The Photography Pod
Nick Church and Steve Vaughan host The Photography Pod, a show for both working professional photographers and enthusiast snappers.
Nick and Steve are professional photographers and educators based in the UK, and welcome you to the world of photography. The show features guest interviews with photographers from all genres of photography as well as technical and gear discussions.
Nick and Steve both use Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras and lenses.
The Photography Pod
Episode 4: Geraint Roberts - Shooting Analogue Film
in this episode Steve and Nick chat to Geraint Roberts, a South Wales based wedding photographer who loves to shoot film at weddings. Geraint discusses his journey in Photography, starting our with a photography based degree at Falmouth University. He also explains why he loves to shoot film at weddings, how he uses this to differentiate himself, and the processes and labs he uses to develop his film stock. For the techy spot, Steve and Nick discuss the pros and cons of always shooting wide aperture lens wide open, and the various raw compression formats now available.
Geraint Roberts : https://www.geraint-roberts.co.uk/
Music by Artlist.io
Mentioned in this episode:
Exposure Film Lab Hereford https://www.exposurefilmlab.com/
Imagex Bicester https://www.imagex.co.uk/
Nick Church and Steve Vaughan are professional wedding photographers based in the UK. They both use Sony Alpha cameras and lenses.
Nick's website : https://www.nickchurchphotography.co.uk/
Nick's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nickchurchphotography/
Steve's website : https://www.samandstevephotography.com/
Steve's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samandstevephotography/
Any technical information given by the presenters is based on their understanding and opinion at the time of recording
you're listening to the photography pod, a show for both working professionals and enthusiast photographers alike.
Speaker 3:And here's your hosts, steve vaughn and nick church hello again and welcome to the photography pod and, and as the jingle said, in fact my wife said this is a photography podcast aimed at both working professionals and enthusiast photographers alike. Thank you to Samantha Vaughan for the jingle. My name's Steve Vaughan and I'm joined here once again with my good mate, nick, nick Church. How you doing, nick? Very well, thanks, steve. How are you? Yeah, a bit knackered, if I can use that phrase.
Speaker 2:That's probably just made the podcast expletive already, but yeah, it's been a busy, a busy few weeks. Yeah, yeah, it always is, isn't it? This time of year? It's just a, it's always a nightmare. It's when the for any wedding photographers around, that's when the, the wedding editing and this and still shooting weddings just sort of collapses into one massive heap of trying to take the same amount so go and tell me.
Speaker 3:You're going to tell me you've edited all your weddings now and you're up to date. Is that right?
Speaker 2:I'm not far off, actually I'm probably. I've got about four, three or four to do, which is pretty good for me. I mean this, this time of year I'm often double figure still. So we're off on a holiday next week, so I kind of want to you know that feeling if you just want to get stuff wrapped up before you go. So I really want to, really want to get stuff wrapped up before you go. So I really want to get that done. Ah, completely, where are you off? To Sicily? Oh, nice, syracuse, yeah, so we're really looking forward to that. Hopefully it'll still be nice and warm.
Speaker 3:Wasn't that something to do with Archimedes in the last Indiana Jones film, which was Pants? Anyway, that's probably another story. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Syracuse. Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah, you're right, time travel and it was in. I think it was one of the James Bond films as well. Okay, but that's all I know about Sicily, apart from the Mount Etna and the Mafia, so hopefully I'll see one of those.
Speaker 3:I've got a mate I play golf with. Actually he comes from Sicily originally. He's like a Sicilian mountain goat. He's about five foot five and climbs up everything. If he's literally a mountain gold. But that's a. That's another story. So my wife's off on holiday next week, but I'm off. She's off to Florida, so we've got a couple of weeks without weddings. And, uh, we've got best friends in the States from when we used to live there and a number of years ago we might work at the time and they've retired to Florida now. So, apart from the flight, we've always got like a free.
Speaker 3:Plenty of booze and food, of course. Um, does that extend to your friends and podcast co-hosts and things like that? Yeah, well, why not? Yeah, uh, see what we can do. Um, it's, it's in, uh, fort myers, so it's it's sort of on the gulf coast, but, uh, I'm not going. I've got to stop and look after her dogs. So, uh, yeah, unfortunately they don't fly very well. No, no, that didn't work out. I'm gonna have a couple of days walking. Actually, I booked a cottage up in Derbyshire for a couple of days and a bit of walking while I've got the weddings.
Speaker 1:Oh, great idea yeah up to me like in mud.
Speaker 3:Is it still raining your way? Because it doesn't stop raining here for what seems like a millennia no, it seems alright at the moment it's the last couple of days.
Speaker 2:It yeah, yeah but I've been in a um rabbit hole of buying and returning earbuds so that's been okay, a fairly hefty chunk of my week. So I had and I it made me think right that I've had these. I've got some sony earbuds, all right, which were 200 quid so they're pretty. You know it's a lot money to drop on them. They went wrong and also my beats flex that I use for the when I'm on my bike as well went wrong in the same week and they're both just outside the warranty period. I just see. You know I don't want people to think they've tuned into like a joe rogan podcast because, to be clear, this is the photography pod with nick church and steve faul and we have more listeners than him as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, and we believe the earth round crucially um but the so. But it made me think, like so, as you know, I used to work in the tv industry. So tv software yeah, and it's kind of a unspoken but well understood thing that there was planned obsolescence in tv. So a lot of tv manufacturers, who I won't name, they don't explicitly put in obsolescence to make the sets go wrong. They can't put any hardware timers or software algorithms which are monitoring time that just stop working after a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2:But when they do things like planning, um, let's say they're choosing a backlight, led backlight for tv. They could choose one that's going to last three or four years or one that's going to last 50 years. Now, clearly they're going to go for the format, because that's how their business keeps going is by people renewing their tv sets. So it does happen and it makes me think, you know it, are these firmware updates. When we're agreeing to firmware updates, is that part of it, um, that you are kind of basically signing up to having your device stop working after a?
Speaker 3:while that's fascinating, yeah, because I mean that sony just did a, an update for their cameras which they had to withdraw. Uh, I noticed, because it was breaking the camera. Uh, I remember fuji film doing that a while ago, when we used to use fuji as well. You, you're far too young to remember this, but uh, way back in the year 2000, uh, everybody was terrified of the millennium bug I remember, remember that, yeah, and the fact that computers were going to spontaneously combust when they got to the year 2000.
Speaker 3:And I was working for a software instrument company at the time and there was a big worry that all the instruments that we made had got this bug built in and a lot of them were being used in things like nuclear power stations and petrochemical sites and things like that. So I got paid triple time to sit in the office on new year's eve to waiting for all these phone calls to come in. Of course we didn't get a single call.
Speaker 2:So, uh, planned obsolescence perhaps isn't necessarily a bad thing yeah, maybe, but it's the same with your like, like, and I was thinking with my, because I needed a new pc at some point. New mac lightroom's getting slower and slower. And why is that what? Why is the same functionality? I can understand why ai features and the higher? You know, stuff that needs more power, like number crunching, is gonna, is gonna be more taxing. Why is the stuff that's just like using the library module, for example? Why is that getting slower and slower as time goes on? That's a really good question, but it wouldn't make, it wouldn't make sense for them to do that. I mean, that's where you would really get into conspiracy, because Adobe wouldn't benefit from poor performance unless there was some collaboration with Intel and Apple, which that definitely is Joe Rogan territory.
