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The Billy Newman Photo Podcast blends real-world outdoor adventure, technical insight, and practical photography tips.

[Music] Hello and thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Billy Newman Photo Podcast. I appreciate you guys tuning into these echo audio files that I’m putting out there and it’s kind of interesting putting out some content for the echo devices. I really appreciate it. I like audio editing and rendering stuff and I’ve been doing a lot of that. I’m trying to do more of it on a Mac Pro and the Mac Pro right now is one of the Mac attached computers that has come out years ago. Really, it’s still quite expensive and it’s really servicing what I need out of it quite well and I’m happy about that because the price has gone down a bit. But if you buy it straight from Apple, it’s still really quite expensive. The computer of the Mac Pro, I think came out in 2013 and computer years, 2013 to 2018, is really nearly ancient. But kind of my lucky start is I just got a Mac Pro. I think it’s still priced around $2,000 to purchase even a used one, which originally I guess spec’d out as it was would have been around $4,000 or $5,000. So you’re still getting $2,000 worth of computing out of it. I suppose. I hope, I think maybe in some cases the iMac, when it’s more fully spec’d out, the more modern like 2017 iMac, I think was outspecking some of the things that the Mac Pro was doing. But really with the, I think the Xeon processor and the graphics cards that you’re working with, at least on the Mac and Touch Side, that’s really one of your only options to work with higher level graphics cards and higher level. Well, I think your only option to work with the Xeon processor. But it’s been really interesting trying to do some professional rendering and editing. What I’m trying to go through right now and do is, is I have a ton of .mov files, 10 of .mkvm4vmks files. I don’t know. Also, AVI files, all these different file formats, these MPaG containers that I don’t really understand that came with that with some other version or some raw file from a camera, something like that. But that’s all to say that these are pretty big video files that are maybe sometimes uncompressed or compressed poorly or maybe not compressed to a version of something that is useful for me to use and definitely not 10 years, 20 years down the line. So what I’m going to try and do is work with some program, maybe handbrake, maybe final cut, maybe I’ll go crazy and use a terminal program called ffmpag. We’ll talk more about that later. But I want to try and go through and take all of these video files and convert them over to an MP4, like some more standard high-def MP4 that’s correct for that type of video that it is. And I want to try and get rid of all these 3GP video files from a cell phone. I want to convert all that video out to some more native MPaG format. And so I’m going to try and use one of these programs to do it. But to do that on my laptop, even a pretty modern laptop, it’s quite a bit of rendering to get all those frames out in HD. And so what I’m going to try and do is crunch all of that stuff out by using this Mac Pro. And I hope that I can save a lot of time by trying to render it all out through there. I saved a ton of time rendering out video while I was trying to stitch together my 360 video. Oh my gosh, it was enormously slow on my Mac laptop. And really it blew through it with consuming quite a bit of time. It still took me a week to render out all the video. But I was able to do it on this workhorse Mac Pro. So it was kind of cool. It was interesting. Definitely not breaking any ground with thinking about Mac Pro’s. But I’m thinking about the Pro line of computers. Like they have the iMac Pro, which is the fastest, best system for Mac processing in a pro environment right now. And I kind of think about that. But I also think about where they go in with the desktop interface for the professional iMac. You can see more of my work at billyneumonphoto.com. You can check out some of my photo books on Amazon. I think you look up billyneumon under the authors section there and see some of the photo books on film on the desert on surrealism on camping. Some cool stuff over there. Really trying to do a lot of scouting stuff, which I’ve enjoyed too doing some scouting stuff through the summertime. It’s been pretty cool. Where I’m really trying to go through some of these backroads. I’m trying to like mark spots on the map where there’s good campsites, which I hadn’t really done before. There’s a lot of places I’ve driven, a lot of roads I’ve been on. Especially like backcountry roads, two forest service roads, BLM roads. And I know a lot of good dispersed camping areas. And really I understand the context about find those areas so much better now that I’m older than when I was young. I mean when I was young, and I go camping with my dad, you know, would go out to Eastern Oregon, we’d find some spots. And they had known about this spot since he was a kid and he was going over there and hunting camps and stuff with his grandpa. So it’s cool for me to go over to those same spots and get to check out that area and stuff. But I think there’s been, or at least when I was a kid, I didn’t really understand that the land, like the public land rights that you have and really how those are organized, like how public lands are organized