and iStockphoto are pretty good and consistent as well.  You will need a larger portfolio on Bigstockphoto and iStockphoto to get consistent sales.  Like I stated earlier, I’ve only started doing video footage so my choice of footage is small.  Pond5 seems to be the place to go to sell your footage.  Currently, there is a huge waiting period for your footage to be curated.  Meaning someone taking a look at your footage and accepting it onto the Pond5 platform.  I’ve also been submitting my footage to videoblocks.com with a small portfolio there as well.

I have been thinking a lot lately about shooting 4k video and 1080p video.  Currently I have only sold 1080p video shot with either my 1080p or 4k camcorder.  Since 99.9999% of the people on the internet still use 1080p monitors or slightly above like the Apple monitors, is shooting 4k video worth it.  One hundred percent of my stock footage is being seen on the internet.  So the question is: Do I or you need a 4k camcorder?  Currently I am thinking the prevailing answer is no.  My current Macbook Pro display is 2880 by 1800 which is better than 1080p.  1080p video appears fine on my display.  Processing 1080p video on my early 2013 Macbook Pro is good.  The laptop does generate some heat when first processing video in Final Cut Pro X but only for a short period of time.  One minute clips are processed quickly and easily.  

So if you know of someone who wants to buy a late 2015 5k iMac upgraded to 32GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive, 2GB video card or a Sony FDR-AX33 4k camcorder, let me know.  We can work out a deal.