Speaker 3:If we're going down that route, let's not go right down this route much further or else we'll be talking about aliens and UFOs, uh, poltergeists and all that kind of stuff, because we've got a guest sitting here. I wonder what the hell he's doing, probably right now. So why don't you introduce our guest this week, nick?
Speaker 2:yeah, our guest this week is um a good pal of mine, um, geraint roberts, and geraint is a wedding photographer based in south w, in Cwmbran, no, in Cardiff, now, right, newport. That makes people think how good a friend is he. But you have just moved, so it's not like I didn't know where you lived. Um, and Geraint, interestingly, went to university with Guy Peterson, who we had on two episodes ago, so that's that's how I met guy through through geraint, um, so geraint and I've worked together um an awful lot of times, both on film and photography, um, and we've had lots of nights in the pub and gone out for meals and um, so get what?
Speaker 2:What is really interesting about geraint is that there's two things. He's very much into analog film, um, so he obviously shoots digital issues, um, you know we'll ask her to talk about this in a moment but has got an interest in film as well. He's also, annoyingly, probably the loveliest man in wedding photography, and you see this because whenever we go to a venue, the venue staff are over the moon that he's arrived, like, oh, get right here. And I think, what about me? I'm here as well, but they don't seem to, they don't seem to have the same reaction. So you must be doing something right, get right. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Would you like to give a bit of a background on on your kind of journey through photography, what you do and that kind of thing? Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:So I started photography when I was quite young really would go down the local skate park on BMX, on my scooter I was absolutely awful at it get falling off. But what I was quite good at was taking photos of the other people and like I was just doing on my phone at the time and one of the guys said to me, oh, you should really, you know, consider getting a camera. So kind of went from there. This was like age 12, 13. I remember selling I had like it must have been brand new at the time the ipad, selling my ipad to buy my first camera, which was a little sony nex 5n. Oh yeah, it still works now as well. But yeah, after that kind of got published really, and that was really like a little break for me.
Speaker 1:Really, when I was quite young, um, in the skate magazine, um, one thing led to another and everyone kind of knew I was passionate about photography and ended up photographing a teacher's wedding when I was in sixth form and it kind of just spiraled from there. Really there's loads and loads of weddings throughout 2016, 17, 18 and 19 and covid. But um, yeah, nick helped me along my journey as well. So I met nick in 2018 I think it was now and that's right. Yeah, yeah, kind of took me under his wing. As such, we learned quite a lot through him as well. Um, and yeah, kind of alongside grew my own business and it's, um, yeah, my full-time job.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's been good and you you did that alongside studying right, so you were down at falmouth university studying marine biology and photography.
Speaker 1:Have I got that right, yeah, pretty much so and so you were.
Speaker 2:You were doing that because you you were in your final or going into your final year, I think, when we first met, but you were still shooting tons of weddings and going. You didn't seem to have any worry about going down to um, cornwall, coming back for a wedding in pembrokeshire, going back the night before the next night. So how did you, how did you manage to juggle those two things?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm not sure I did manage to juggle them actually, um, it was at the time. Really I would take on every single opportunity I could get and I think, looking back now, I'm glad I did as well. Registering to be self-employed when I was in my second year of uni, um, that actually came in really handy during covid because I actually made the grant deadline to be able to get like the size grants and stuff during covid, which was really fortunate, which I only see in retrospect and having you know, building those foundations whilst I was in uni, by the time I graduated I already had like a fairly established business. So, yeah, I think it put me at a good advantage when I left, uh, but yeah, I was up and down the m5 and m4 pretty much every weekend.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I couldn't believe it, my poor car yeah, that poor golf yeah the golf broke after 160,000 miles, so rest in peace what's your um with, with studying at university?
Speaker 2:um, I don't know if you've seen on. On the photography facebook group and the nature Photography Collective one as well, there's been questions around, like someone asking should they study photography at university? It's something that's beneficial. Now, my view is that it doesn't make any difference. Um, however, I think people that have studied photography do have a deeper understanding and have got more, more um knowledge around, more of the tech aspects or the history of photography. How, how would you say what the pros and cons of from your point?
Speaker 1:of view.
Speaker 1:I'd say our course was so niche that it was almost you would end up going into like the BBC wildlife department or you'd work with some kind of wildlife agency or charity. Um, I mean, guy who you interviewed went off on a very documentary approach about you know the ethics of wildlife. Um, I've kind of went on how can I go on a holiday, really, sort of aspect from it. Um, which kind of took me to japan in my third year, my dissertation project, and uh, yeah, that was kind of what I wanted to do with that. Um, I went into uni as well. I just I remember going to the interview and saying to the lecturer I was like I think I'll probably end up doing wedding photography at the end of it, but I really love wildlife like I have.
Speaker 1:I did an a level in biology. I've always been passionate about environmental things, you know. So for me it was a very logical course. Whether it's a general ba course, though, that's a different question, because I think a general ba in photography teaches you more like a fine art background it's. You know, the theory, the history don't go wrong. You still learn fantastic technical skills which I still apply now.
Speaker 1:Um, and it was the the time to create and to experiment with different ideas and use things like the film labs which we had in uni. You know we could develop our own film, we could process it, we had enlargers, scanners. It was a fantastic resource, and that really opened a new avenue for me. Um, whether it's up to you to do a degree now, student loans are a lot higher. Like you do have more money for them, I realized I probably got a better deal when I was in uni, and you can learn a lot more stuff online now as well. If it was the same situation, though, and it was the same fees the same you know I enjoy. I really enjoyed uni. I'd go back and do it all over again, but I don't know that I'd pay the same fees the same, you know I enjoy. I really enjoyed uni.
Speaker 3:I'd go back and do it all over again, but I don't know that I'd pay the current fees yeah, I mean I've got a couple of kids who've been through university and one went, did a second degree as well, so I mean they've all got good jobs, thankfully. But there's that loan that's going to be hanging over them for a long time. Former seems to come up a lot. Actually, it seems to be advertised a lot on like facebook and and threads. Is it somewhere that's particularly focused? If you're putting the pun on there on photography, uh, you know, or is it? Is it just because it was local to where you lived at the time?
Speaker 1:um. So yeah, falmouth is probably one of the uk's best arts unis in terms of it only really offers arts courses and the photography department there was one of their biggest departments and they spent, I literally think, millions on the resources we had. I remember when the sony a9 came out, we had it like within the first week all the latest kit was there. They spent thousands on diving equipment, underwater camera housings, which are very expensive.
Speaker 3:So it's um, yeah, photography department wise, fantastic, really amazing yeah yeah, because I'm a scientist and I and I spent many years selling scientific equipment to universities, amongst other places, so it's a university, I don't know, and I guess that's why really, they need your arts courses. Yeah, that's how you're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah we shared the campus with exeter university.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've done that, but um, yeah, it was a good amalgamation of both students but that's the thing I guess now for someone deciding, making that decision, now that, like when, when I went to university, when steve went to university, your sort of the position you were in grant, where you were thinking, well, I would, I would like to learn. You know, I'm really interested in the things that are being taught at the university. Use the resource. That would almost be a no-brainer, wouldn't it right, steve? Because it wouldn't cost anything. You know, you could carry on doing it. But now, when you're looking at, well, that's going to be like 10 grand a year, you know, intuition fees that's quite, that is quite an investment.