and what you can do on them and sort of how it operates. I didn’t really understand the difference between national forest land and BLM land or national park land and state park land or wilderness areas, national wildlife refuge areas. Man, there’s just so many different distinctions of different things. And then also just private property. So I didn’t really have a clear recollection of any of those things. And really a lot of time when it’s public land, you can go on it. But there’s some things you can’t do on it. Like either maybe hunt in some circumstances, like a like a national park or I think you can’t just try to fire on inside a national park. But for specifically permitted events, maybe probably a national wildlife refuges. I think those hunting opportunities are limited also. Though you can’t still do some things in those areas. I think you have to get permitted and you have to draw a tag for that location, I think is what it is. But yeah, it’s kind of interesting sort of learning about that, learning how these things go. And also finally getting some maps that you can use that you can kind of trust better while you’re in the back country. I think that’s something that’s really helped me kind of understand where I can go and what I can do. And I don’t I mean, I’ve had those map books, you know, like that 50 page or 100 page book of Oregon and you know every page is a 25 mile map of that area. It’s always super useful how they kind of grid out everything and show you that, you know, the mile by mile marking and the topography of the area, the different little roads and stuff. But even those roads, this map maker still got things wrong. I remember too, you know, back in like was it 2004? I think we were out in an area in southern Oregon near the Nevada border. Was it Drew’s reservoir? Somewhere south of Geer Heart Mountain. And I remember we were on some some little some little road. I don’t even know if it was a national forest area. I think it was just is in between private and public lands as it kind of jumps back and forth in those pretty remote areas. All of it is just remote desert and forest and sagebrush and juniper. But some of it goes into like ranch land that’s more managed and some of it cuts back into B.L.M. land. So as this little road sort of meander through it. But I remember being out there and noticing that the map on the page was just totally different than the map or than you know the real world ground truth of where the road went. And I said, oh, wow, yeah, you can’t really trust the maps to show you the information that you want to see when you need it. Other times too, you know, you’ll see like, oh, hey, like it shows there’s a road right here. Good deal. We’ll take that road. Well, you know, it shows it. It’s on the map. So you cut down there, you get on the road and then it’s washed out like crazy or it’s super bumping like and just terrible ride. But it’s the same green roads, the same label, the same marking as the road next to it that was graded and and it’s not paved, right? It’s graded gravel. They put more gravel down. I think it’s what I’m trying to say. They’ve made it an easier going road to to drive on. But then you get those washboard sections out there. I don’t know if you guys have done on that where you’re driving around in the forest, service roads and those gravel roads. And I think it’s a natural process of erosion that occurs that creates these waves in the material. You know, as I think as a rainwater comes down, it sort of naturally over time generates these these little ripples and that’s the washboard effect that you get when you’re driving. That’s also the thing that kind of kicks your car sideways when you’re you’re going a little too fast on a gravel road. That’s what I started doing today. I think I kicked it pretty hard side before it. You know, like it’s it’s pretty loose on the traction and it was starting to tip sideways in my truck and so I slowed down and threw it into four-wheel drive after that and I was able to cruise around out here pretty freely. But yeah, I wanted to talk on this podcast about hanging out in the Fremont National Forest and I just got finished with a huge thunder storm that came through. It just really finished raining a little bit ago. I think when I arrived here today at this meadow it was still a few hours before sunset. So I walked around and kind of went along the perimeter of the meadow and then and then I noticed that you know, I mean it’s cloudy. It’s it’s been kind of cloudy today and there’s been thunderheads that have been building up over the location that I’ve been ever since I kind of came over the past. The cascades have been in like a pretty solid string of of thunderheads that have sort of coalesced into a big mass over the cascades. Some of it here over the the Fremont National Forest whatever mountains these are that I’m in and yeah it seems like this section of eastern Oregon was getting hit with a good thunder a good summer August thunder storm today which was kind of fun to sit through and go through. It was cool. I got rained on pretty hard early when I was driving over and I thought I’d get out here and be a little bit more free of it but it seemed like that storm kind of drifted over this way and there was sort of drifting north from here and and yeah it was a new system but man there was just a bunch of lightning that was coming through and huge cracks of