Speaker 3:I aren't they?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, interesting yeah yeah, a lot of their funding, I find, comes from international students as well, because the fees are less regulated. So I think when I was there it was like 9 000 if you're a uk student. There's something like 15 000 if you're at eu or you know another country student which yeah, it's. It's interesting the different kind of what unis are going for funding wise. So interesting.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like there is the. The benefits are there that that you've got access to a network of people that are passionate about photography and you've got resources that you wouldn't have otherwise and techniques and and all those sorts of things that you just wouldn't find otherwise. But in terms of a photographer, that's like they just want to. They want to set up a studio as a career. Then, I would suspect, probably less so. Is that fair? You know less benefit?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it just kind of depends on if you're willing to teach yourself and you're willing to really show up for yourself, learn online, take some good courses and just get out there and experiment and having the time to do that. I'd say, yeah, you don't need a photography degree, but if you, you know, want the social aspect, you need access to some equipment that you couldn't maybe afford normally yourself and and just having the time to put discussions around with people like it's. It's great that I'm still in position to be like be able to talk with you guys and be able to speak about different photography things and ideas that I have. But at the time I didn't know as many people, so it's nice to make friends on my course. Like guy and my friend ty, we'd sit around and talk about. We'd bore people to death with camera talk. I remember one of my housemates. She had like a headache. She was like you've said f this and you know that I don't understand. We talked for hours about random stuff.
Speaker 3:Let's not try and do that to the listener on the podcast but it just helped us grow, so yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:So when we chatted about this interview beforehand, nick and I and um nick said will you talk to uh, to the guest about, about the film side of things, because you, you'll understand because you're much older than me, uh, which is true. Uh, so uh, is that how you get into the films, the film side of things? Because you, you'll understand because you're much older than me, uh, which is true. Uh, so uh, is that how you get into the films, the film side of things? Then, in all seriousness, it was through your degree and being exposed again part of the pun to um, sorry, I didn't mean to do that uh to enlarge yours and developing trays and all that kind of things.
Speaker 1:That way the interest started yeah, um, it was really strange when I was little, um, my parents never bought like a digital camera or anything. They always had a little canon, sure shot. It was like a little point and shoot film camera and since I was little I always remember carrying that around, taking little snaps on it, going to lego land with it. So I've always liked having a little film camera. That's kind of what I was used to.
Speaker 1:And it was only then, as I got, you know, grew up and bought my own camera, um, you know that little sony that I kind of worked with digital then came back to it in uni. So it's, you know, at the time it was great because you didn't have to be fairly developing all the stuff for your charge. I could go out and shoot a roll of film from painland and then have that developed in uni for free and it was great and that really allowed me to like experiment and just, you know, kind of see what I liked and what I didn't. They had really nice film cameras, hassleblads now, yeah, bronicas, just fantastic resources, um, so, yeah, I took the film photography, like I learned the core element of that then over lockdown, when you know I had time to just reflect and sit down on stuff was really when I learned about applying that within wedding photography photographers, especially in the states that use particular film cameras.
Speaker 3:I love a contact six or five and yeah, for me that was a really good experience, kind of sit down, reflect on things and apply it in a business sense so I think we'll explore the techie side of film photography in a bit, because I'm I'm dying to do that, because that's but reminisce yeah, but from a from a business point of view then you know, with you as a wedding photographer, you know, I was at a wedding fair on Sunday and I think there were five wedding photographers there, you know, and every week there's another new wedding photographer, or another 10 wedding photographers. So, from a business and marketing point of view, how does the film side of things impact your business? How does it differentiate you? I guess is is the question. If it, does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I've had people on the inquiry form say that we all, we love the filmic look of your images. Um, it's not so much of a thing that I market as like as a film photographer is that okay but it's more that it influences the, the style of photography that I like to do. You know, at the palette I'm trying to shoot a roll of film at each wedding and then I've almost got like a baseline to know my edit compared to. So right, saves me time in that sense that I know, oh, this is how it looked on film, which is quite like a realistic account of how it looked and then, yeah, yeah, and looking at your work, I can see exactly what you mean in terms of that sort of filmic.
Speaker 3:Look to your editing. Uh, it's something which I love because one of the challenges and certainly with the sonys we all use sony cameras they all look very digital and very sharp and straight out at the hood, don't they? Um so, so when you talk to prospective, prospective customers, if I could say that, um, do you say you know, I'm going to shoot some film at your wedding? Do they ask for that? Do you promote it, or is it just something you do while you're there?
Speaker 1:really, yeah, it's something I do and they always love it when I tell them about it as well. Okay, I've literally got a little film camera in front of me. Of course I do. You know my little pen tax.
Speaker 3:Oh, you bought the new one Okay. So, tax I7 for those listening only Fab, listening only. Yeah, fab, how do you?
Speaker 1:like it, it's okay. I think it's like a really good little camera, but the negatives are really small so you don't get as much detail as a full camera. The flat is particularly good in that though. Like it's okay, it's actually really good for, like, dance floor photos. Gives a really cool effect. But, um, couples have always asked because they've seen like the little winder, like as you wind it up, you know it's like. They've always like, oh, what's that? And they, what's that? Yeah, you're asking questions. So, yeah, it's um, I think it's just been a really fun thing, really. Um, seriously, in the sense that people have like those little fuji instaxs as well at wedding point and shoot some tables, I think, um, you know, film is alive and well in the wedding scene we've got one and we've also got an intertax printer.
Speaker 3:We sometimes take it along to wedding and during the um, the, the dinner, we might print half a dozen pictures off and give them to the couples. I mean, they're only you know, they're not the most sharp or whatever, but they look great. They just love having them around. So and I love when you know they put these disposable cameras on tables, sometimes at weddings. I love it when the kids get hold of it and they take a picture and they can't work out why they can't see the picture on the back of the camera. It's just, it's just brilliant really. So so are you shooting color, black and white negatives? What you're shooting?
Speaker 1:yep, so pretty much all color negative. Um, I bought up some of the last supply of fuji 400h, which is this yeah, it's um my favorite by far, so I'm currently on my last couple of boxes of that, so quite sad, um, but yeah, I've got a few rolls of uh kodak portrait as well. That's like um just experimenting with different ones. When I was in japan picked up a stock that they only sell in japan fuji 100 and that's got really popping greens, really uh film stock. So, yeah, just try and use like a variety of different films. Now, just again, always learning, always experimenting what's the process when you have?
Speaker 2:you get some film stock. You don't know what it's going to look like. How do you have to interact with the lab going to look like? How do you have to interact with the lab? This complete new question you have to interact the lab to try and communicate what you're looking for in the final print yeah, so I use a fantastic lab up in hereford called exposure film lab and yeah, they are.