thunder just big deep rumbles I haven’t heard thunder like that in years and years probably you know we’re just kind of stays and like hangs and rolls for 10 seconds 15 seconds it seems like you know you just really count like whoa is can it really still be just cracking and rumbling and rolling and and there was enough activity enough lightning activity that was going on there where you do hear thunder I mean it was almost like 45 minutes there where there was just a crack and a roll of thunder almost continuously like it was it was pretty intense it’s it’s it’s really I think one of the more strong lightning storms have been in in a while but but that sort of how it goes out here when you’re at these higher elevations I think I’m floating around up in the 5100 feet or so above sea level and so it just means I’m up in the mountains where these these thunderstorms get started you know they get there they get there I think that’s where they they’ll kind of coalesce over these big mountain tops and then float over in the hot weather I don’t really understand the weather enough to say I know how the thunderstorm starts it doesn’t start now I’ve just gotten cold enough I’m trying to throw a jacket on and now you got a lift through it I’m really camping it’s been good but I’m gonna be out here for two nights I think is what I’m gonna do and then tomorrow I’ll cruise out and I’ll try and hit some of these forest service roads for a bit drive around do some exploring market couple spots on the map as I’m cruising around I think that’ll be that’ll be a good time but yeah I haven’t been out here before I think I’ve heard of a couple friends that have been out in this area that have done some I think they did a couple scouting ships for a hunting trip that they’re going on in the fall I think this is an area where where one of my friends goes I think they try and draw a tag for not this area I think it’s a drainage over from here but I think I’ve heard about this area a couple times from people talking about it so yeah it’s cool it’s cool spy it was out taking pictures earlier taking some photographs I’ve been working mostly probably for almost a year and a half now I’ve been working a lot with this 17 to 40 millimeter wide angle cannon lens and it’s a pretty inexpensive lens that you can get it like 400 bucks maybe a little less if you’re lucky and you get it on a sail time sometimes in the fall as they’re kind of ramping down toward what Thanksgiving I think you can get some good deals on it but that’s sort of in the the the $400 range I think sometimes maybe it’s more around five or something but I picked it up a couple years ago when I was starting to do some real estate photography or well I was working for Airbnb for a while where they had hired me as a photographer to go into these Airbnb plus listings and get a new set of photographs that was interesting kind of learned about how specific they wanted all those those photographs in this this really specific art style and and you know format of it and that was fine it was interesting to do for a while but what was cool is I picked up that lens to get in and do that work but really after that I’ve been appreciating how much I can do with that wide angle lens and then you know 40 millimeters isn’t way different than 50 millimeters it’s it’s certainly different for the effects of portraits and stuff but what I’m not here doing landscape stuff and I’m trying to take pictures of a lot of this stuff is kind of sketch photos too where I’m sort of going around a midday I’m taking some photos and different things I want some camp photos in my truck and my little cooler setup in the back here and so all that’s been good in addition to that the the astro photography stuff that I can do with it is pretty cool because it drops down to the 17 millimeters it’s an auto focus lens it’s a sealed lens it’s it’s pretty it’s it’s pretty good in most ways and I’ve really noticed over time that I’m not as as absolute of a mandate for me to be shooting at a really wide open f-stop you know from shooting at a wide open aperture almost all my photos early on were at 1.8 or or 2.0 or 2.8 or something and I would drew that really because I was trying to I was really trying to get because I didn’t have very many lenses I was really trying to get as much effect out of that bouquet out of that soft background as I could so I was really trying to lean into that and get some photos with it and I noticed with my camera and equipment at the time that it just it just looked better they just did look better when it was at you know f-1.8 I think I just had that nifty 50 Nikon 50 millimeter for the longest time that’s what I did did my early trips on and did a lot of my portfolio building stuff on that but but I’ve got a different 50 millimeter lens with me now I’ve got it on my film camera in my bag right now which I need to take out to and I’m trying to finish a role of a Ekatar film it’s been on there for a while and I’ve enjoyed shooting it it’s cool it’s a it’s a new Canon camera to me at least I got it used on KTH and spent I don’t know 35 bucks on it 10 bucks to ship it and that takes a weird battery too it’s one of those 90s film cameras and it has this weird almost looks like a battery pack just it’s like two so it’s almost like two double a’s if they were a little fatter that are bonded together in this little plastic pack and then you pop that in there