Speaker 1:Just I'd say there's like a lab in america called richard's film lab and everyone kind of knows that is the the standard in America and I would say Exposure Film Lab are the standard in Europe, if you know, if not the UK, definitely that as well. Um, so they have two scanners called a Frontier and then Ritsu, and between those two scanners they have slightly different color palettes. Um to Matt, the owner of Exposure, he knows how I like my negatives to look, how I like highlight roll off. Uh, skin tones particularly are very important for me. So he kind of knows what I want. And then when I send him a new film I'm like, you know, try and get it towards fuji 400h for me.
Speaker 1:So he's scanning that and would usually go back and forward on both the front end and the niritsu what do you like what and what worked here? Um, so he's scanning that and would usually go back and forward on both the front end and the ritzu what do you like what and what worked here? Um, so that's kind of like how I get an understanding of how a film stock looks for me. Um, also how you expose it is important. So if you give it more light it can take like more of a pastel tone. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily blow the highlights. Like digital would you get just a softer effect. It's a yeah, it's really quite nice. So I try and like exposure ramp, almost so one at like shoot the film at iso 100, iso 200 and so on.
Speaker 3:I was gonna ask do you, do you push process at all? Do you do you ever sort of shoot a film at 400 iso?
Speaker 1:that was meant for 100 iso and things like that so I don't do any pushing because I find that that kind of muddies the it will. Yeah, um, I I've haven't, yeah, I haven't experimented with pushing, I've done pulling on. It was, um, that new one from harman ilford, the phoenix stock. That doesn't. It doesn't do what I want. It doesn't look great that stock at the moment. But yeah, you can kind of rate film at different isos. So say, for example, you've got a 400 speed film but if you shoot it with the same light as a 100 speed film, I much prefer like the characteristics you get slightly less, a really nice roll off from the shadows and highlights.
Speaker 3:It's kind of what I'm going for on the film stock sure, and one of the challenges, of course, that you perhaps forgive me that you might not be aware of this, but you can't sort of change iso mid-roll. You know, if you're going to shoot a film which is at 400 iso, you're going to shoot it 100, then you're going to shoot it the whole roll at 100, otherwise you're going to end up with um, uh, with lots of badly exposed images. Really, they all depend on how you develop the film. After I guess one of the beauties of shooting negative as opposed to transparencies you have got a bit of latitude with the exposure with. From my experience when I used to shoot slides, you know if you're half a stop out you you were you did ruin the image. Basically it was much more unforgiving because you got that second process of printing after the neg you know, which you don't get in transparency film. So did you ever do any, any film work at all, nick? Did you ever develop films or prints or anything?
Speaker 2:as a teen, you know, as a kid, I'd have a little. You know, I had a little camera that parents gave me, um, but it was, yeah, I sent it off to true print or whatever right, and you get get your photos back. But yeah, no, not, not in photography. The first camera I had was a nikon d750, so that was right my age now because my daughter's 32.
Speaker 3:When she was born, um, living in staffordshire with my first wife and my mother, the house I grew up in had a at a basement cellar and I was really into photography. And then I had excuse to get really into it because I've got a baby to photograph. So I set up this dark room in my mother's cellar and I go and see my mother and disappear for five hours, which didn't make me too popular at the time and it was, and I only shot black and white. I shot black and white necks, um, and developed them myself and then printed them.
Speaker 3:And okay, I'm a scientist, I love chemistry and all that, but to see the print developing in the tray, it is like magic. The first time you see. Just, you know, under that, under that red light, the safe light, you see a black and white print start to appear in a tray, develop it. It's astonishing really, and the kids of today would love it, you know, because they've obviously not been exposed again using that word to that kind of uh, photography really. So, uh, I think you see what I mean.
Speaker 1:Go right, yeah, you're nodding absolutely, yeah, that foot, especially the first time, but almost every time it's like. That in itself is like science fiction, just seeing an image come out of thin air.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is exactly it's more impressive than digital yeah, no, it is. I think it's the same reason. You know, I'm in the corner of my tiny little office here, my studio, I've got a record player and I've still got about 300 records and it's the same thing. It's a much more tactile experience for one of a better phrase really than than shooting digital. Really, it's more. You know, you put the record on, you clean the record, you put, your put the arm down. You know you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you're too young, but uh well, actually I, I had um.
Speaker 2:It was my um 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago, so that's when I last saw garante and um, yeah, a friend of mine gave me a um, a vinyl. So I have got some vinyl which my father's, so he gave me this, this record. It's a porter's head album, wow, and I don't have a record player and I know that that was a really insensitive gift because it's just going to be an entry drug.
Speaker 3:Now it's for me to go into researching all the turntables and I don't care what to do if you lend me next time I see you, I'll I'll rip it to flack and you can take it. Take it back to you so anyway, let's go back to talking photography.
Speaker 3:So one of the challenges to get a shoot of film in all seriousness is it? There ain't much of it around now. It's a code. I don't think they make film anymore. Fuji have rapidly dramatically scaled back because these days they're a biopharmaceutical company and the cosmetics companies which they are, a film manufacturer. So do you find it hard getting film stock or is it increasingly more difficult, certainly more expensive?
Speaker 1:yeah, since Fujifilm has stepped out, uh, kodak prices have stepped up dramatically. Um, it's, yeah, it's quite a shame really, but they have a monopoly on the color market currently, and I'm glad players like Ilford have come in with the, the harman brand, to do phoenix. Um, it's still got a long way off being a professional product but it is. You know, it's a step in the right direction. Um, kodak supply over over lockdown was not good at all. It was really expensive and hard to get hold of, even like basic films like kodak gold, um, but now it's, it's eased off a little bit. You can pick up the putra in a lot more places. Gold pro image um, there's, you know there's different varieties. They even brought back um kodak gold in 120 format for medium format. So, um, yeah, that was a step in the right direction and that can still be had fairly affordably compared to the other film stocks.
Speaker 2:So um what sort of prices are you talking about? I've literally have no idea. Um how much is a roll of film?
Speaker 1:so I'd say at the moment, like a roll of kodak gold, anywhere between 11, 12 pound is kind of the going rate and that's for a standard 35 mil roll um in medium format. Uh, 120, that's about nine pound, ten pound a roll um. You're gonna get seen images on six or five on medium format um compared to 36, 37 images that you get on 35 mil um. So yeah, it's, it's roughly the same price and then the costs are developing as well. How much is that For a roll of 120. And then it's usually about £12 or £13 for a roll of 35ml. It does vary on different places. You know different, like corner shops. You know 24-hour return window sort of thing. They do it differently, but then the quality of the scans was very different.
Speaker 3:And are you always getting print and scan? Is that the output you get from the lab?
Speaker 1:So I asked them to develop and scan, but they sent me TIFF files then, which you know not a million miles off raw files really. The dynamic range is really good and they're quite flexible files, or they can give you JPEGs as well. So if you're just starting out with film photography, you know you're just having it on your phone. Um, jpeg is absolutely fantastic, but if you're going to sit down and edit them, resize them tiff you want tiffs?
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm trying not to listen, because on my desk here is a contacts t3, which is a sorry, yashika t3, not contacts. It's got a carl zeiss lens um and I've had this camera for about 10 years and it's still got a roll of tri-x in it and I keep thinking I must go out and use it you should see it yeah, um, it's got, it's a nice little camera.
Speaker 3:Uh, it's got like a viewfinder thing from the top so you can take pictures at waist level and uh, it's just. I know if I get into it, there's a camera shop here in vista called imagex and I know robert listens to this podcast and he's a proper full service traditional camera shop. So you know they, they print, they, um, they do you know retouching and everything else for people. But upstairs he's got a ladded cave of secondhand cameras, film cameras, and I keep going in there thinking these are gorgeous. A lot of my cameras I've owned myself in the past, like om1s and fm2s and all this stuff, and I keep looking. I feel it's only 120 quid, but I know it's sitting on his shelf. It would just sit on my shelf, yeah, if I buy it. But if you're up this way I'll take you down there.
Speaker 1:You'll love it yeah, definitely come to vista and check out that shop. That'd be great. Thank you what's the?
Speaker 2:because it sounds like price then isn't a barrier to getting into it. It's not as expensive as I thought and you've been talking about those TIFF files and I've seen those TIFF files that you came back from Japan with. They're just beautiful. You know really, really great, great files If someone's getting into it. Someone's just fancied having a go as a layman listening to you two speak. You talked about different processes, dual process, screen, you know, is it that complicated? Is there like an easy path through to people? What? What's the easiest way someone could get into it?
Speaker 1:well, the easiest way right now is that pentax 17 um by country mile, I would say in terms of that's going to have parts, that's going to have a warranty. You know you can't get a warranty on a really old film camera, um, so that's going to have parts, that's going to have a warranty. You know you can't get a warranty on a really old film camera, um, so that's probably your most surefire way of getting a really good film camera. Um, it's not the cheapest film camera out there, but you know it's nowhere near as you like a mirrorless camera would be. It's, I think, around the five pound mark which you know it's. It's really good for a 2024 brand new film camera. So that would kind of be like a good starting place.
Speaker 1:If you are going to pick up a second hand one, though, by all means um, you can get loads of different variety from under that um. Like you said, steve, the nikon fm2, um, things like that. They are bulletproof. Um, old pentax k1000s they're really good cameras that. Just you know they keep on going. They're all mechanical, so there's nothing really to go wrong yeah, so there's no electronic?
Speaker 3:um, the only thing electronic is the meter, basically, so everything else is mechanical. The fm2 was a basically a clockwork camera, really, um and uh, it was a beautiful camera. The only problem I had is I used to shoot left eye in those days and you used to have to cock the rewind lever to be able to activate the stick in my eye.
Speaker 3:So I sold that one um. But if you, if you get into it, nick, and then you know why not um, buy, buy a film camera from somebody that's serviced it, because the, yeah, the, the sort of light seals around perish in time. So what you find? If you're not careful, you'll have quite funky, but probably not what you wanted uh, images with light leaks all over them.
Speaker 2:So yeah, all right. So so you get yourself camera, you can get yourself some ilford film or something like that. Yeah, and then in terms of processing, can you just go to the one in hereford or one or the one in bister? I mean, is a, is that a fairly easy process? It would just seem a little bit daunting for me right now to phone up a print shop, a developer lab.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course I'd say going off recommendation is kind of the key thing. I tried a few different labs in the UK. Someone from my uni they'd set up a film lab and the scans were good. But when I tried with Exposure Film Lab, the scans were fantastic and emails back and forward were really fluid and that for me I knew that my film was going to be in safe hands. So that's kind of why I've really I'm really happy with exposure film lab, um. But likewise, if you've got like um a local developer, you know a corner shop sort of thing, um, there's one down in cardiff called express imaging and I had um a leica camera that actually had an issue at higher shutter speeds and they were great because they could, you know, I could give them the roll film and they turn it around in two hours and that was great to the issue with the camera, um, but yeah, that that's kind of. Yeah, there's all different. There's loads different places. You can go and try a few.
Speaker 3:And developing your own negs isn't that scary. Well, black and white anyway. It's quite easy to do black and white developing. You don't need a dark room. You use something called a developing tank, which is basically a light-proof tank, and you dip chemicals in and stuff. Colour processing is a bit more difficult because it's very temperature sensitive. But a guy that we're hoping to have on the show soon I've never listened to a guy called dennis lee, who lives in the states, used to be a press photographer in the new york area and they would have to, you know. They'd hear something on the police radio, an event. They'd be out there immediately photographing it, maybe back into the office developing the next immediately, no matter what time of day it was, to have it ready for the morning edition. You know, know, and it's just a million miles away now from what we do. You can't imagine what the pressure must have been like really, particularly if you cocked up the developing, of course.
Speaker 2:So question for both of you when you're both using a film camera, when you're shooting film, what's going through? What's different about how you're viewing the shot, how you're approaching taking that photo, compared with a digital photo?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, taking that photo. Compared with a digital photo, yeah, I would say it's a. It's a slower approach, definitely, and you, you put a weighted value to each shot, you know it. You know it's going to cost you you know about a pound to take a photo sometimes. So you, you think a bit slower focus.
Speaker 1:I find a bit more on composition, um, and make sure your settings are dialed in correctly. Like, um, not all the film cameras I have have the meter, so you're using sunny 16. So you're almost looking at, like the clouds and the shade and trying to figure out. You know what your aperture should be, but if it's got a meter, you're making sure it's metered correctly. Yeah, it's just kind of a slower approach. When you're loading the film as well, making sure that it's hooked onto the spool correctly, approach, when you're loading the film as well, making sure that it's hooked onto the spool correctly, you're happy, everything's sealed and working. Um, yeah, I've had times where cameras like I'm experienced with and I hadn't used it for a few months over winter and then I just almost relearned the process again. So just doing things slowly, I find, is the key that's helped improve my digital photography as well yeah, I bet it must be, so it's a much more intentional thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, approach, and I get that there is you are applying a, you're translating into cost, for each time you press that button, you know it's going to cost you and so you want to get it right, so there's no bad thing. You know it's opposite, isn't it?
Speaker 1:well, that's the thing I think. I used to shoot like thousands of images and, don't worry, I still take far too many and I'm going through them trying to sort out the best ones but I'd say now I shoot a lot less because I have that kind of weighted approach in my mind that let's do this properly in one shot.
Speaker 3:Karanth, where do you see your business going over the next few years? Do you still see film being a major part of that, and where do where do you hope it to be, say, in five, ten years time?
Speaker 1:where do you think it's going to go? Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, I shoot film. For me that's kind of the the mantra, and I think it's great that couples have embraced it as well, the fact that they love it and that they love that included in my product. Um, I don't think film is going anywhere. Particularly, it's nice to see, uh, leica brought out the like a m6 reissue a few years ago. Um, mint have worked on bringing out a new rolly film camera, uh 35 af, and that looks fantastic. It's got didn't know that like a really old film camera, but it's got a lidar scanner for the autofocus. It's awesome. Um, the fact pentax are working on a 35mm model right now. Um, yeah, I think it's. Um, it's here to stay film. I think that the dark days of like kodak's bankruptcy are far behind us now, so, um, fingers crossed. But um, yeah, it'll definitely stay in my business and and if it doesn't work for business, I'll still be doing it as a hobby and I?