and shoot for a little while I guess and it runs a meter okay so I’m getting by with it but I’ve noticed the film camera stuff it’s it’s fun to have an awesome film camera it’d be cool to have a Leica and all the lenses I wanted but a lot of time with that you know I have the good lenses I have this new or like Canon L glass that I get to shoot through and for film photos and for the variety of the variety of lenses I have I can do telephoto I can do prime I can do really wide angle all with the modern digital Canon lenses that have you know chips in them that read well that meter well that make contact with the or that send information back and forth or at least from the lens to the camera I think that works that works in the autofocus stuff for the digital camera this is this is autofocus so yeah it’s an autofocus digital camera it’s sending information back it’s working yeah that makes sense yeah so it’s it’s cool like that’s something I didn’t really have available to me for a long time you know I think what I’ve probably on this podcast if you go way back in the archives I’m talking a lot about film with a Nikon F4 you know I mean that just had autofocus as of the first camera like 88 to get autofocus period so it’s cool to have that in a more flexible way now but what I remember talking about in the past lot was that I had like limited options with glass a lot of time I didn’t really always have the lenses that I would have preferred and so I’ve kind of made a collection of that now with this Canon stuff I got a Canon camera and so I can throw all those lenses on and have that same flexibility that I have with my digital set but just with this this film body that I get to shoot a roll through so I kind of say the film stuff for when it’s a thing that I want but what I’ve noticed though for a little while is that I miss a lot of those moments and I end up just having the the the normal you know the regular digital camera with me with a bunch of my other gear when I’ve been going out I’ve been trying to to kind of just take the camera with me and then I’ll leave the bigger bag back at the truck so that I’m not really carrying as much stuff with me I’ve also started carrying like when I’m out here in the woods and stuff I’m carrying that binocular harness with me which is kind of cool you can get them in different sizes but it’s sort of if you imagine like a backpack but what they do is they strap onto the front so it’s right on your chest and what you can do is fill is put like a pair of binoculars in there so you can pull them out and then scout around with your binoculars do some glass and then pop them back into your into your harness and then kind of carry on with whatever you want to do but if you leave that empty without the without the binoculars if you have a smaller camera rig probably like a mirrorless or a Sony camera you know like one of those Sony A6000’s man if you were a backpacker you had a Sony A6000 and this this front carry like binocular pack you’d be really sad that would be like all the camera bag that you’d need in fact really if I’m thinking about ever doing some like over you know some longer backpacking travel where I just have to pack everything in and it waits gonna be something that more conscious of then I think that’s really like the way to go as I’ve kind of been thinking about a little bit is like get a lighter camera or I mean it’d be great to like carry like a 360 camera you know if you’re going up somewhere it doesn’t almost nothing as it is anyway but but if you’re carrying like an SLR or something that you want to try and do some some more controlled photography with and you had something like an A6000 from Sony or an A7 R3 or whatever it is something that size with a lens attached to it you know that could fit in one of these binocular harnesses and carry kind of around on your front and then you see something you would take it pop that open right on your chest pull it right up to your eye it’s got straps on it in the harness pull it right up to your eyes ready to shoot and you can take photos or take photos you know as quick as you want to so it’s kind of a cool process if you’re out hiking a lot for what I’m doing I have my binocular harness but it’s got binoculars in it and I’ve been kind of going around I’ve been trying to do some bird watching stuff while I’m out here in Saqool Hock that was posted up who’s looking at me it’s about all I’ve seen so far Saqqai Odie the other day that was cool I’ll talk about that later though but but so I have those binoculars in there and I’ve been kind of going out on these these shorter hikes and stuff that I’ve been trying to go around and like just kind of watch them or watch the land and kind of keep an eye out but I just have the camera on my longer strap on my side with that 17 to 40 millimeter lens and that’s worked really good and it’s been a pretty flexible kit for me to go around and take a bunch of photographs with so it’s pretty easy pretty lightweight to work with and I can kind of move back and forth between those things strapped around my neck you know it’s not everything just hanging around my neck with a lanyard it’s all kind of put somewhere or packed in somewhere so it’s been kind of cool but it was good going out taking some photos tonight I was trying to get some of the I didn’t get it in lightning in the camera though the lightning stone kind of passed as soon as it was getting really dark enough to do like a long exposure kind of thing where I could like it sort of catch something something sparking otherwise you know you got to you got to beat the lightning bolt with your shutter finger and that’s a pretty tricky task to do I think that’s how they do it you know when you get those you get those like magazine photos back in the day of a powerful lightning bolt striking I don’t know in the center of a road or something like that so that they’d show you know some kind of power lightning bolt but the way that they would do that stuff is I think I think it was like I think it was dark out you know a pretty dark out and so they’d set the camera up for just a cycle of long exposures and then they would just kind of let it ride you know so they’d have a couple seconds to expose the image to whatever you know what work and then they would just kind of have that rolling so that when when a bolt of lightning did strike and it would be captured and you could go through that collection of captured or you know how I say that when a lightning bolt would strike the ground the camera would have already been exposing for a photograph because it’s just cycling the shutter on a four second exposure let’s say something like that and so you know it takes a four second exposure stops processes for a second takes a four second exposure stops processes for a second so I think that’s how they did some of that stuff where they they kind of anticipate all right it’s been a couple minutes let’s take a frame now and then it’s just going to be an event in the future so we don’t know if it’s going to happen or not we’re going to wait for this event in the future when we boom see a lightning bolt and then that light then exposes the sensor or the film and the camera and then you’re left with an image that has that lightning bolt represented in the frame when you’re shooting on a tripod or something like that with like a short cycle long exposure and I thought that was pretty cool but I didn’t really get a chance to get all that stuff set up before the the storm kind of passed me by I did get a lot of cool handheld stuff that was that’s great of the that thunderheads and stuff and really unfortunately just in the location that I met a lot of the and I guess maybe for the better but to that lightning storm didn’t pass right over my head it was still a little ways away so I could see the lightning bolts cracking through the trees kind of the distance more a few that stretched across the sky pretty good too it’s just you know big old you know from east to west it was like you know a big old chunk of a bolt that just crack all the way across the sky it was cool so I got some photos of the thunderheads the sunset the the big field out here it’s cool it’s a nice area but I was also thinking about some of the other stuff that I want to be doing tomorrow so I’m out in the the Fremont National Forest I’m going to be heading I think maybe south from here and I’m going to try and explore a couple areas that are still open or I guess it’s all open publicly and this is like one of a pretty large contiguous section of national forest land here and really think that’s a big part of Oregon overall right it’s like 53% public lands school yeah if you look at a map you’ll see the cities and you’ll see like the highways and stuff but if you have the right map it’ll show you where the BLM land is and where the the different national forest are and it’s cool this whole area of the northwest is just there’s a lot of public land that you get to use and there’s a lot of open area that you get to go to and and yeah now that I’ve got a good map of the outdoor off-road roads and some of the terrain and stuff with some good notes and I’m able to kind of move around and get out to a lot more places than I had before so it’s been cool the app that I’m using is the OnX Off-Road app it’s I think 29 99 a year and so I pitched that out picked up this app and then you can download offline these these really detailed off-road maps that are supposed to show you all the trails you know even just walking trails all the roads all of the like the pieces of information you’d need for it kind of moving around in the backcountry and and really as surprising as it is as remote as a lot of these places are people go here you know it’s it’s also publicly in this managed by the the forest department forest forest service yeah I think a lot of the stuff is managed by the forest service the BLM stuff is managed by the BLM but that’s why these roads are as good as they are or maintained or that’s why like when trees are downed on these mountain roads you know someone has to go through at the beginning of the year and cut all those out rip them out fill in the potholes all that sort of stuff so all these areas are are known about and you know kind of managed and a pretty significant way in fact I think more so to come in the future I think they just have announced yesterday or the day before that they’ve passed the Great American Outdoors Act which I really don’t know the first thing about or or what it does or doesn’t do or what it puts in or leaves out but I think part of my understanding is that it’s supposed to change some of the funding mechanisms that go into supporting the maintenance of these public lands that are out here across the country but really significantly out here in the West in states so it’s it’s