Speaker 2:I guess it's like vinyl records, isn't it that when CDs first came in, everyone thought that's the end of the industry and a lot of these companies wound up, and then suddenly there's a resurgence and once there's the demand there, then presumably there is going to be more variety of film stock at a cheaper cost and easier to develop and everything else.
Speaker 3:I know what you're going to be doing next week, nick you, everything else I know what you're going to be doing next week.
Speaker 1:Now you're going to be buying a turntable and a film camera.
Speaker 2:He's a bristolian, he's a hipster.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll uh have my saturday bread next to it and my flat white right for great catching up with you and finding out more about what you do. Uh, where's the best place for people to find out more about your work and see more of your images?
Speaker 1:yeah, sure, so my website is garrentrobertscouk and my instagram is garrentrobertsphoto. Um, so, yeah, feel free to connect with me on either those channels or on facebook.
Speaker 3:um yeah, uh, thanks for having me on the show, guys and please hang around while we finish off the rest of our chat and feel free to chip in as you see fit. So are you tempted, nick, seriously, are you tempted?
Speaker 2:I'm interested, let's say I mean, I mean it is more interesting to me than brass rubbing, say. So I you know it is more likely than that and I have got a couple of film cameras but I've got. I'll have to get um going to take a look at them next time it comes over, because they were inherited from my uncle so I don't know if they work, if they, you know, if they're any good or anything else. So I was waiting.
Speaker 3:I was shot was on film it was my brother's second wedding, actually and he said would you do my photos? And uh, I borrowed a brunica, uh, medium format camera and it was great and, yeah, loved it. Digital was only just really coming out then. So, uh, yeah, but thinking back, it's probably a high stress thing to do photographing your brother's wedding on a film camera but still.
Speaker 2:But like we've said before, steve, what interests me in it is doing something that's outside your comfort zone, something that's new, and just getting out of the kind of treadmill of doing what we always do. And anything that does that I'm well up for. So, yeah, I might have to borrow a roll of film up for.
Speaker 3:so, um, yeah, I might have to borrow a roll of film, that's all. They can't give it back afterward. I'll say that for both of you go ahead, go ahead your film cameras though.
Speaker 1:So you said about your yashika t3 left on your desk and nick, that you've got small film cameras. You, if you don't use them, they do seize up, and then you have to have them serviced. That's a good point. So please use them, otherwise they will just, you know, die a death.
Speaker 3:I'm going to use it tomorrow. Scouts honor.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 3:Inspired. Let's go on to look at what's going on in the industry. I got quite excited this morning, so I got an email from Sony saying new product announcement 5 o'clock and I thought announcement five o'clock and I thought what's this?
Speaker 2:is it going?
Speaker 3:to be the 24 70 f2 or you know new camera or something like that, and it was earbuds. Don't talk to me again about earbuds, I can't get away from them. But what I think um would be interested to chat about, and we've mentioned it already. Actually, it seems like at the moment everybody's shooting leica. Everybody I I know is either dabbling with like, attempted by like, has been seduced by like it, and it seems like they're making some kind of massive resurgence. And they've always been there, of course, but am I?
Speaker 2:you can see that I've seen this I've seen this as well and the from what they've done recently in terms of, you know, moving on to industry type news, that they've got this um m11d, this new camera and what, where that came from was the um. It's the leica mp, their, their film camera, all of the things that garan just talked about in terms of the way issues. People love that way of shooting, that that immersive, much more um, insightful, thoughtful way of of shooting with film. So they've created this digital camera. It takes that aspect of photography but avoids all the hassle of film. So it hasn't got. So it's got like a 60 megapixel sensor, hasn't got a screen. So where the screen is, it's just basically no screen. I said there are no screen so you can't review images, but you don't have the hassle of um. You know processing and film stock and so on.
Speaker 3:So, but it's, and it's, I think, six or seven thousand dollars it's eight thousand one hundred pounds I checked it out before we started for a body only.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you got the worst of both worlds to me I wonder if I'm in lycra hq, they're thinking I've got this great new idea for a product and everyone else saying you're insane, that no one's ever going to buy that. You know and everyone does. You know because they just seem to have a following. That um transcends all of logic in some ways. But you know, if that's what makes people take brilliant photos, then it's done its job, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I guess. So I mean, in that camera the sensor is the same as you get in the sony a75 r5, sony a7cr, which is like three grand. It's exactly the same sensor and you could argue for a more functional camera, but is it? I guess it's all about the experience, the brand. You know why people buy rolex watches rather than casios or, dare I say, even apple watches have you ever shot a leica, garand, yeah, so I've got a 1960s leica m4.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, and that is gorgeous. It's a fantastic camera, but that is currently off for servicing with the company called camera works. Um, so that's a six month wait to have it fixed no way. Yeah, it's having a full cla. Um, the shutter at one thousandth doesn't work correctly. Um, all my some of my holiday photos that I've taken on that shutter speed got ruined. So that's the sole subject. But other than that, the camera is like perfect mechanically. Um, I've also got a leica ma, which is it's just like a leica mp, but without the light meter. So it's a mechanical, no electronics or batteries. Um, so, yeah, I love that camera is absolutely fantastic, but I may sell it when the um m4 comes back from servicing so, given that um steve's sony rumor was was not very interesting all right, what?
Speaker 2:what do you think is next for sony in terms of what they're going to bring out?
Speaker 1:you're normally pretty good finger on the pulse wise yeah, um, really happy with the new 85 1.4 gm mark 2. That has been a fantastic lens. Oh, you got it okay. Yeah, yeah, that's been great. Um, what will sony bring out next? Um, there's rumors of a pancake lens coming out at 28 millimeter 2.8, so that'd be good it would, yeah 28 has been a really popular focal length on fuji, when's the um a75 due to come out next year with q1 next year?
Speaker 1:I've heard yeah yeah, probably I'd say yeah for next wedding season, yeah, yeah. The thing is, it's still such a compelling camera, even if against like that nikon z6 three or whatever is, or that canon r6 mark ii, I'd still pick a sony a7 IV over those cameras well, that's what I've heard about.
Speaker 2:Is it whether they whether the sensor size for the a7 5? Yeah, a7 5, are they going to stick with the 33 or are they going to go more towards the? What is it? Is it nikon that's got like a 45 or a?
Speaker 3:well, the nikon that that that's, that's six um. V6 24. It's 24, but it's uh, it's like a semi, it's like half a halfway towards an a9. It's got a semi-stack sensor. That's a big thing about it really. Which um? I assume it's a sony sensor. You know they're all sony sensors apart from canon. Cameras aren't there. So whether sony will have something in their next generation camera, which is that sensor or a bigger version of it in terms of megapixels, be interesting to see.
Speaker 2:Really want to, yeah interesting to hear about the 85, though that's. That's certainly on my list. I think probably next year, um for next wedding season I'll be picking that up, that new 85 it's so much lighter than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 1:It's really for extended periods, when you're holding it during speeches, for example, it is fantastic. It's a lot lighter, so much quicker to focus um tack sharp as well, even at 1.4.
Speaker 2:So for me it was a worthwhile improvement over the oh, absolutely there's not many lenses where you can think, or I think this is going to make my life a lot easier. I think that's definitely one, because that that version 185 is so slow.
Speaker 3:It's trying to listen because I've got the Sigma, which is a perfectly fine lens, and, as we've said before on this podcast, we are slowly winding down our business over the next couple of years. But I'm tempted by that, I must admit. I am tempted by the 85, yeah.
Speaker 1:I had a second shooter. He has the Sigma 85, same as you, the art one, and you are splitting hairs really against both gm models. The sigma is fantastic. Um, yeah, if you've already got any 85, any modern one, it's probably just fine, probably right yeah, yeah, don't tell my wife that, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, from a techie point of view. So we do, uh, go right, we do like a 10 minute tech focus. We've done a lot of tech stuff already today, uh, and we've got a couple of topics down. So you've got one down nick of different raw compression formats. What is it you meant by that?
Speaker 2:I was interested. Yeah, I was just looking at how raw compression works and some of these, some of these platforms that that compress your raw files to something decent, and it's really clever stuff. The um, because the problem with any any um compression algorithm is is looking for patterns in the data. So that's how jpeg works, that's how you get such small sizes and then you decide whether you want to chuck away. You know, once you re-encode it when you chuck bits away or whatever like an mp3 file.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah but you have to fight, whereas flack and stuff is lossless so that it can repeat. You know it's exactly the same bit for bits. Mp3 it's got a negligible. You know. Next product, the same with jpeg versus tinfoil, whatever, um, what they do with raw compression is the problem with raw images is it's got random noise and any compression algorithm is terrible at random stuff because it can't encode it, can't find patterns in it.
Speaker 2:So they, they have these filters, these, these software kind of algorithms which are picking that, they are finding what, the, where the noise is, and they're re-encoding that to have much more um of the patterns. They're not kind of replacing it, they're not doing anything else, they're just changing the profile of that noise, so it's just more regular. And then this algorithm can come through and it can then compress it and you know it looks like they're getting down to half the size. I know rosy, um, rosy is the one I know, yeah, um, which had this, this same sort of um technique of re-encode the noise, and then you can really squash it to about half the size with negligible, you know, reduction in quality, the, the, the, the bit where you re-encoding the noise.
Speaker 2:Does they that? I know rosie always said it was. It was like a 125 iso image compared with 100. So it's it's making the whole image slightly noisier, but at half it half, you know half the file size. When you've got 200 weddings in your, in your archives, you know that's a. That's a decent, a decent straight off the line, I'd say anything.
Speaker 3:You use talk, all right no, I um shoot.
Speaker 1:I think it's lossless compressed on my sony a7 IV um and now my a93 um. No, I, I can't think of any. I don't use raws or anything like that, or don't convert to dng um, just yeah. I've never really seen the benefit.
Speaker 2:I'm not really sure what rules you're up to at the moment, because they've been closed for a while for new subscribers whenever I look on the website. So I don't know whether their servers or whatever just doesn't have the capacity for more and they're changing infrastructure or what's going on there.
Speaker 3:And if they went out of business, does that mean you can't open their files? Are they just normal raw files once they've been processed, as far as I'm aware, yes, they're normal.
Speaker 2:Okay, because that would be a worry to me.
Speaker 1:Does it convert them to DNG?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Yeah, having never used it, I'm not sure, but it's not a platform that you're locked in at all. You run it, get it chunters away and then it spits out your smaller.
Speaker 3:RAWs. Well, if this is something you know something about, dear listener, then let us know. We'd love to hear from you really. So I have this problem because I use an A7R IV as well and every RAW file from that is about 120 meg, because it's 61 meg because of the sensor. But hard drives are pretty cheap these days really, and you know, I've got four terabyte portable ones that I just archive stuff to and I they've only ever been switched on a couple of times, so hopefully they're not gonna spontaneously combust and they're touching tempting fate, of course, but I've always got three copies of everything anyway.
Speaker 2:yeah that's the thing. It's just to double up his name and I had. I needed a drive last year sometime. I knew I had loads in the cupboard so I thought that's data that I don't need anymore. Got them all out. None of them worked.
Speaker 3:About eight hard discs all packed in yeah oh wow, oh god, don't tell me that, then okay that was the point that I moved to ssd as my, as my backup system yeah, and I was saying here yeah, I haven't said I only keep raws for a couple of years. I don't keep them any longer. I keep them only because sometimes you'll get a phone call saying you know, granny passed away this week. Is you've got any more photos? I know you just try and help, don't you?
Speaker 2:in that case, yeah, I think it's the same one. You go in terms of keeping rules, you you keep for a certain amount of time and then just use jpegs I've got everything going back since 2017.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, I've got the wd, my disc duos, I think, or my book duos, something like that, and they have two drives inside them and you can either pair them in raid zero or raid one, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I've got like a few sat in right in front of me right now, um the latest one, I think, is like 36 terabytes, so that usually works for me for about two years at a time. So I'm currently 2023 2024 drive and then next year I'll pick up another one that'll be my 2025 2026 drive and that works for me, um, to archive stuff on.
Speaker 2:But I've got a little samsung uh t7 shields, ssds to work off and um, in terms of other tech 10 stuff that we had we were going to talk about briefly around. Should I always shoot wide open?
Speaker 3:so when you've got a 50 mil lens, 1.2.
Speaker 2:The temptation is to bang up wide open at every opportunity yeah, this was my point.
Speaker 3:So I've just been editing a wedding that we did a few weeks ago, um, and it was, um, a marquee reception, so a lot of it was outside, you know, the weather was dire, but still, and just for fun, because you know, again, trying different, different, I, I got a 24, 105 f4 out, which I don't really often use.
Speaker 3:Uh, I thought I'd just use one camera, one lens for a while, really, and there was just something about shooting an f4, because the temptation is, when you've got 24, 35, 85, you know, 14, 12, even with the 50, you just shoot everything wide open day, because you can, um, and, and I just looked at the images and I just thought, you know, because we're mostly documentary style photographers, looking at people talking and interacting and laughing and doing it just looked a bit more natural really, you know, because we don't see the world in very shallow depth of field. That's right, um, so I just wonder, you know? Just because I mean, obviously, if it's a wedding in a coal mine, you know you have to shoot everything wide open because you need the light, don't you? But I just think sometimes it's easy to fall into the trap of saying I've got this super new F-51-2. I'm going to shoot everything at 1-2., so that was my thought your thoughts guys.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I totally agree. I think the temptation is a bit of a trope, isn't it? Just go into shallow depth field, because it does get you out of a hole. You can take a shot of almost anyone in any situation, in any background, really shallow depth. At one point two it's going to look pretty good, but then what you're doing is just capturing a 500 different portraits of people and you're not really surveying the scene. When we talk about film photography, being a bit more thoughtful about it, thinking about right, what's the story being told here and making sure that everyone that's in that shot is part of that story by being in the focal plane and that doesn't. That does need people to stop down a bit, and something I've tried to the last couple of years is is think about that and, you know, not worrying about iso, which is the the thing that is always usually in our back door of making us kind of go wide open.