pretty cool I think before that it was like well we should spend you know X amount of money but there’s a more important place for that money to go so it wasn’t like a guaranteed amount sort of what I understand so if I understand it correctly there’s like I think they said three billion dollars a year of mandated funding for projects I think here in the backcountry BLM Land Forest Service Land and like National Wildlife Refugees and stuff so pretty cool but yeah I think that’s gonna well maybe we’ll see a change in that I think it’s supposed to better fund the operations of BLM and Forest Service people as they’re going through and trying to get these areas ready for for the public to be using more regularly so it’s cool I think it’ll meet a lot over the next few years or we’ll see how it kind of transforms some of the way that these these areas are managed I think maybe it’s more for you know I probably shouldn’t even speculate I’m not sure at all but it’s pretty cool I’m excited about being out here and doing some camp and stuff dealing with this thunderstorm I think it’s one of those things where by the morning you know it’s gonna be or at least well I was looking at the weather it should be mostly cloudy partly cloudy mostly sunny tomorrow for a while so I think that’s pretty cool I’m excited to be hanging out doing some camp and stuff doing some podcasting I’m in the back of my truck right now like I was saying it was raining earlier after this thunderstorm so I got that canopy on my truck and I’m nice and dry nice and warm it kind of feels like I’m I’m just inside somewhere so it’s it’s a cool cool rig having the four-wheel drive having the canopy on the back having your stuff and your sleeping area just kind of set up back there and I’m ready to go so I’ve been having a good time being out here and I don’t know it’s been pretty good pretty good trip so far so I appreciate you guys checking out this podcast from me I’m gonna do a couple more podcasts while I’m out here on this camping trip and I’ll try and try and set up a little backlog of them on my website I think it’ll be a good idea now I kind of take big breaks and stuff from it I’m sure no one no one keeps listening when it is there but hey if you listen to this end of the podcast shoot me an email time for the plugs it’s Billy Newman photo dot com if you want to check out my website see some of my photographs check out the more podcast that I’ve done or books that I’ve tried to put together which is maybe what I’m gonna try and do out here too or try and get some photographs right in a good book you can check out more information at billy newmanphoto.com you can go to billy newmanphoto.com/support if you want to help me out and participate in the value for value model that we’re running this podcast with if you receive some value out of some of the stuff that I was talking about you’re welcome to help me out and send some value my way through the portal at billy newmanphoto.com/support you can also find more information there about patreon and the way that I use it if you’re interested or if you’re more comfortable using patreon that’s patreon.com/billynewmanphoto and I’m happy with the a7 are so far in fact I’ve been looking at trying to pick up a battery grip for it you know I did a wedding this weekend which is great um shooting a wedding and those are those are really fun events to go through and the a7 are did a pretty good job in almost every capacity I love the low light of it the way the sensor works is really great super high quality all of those things they fit the mark for what for what I need but it was interesting I was noticing that in low light the autofocus for that camera it really doesn’t function in a way that I need it to or I’m missing some stuff that I really want and that’s where I see the real benefit and in some of the older systems I mean even like contrast base autofocus systems that were in the Nikon or Canon systems for the last like 15 or 20 years are really superior to what I’m seeing in some of the expression of what the early Sony autofocus stuff can do you know it’s like in focus right you’re looking at a frame it’s in focus your autofocus point is on the thing it’s a contrast point there’s plenty of light on it you go to autofocus and then your lens just spins out and it does nothing for like four seconds just spins out to infinity you see just blurring this you lose the moment completely it comes kind of back in maybe it finally grabs focus and then you take the picture but you kind of miss everything you just I don’t know like there’s a lot of times where you’re waiting for the camera to focus but really should just be like pull up to your eye it sees focus you hit it grab it click it go I’m having a harder time with that than what I thought I might and I think some of that could be because of the the lack of the phase detection autofocus system that like the newer a7r two has or the a7 2 a7s 2 a not or a 9 right yeah that’s a sunny one and like a lot of the new can in cameras they have this phase detection system is supposed to be some better multiplexing system of finding autofocus but there used to be systems that worked pretty good like my D3 at 53 autofocus points and it can pull up I think it I don’t know something like that but you know I had plenty autofocus points and it could grab your autofocus point even in pretty low light it could kind of get oh that’s at infinity or oh that’s pretty close to right next to you so stay there and so it’s interesting kind of learning how that behaves but overall the photos from the wedding came out really well a lot of the stuff worked out very nicely I’ve been really happy with it but another thing that I noticed is with running was running a camera as a device like more like an iPad or like what more like your phone you know where it’s got it’s got some screen on a lot of the time it’s got processing stuff going on it’s moving gigabytes a gigabytes of data to a card it’s just drawing from the battery almost constantly I mean like during a wedding I guess to kind of think of power consumption like this I wrote 48 gigabytes of data to SD cards and so that’s going to take some amount of battery energy you know stored energy to write all that data to a card and so in that capacity I kind of do get that it would take a good bit of power to write that much information down to capture it and then write that much information if you think about everything that has to do so in that way and then run a screen and you know run the processing and run it visually and all that so I kind of forgive it in a capacity but what I noticed though is that I really did go through a couple batteries shooting and just sort of a regular fashion at this wedding for most of the day it was like a full day shooting but it but it really was burning through those batteries pretty quickly like you look at it you’re like oh whoa I just I just use like 10% in a pretty short amount of time and so with that I was kind of thinking and as it’s been the plan for a long time for just I don’t know kind of like a best use case for professionalism what I really want to do is get the battery grip that goes in accompaniment with the A7R and the battery grip I think it’s a you know it’s like a Sony piece that fits I have ever seen a battery grip before but you know the one where you can throw the two the two camera batteries into the battery grip you can get an extended amount of life from your camera that way and you get like the portraits or what is it like the vertical shutter release you know so you can flip your camera up and shoot in portrait mode and yeah I like the size of it the look of it it’ll be an awesome kind of compact professional what is it not S.O.L.I. I keep wanting to say professional S.O.L.I. but an interlant interchangeable lens camera and an interchangeable lens camera that’s rolling right off my tongue isn’t it so yeah it’s gonna be interesting I want to go for the for the battery grip though I think that could kind of solve some of the problems that I’m having with battery usage issues of the camera kind of coming up dead after after two or three hours or whatever it is so I don’t know I’ve heard I’ve heard a plenty of other people in relationship to wedding photography kind of complain or grouse a little bit about some of the features that are associated or some of the things that make the workflow of wedding work of a wedding shoot go by a little bit more difficulty with with a featured camera like the A7R but I’ve heard people that are really into it too so you know it seems like it seems like a couple different things but low light autofocus definitely an issue on that camera I can definitely tell that there’s some stuff that doesn’t do now so with that and with the concept of like what I really like to shoot or you know like kind of still moving things or the landscapes low light fine art stuff if I try to get into that more I wouldn’t really run into that some kind of problem with as much repetition because you know you’re not shooting a high volume of frames you’re not shooting an event based situation so it’s kind of a different sort of scenario and you don’t really seem to you’re wanting to manual focus and take time and take multiple frames of the same thing and some of those some of those more set up fine art situations or landscape situations like you’re trying to take your time in those whereas in with event wedding photography that kind of process it’s just it’s really fast you’re trying to move different moving elements into different places and get photographs of them and you’re just doing a lot all at one time over a short amount of you know length of the amount of time of the you know the event so bad enough is all right I did a great how to great time at the wedding how about you know salvage people how about your food got about your great photos brought home started processing them that’s a really interesting part of you know going through like a big batch of photos and I’ve got kind of used to that over the time of getting through a big batch of photos but it is always sort of overwhelming when you’re like wow that’s a lot that’s like a whole big data project I got to go through now like I don’t realize like how much it was it really takes to get through a bunch of stuff when you finish it thanks a lot for checking out this episode of the Billy Newman photo podcast hope you guys check out some stuff on Billy Newman photo dot com few new things up there some stuff on the homepage some good links to other other outbound sources some links to books some links to some podcasts links to some blog posts all pretty cool yeah check it out at Billy Newman a photo dot com thanks a lot for listening to this episode and the podcast like you next time [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]