Speaker 2:Don't worry about that because people don't care about that. But people do notice when, when the granny's just out of focus. But if there's, you know, if everyone's sharp and it's a little bit noisy, people don't really care about that no, that's right.
Speaker 1:Experience your thoughts I think the iphone has influenced all of this, um, the fact that we're on a 24 mil lens 28 mil lens, you know and pretty much everything's in focus unless you bring it close to something. Um, you only have to look at quite well-known and respected photographers holly clark, benjamin wheeler, jose via they're shooting a lot wider and a lot more depth of field than they used to, whereas before it was, all you know, 51 to lots of nice bokeh. Now they have a wider approach and I genuinely think that is influence from mobile phones, because people are seeing everything in focus that's a great, absolutely right.
Speaker 2:Did I mention this before? I was talking to someone? It might. If he's on here, then you can just put me down, right, um, because I've just had a seat, as if we would but they.
Speaker 2:Someone was saying that that because, if just following what garrett was saying there that when they took a shadow, the reason they didn't like some of the, the photos that were delivered from this photographer, they delivered back to the client, the, the. The client didn't like them because they look like iphone photos and it took him a while to work out what they meant. And what they meant was it was really shallow depth of field, like they just use a portrait filter. So people are seeing that shallow depth of field as being a negative thing now because it just makes it look like you're in portrait mode on your iphone. So it's kind of completely full circle.
Speaker 1:It's crazy yeah, you see I'm shooting, gone after you're gone sorry, um, I think it'll come full circle again that people will go back to wanting that natural bokeh because that's what professional photographers did x amount of years ago. Yeah, um, I just yeah, I see, basically, if you just choose your cam, stick there and just it'll come back around eventually be consistent, of course.
Speaker 3:Yeah, don't keep flipping back and forth. So I love shooting everything on 24. My my go-to setup is the 24 on the a7r4 because I know I can fall for this. So I love shooting everything on 24. My my go-to setup is the 24 on the a7r4 because I know I can crop if I need to on that one. But I just like the field of view. 24 because I like to get quite close to people, listen to people's conversations. A because I'm going deaf, but also someone knows it uh, but also, uh, I can get you know.
Speaker 3:I just love the sort of inclusive feel about that sort of wider lens and yes, stop down in f4, even f5.6, even f8 if necessary, really just to get that sort of more feeling of being there. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:absolutely, yeah, yeah sorry, I use the 24 mil a lot for the danceful photos. I find that completely like the best photo for getting everyone in the frame. And yeah, it's a great.
Speaker 3:It's a great lens, the 70 24.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a brilliant lens I'm finding my go to like um go out my trusty 7200 is. It's just a bit of a habit really, and it's it's almost like when, when you see 7200 photos, especially at the long end of that, you can just see the social anxiety of the photographer because you know that they just don't want to get close to the action. And actually when you know, getting on a 24, going 24 and 85, which I do more frequently now, is just a much more immersive shot. You are right in the action, aren't you? And you haven't, yeah yeah, completely.
Speaker 3:Um, I don't have a book of the week this week, unless you've got anything, but I do think of something in terms of kind of a film, and it was what we were talking about earlier. Did anybody ever see, um the netflix film called codochrome?
Speaker 3:yes yeah, so, uh, it's about a um, a journey in the states where, uh I think it was his dad was dying from memory um, and he got a role of codochrome. Now codochrome nick used to have a very, very, very unique processing method called K18. Most slide films are shot on E6, but this was shot on Kodak's own proprietary processing and only Kodak could process it, and it very quickly was one of the first things that sort of stopped in film world because it used quite a super nasty chemicals, and this whole film was about basically getting to the one lab that was left in America that could still process Kodachrome while the guy's father was still alive. It's a great film actually. It's not about photography, it's about the relationship between the father and the son, really, but it's worth checking out. If you haven't seen it, I will check that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds like my street, which we talked about previously, was Lee.
Speaker 3:I've seen it, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so a couple of weeks ago absolutely loved it A stellar film. Really recommend it. So it's about Lee Miller. I think it's Miller. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, lee Miller.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So the? So it's always got Adam Sandberg in it, directed by Ellen Kuras, I think that's how you pronounce it, but it's about this sort of socialite model for Vogue back in the pre-war time, who went into photojournalism during the war and faced the barriers of. It was just something that women couldn't do, so she had to pretend to be a guy at one point, put her away and that's the thing to get close to the action. But what was found was that that, being a woman, she had a very different view of it. She was looking at the scene in front of her and some of these you know real frontline scenes, and just having a complete different view to seeing things that a lot of the male photographers at the time would have missed. Um, she was also instrumental in. This is something I didn't know. I don't know if I was being a bit thick, but when, when the war was won, um, it wasn't really known about the horrors of the death, you know the, the concentration camps and it.
Speaker 2:That was. You know that and it was. She was one of the first journalists to go in and take photos um of the horrors there and trying to, I think she went to yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah and um, and none of the photos. So she brought back she's working for vogue. At the time they didn't they didn't um print them so that they wouldn't publish it because they thought no, it's not in public interest. A bit too um, dark and depressing um, which was she was absolutely furious about and that's how she sort of fell out with vogue.
Speaker 3:But brilliant film, really loved it I've listened to a podcast about it so I'm addicted to the rest is history podcast and they did a uh, a program with that. Have you seen that go right?
Speaker 1:no, I haven't. No, I uh. Lee is a film that we definitely want to watch there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do want to go and see that yeah, okay, well, I can't remember the last time I went to the cinema, so there's a good reason to go, really, I know. I know samantha wants to see that one, so, uh, yeah, that's good, we'll go press when she gets back from Florida. Could, we go see Jodhpur next week.
Speaker 1:So that should be good.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what the movies or?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go to the cinema and see that. So we saw Beetlejuice a week or two ago. That was good fun. It's just like the old one.
Speaker 3:Is it really just as weird? Wacky films, wacky films, yeah, anything else we want to talk about, guys, before we wrap up. No, I think that's good. That's good what we doing next week in terms of a guest. I know I'm relying heavily on you getting the guests at the moment, nick, but uh, not next week. Next we have got.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we the next record, because this was a week early. Yeah, the next record we have tesney ward and she is a fantastic landscape photographer and and so that's really interesting. So she's got some beautiful work and, um, yeah, we're really keen to talk to her about that. So, yeah, isn't she an?
Speaker 3:olympus ambassador as well. That's right, yeah, so she's noam ambassador.
Speaker 2:So, yes, looking forward to that one excellent, all right.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks very much for listening to us folks. Don't forget, if you've enjoyed the show, to give us a review on Apple I think Spotify. You can review us as well. It does help us in lots of kind of weird and wonderful ways and make sure you subscribe as well so you'll get the show coming into your podcast app automatically. We do have a Facebook group just called surprisingly, the Photography Pod so dramatically. We do have a facebook group just called surprisingly the photography pod, so you know you've got a chance to hang out in there, meet other photographers, ask some questions of the group as well. Uh, what I've been guilty of doing the last couple weeks, nick is not letting you say goodbye, so I'll let you say goodbye I don't want to now all right, goodbye.
Speaker 3:Thanks a lot, yeah, all right. Thanks for being with us again. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. Thanks, dear lister, we'll talk to you soon.
