My Next Camera

 This is my second post about replacing my ageing A99ii. While I don't really do sports photography, I believe that the A99ii is one of the worst camera for tracking any moving subjects and way behind all current mirrorless cameras and some DSLRs.

This comes into play when I shoot a family with kids on swings. Sure, if you know the limitations of your camera, there are always workarounds, but I would rather be able to have a 100 photos with eye-AF spot-on to choose from, than one that somehow I was able to make work.

As I mentioned before, the Canon R5 is a very tempting camera for me to think of ditching Sony altogether. As specs go, it is a great replacement to the A99ii. If it wasn't for the pandemic, I would have been tempted for sure. The downsides of jumping ship is needing to replace some Sony specific accessories that I already own, such as my Godox flash equipment. 

Also, for environmental reasons, everything I buy is used. With Sony, there are so many lenses from various manufacturers that you can buy used on e-bay or FB. There are some Canon lenses available used, but they are definitely very expensive.

So what is my current plan? I really like the Sony A1. It just came out and costs twice as the A99ii. That said, it does everything I need and more. Spec-wise, it seems like it would last for many years as a perfect hybrid camera. I might not need 8K or 30fps, but at least I know that I have them in case they are needed a few years from now. 
I would probably want to get the LA-EA5, also not really available much on the local used market right now. I would also need to get some CFExpress A cards, but they also don't have great availability right now.

So it seems that everything I would need to switch to mirrorless is out there, but that I will have to wait until next year to do it. For now, I can get by with the A99ii and perhaps rent out some mirrorless cameras for larger jobs like weddings. For now, I am avoiding event and wedding photography, due to the pandemic. I do have a wedding scheduled for September which I will probably shoot with rented A1 and mirrorless lenses.

So, it seems like there are two possible roads for me. If the pandemic will be over by summer and there will be an influx of photography work, I will possibly get the camera of my dreams sooner than expected. If I continue relying mostly on video editing work with some portrait photography on the side, I'll wait until next April to buy a bunch of great used mirrorless equipment that hopefully will last me a long while.

New Cameras - will I buy them?

As I mentioned previously, I am planning on ditching the A-mount as new technology emerges, leaving my A99ii in the dust. For example, I really enjoyed using the A9ii's video AF to track a dancer walking up the stairs towards the camera. It wasn't perfect, but definitely a thousand times better than what the A99ii could do with its locked aperture at 3.5.

To be honest, the perfect camera for me right now is the 45MP Canon R5. A bit expensive, but it has everything I would want from an A99iii if Sony ever made one. Not too many megapixels, but enough to crop if needed. Sony came out with a 63MP camera, the A7rIV, but that one would just waste disk space for me. 

That means that Sony doesn't currently make a camera that is perfect for my needs. I actually don't mind the overheating of the Canon R5 as the A99ii also overheats and I learned to live with it. I don't do a lot of long form videos and will just shoot 1080p 24p if I need to, a format that would work fine for most of my clients.
So why wouldn't I but a camera that is somewhat expensive but perfect for my needs? Unfortunately there is no converter/adapter from A-mount to the Canon RF mount, so I would have to but all new lenses, accessories and cards which would prove too expensive. Even just switching from A-mount to E-mount I might have to buy two adapters totaling around $500.

The good news is that I upgraded my editing workstation, so it's ready now for bigger photos in case I do decide to get the A7rIV. All my internal drives are now SSDs and I have more RAM too so I'm ready for non-choppy 4K editing.

I really like the improvements in the A7sIII that just came out. They changed the menu system! That's really great as even after four years with the A99ii I still struggle with its outdated menu system. That said, as I am transitioning into more video work, I still mostly need a solid hybrid video/stills camera with the ability to crop. Some of my clients still need to print a large A3 (or equivalent) size album for which even a 24MP camera might not be that great if you need to do any cropping.
As wedding season is practically non existing right now due to COVID-19, even with more money coming from my current documentary editing gig, I will hold off buying a new camera. All I want is for Sony to create a better camera that is exactly like the one I have but with much improved AF, video and menu system. If they don't, I will probably settle for the A7rIV at some point.

My Setup for Sound

In the good old days, I had a professional video camera with XLRs built in and a great preamp built in. If that wasn't enough I would hook it up to a portable XLR Mixer that the sound person would strap on themselves along with a boom mic.
Now, ten years later, technology has advanced and I no longer put a lot of equipment into a beat up student car or a nice looking van borrowed from my parents. Instead, I bike around, with all of my equipment inside my supercharge touring bicycle.
I'm also using a hybrid stills/video camera (still the A99ii) to shoot everything, at least until I can afford to switch to e-mount. The good news is that the A99ii has a terrific built-in microphone that is great in a pinch. Even if you're not planning on that microphone it provides better sound to allow Adobe Premiere Pro to sync the sound from the internal microphone with that of a better sound recorded from an external recorder.
Most of what I do when recording sound on my current video gigs is interviews with people sitting or standing.
The bad news is that the pre-amp on the A99ii is TERRIBLE.  For a while I was recording to an external Zoom recorder I've had for 7 years and got good results, but had deal with syncing audio in post, and not forgetting to press record on both the camera and the Zoom.
I was using a no brand lav mic for a few years, and had to deal with lots of PL 3.5 cables. It was also a problem when recording an interview with a person who needs to go to the bathroom.
I got the Rode Go Wireless Compact system after getting strange noises on the Sony ECM-W1M system and mediocre sound. The Rode Go is really small and easy to pack, seem to be one of those rare times where audio/video manufacturers remember that it is 2020 now and match the technology to that of smartphones. I got the Rode Smartlav+ microphone to go with it which is a solid lav mic but requires to also get the Rode SC3 3.5mm TRRS to TRS Adapter for smartLav because it was originally meant to connect to smartphones.
Finally, I go the SR-AX100 audio mixer that sits on my camera, underneath the Rode Go's transmitter. Sure, it's a kind of a weird tower now, but now I can connect all this straight to the camera and not worry about an external recorder running out of battery or memory card. The SR-AX100 is one of those rare electrical machines that does NOT need a battery to operate. It will also allow me to connect another microphone and record stereo to two channels in case I ever do an interview with two people or still want to record some sound where the camera is along with sound coming from the lav mic.
If you like your mixer under your camera you might get the SR-AX101 which is basically the same product but hooks under your camera, a setup I don't like and will avoid.

My Next Camera

Right now I'm using the A99ii as my primary camera and the A99 as a secondary camera. The A99 is showing its years and doesn't really do well in low light situations.
So, should I get another A99ii or should I start planning for the next camera? Do I even like the smaller e-mount bodies? To be honest if an A99iii came out tomorrow I might eventually be tempted to buy it. That said, no new A-mount camera will probably ever be made.
Recently the A7rIV came out with a better grip, making it a cool camera to look to if and when I will make my new purchase. That said, not only don't I need the 61 Megapixels that it's packing, to be honest I don't even need the current 42 Megapixels that my A99ii has. Experience has shown that starting from ISO 800 it doesn't really matter that you have all these megapixels. It's just clogs out your hard drive without providing any actual benefits. The extra megapixels are useful to landscape and studio photographers that have the need for large prints. A lot of my clients don't even print at all.
So, what would I spend my money on? Perhaps the future A9ii? Hard to tell. I definitely don't need 20fps. That means that if and when Sony comes out with a A7IV I might get that one after a while, even though it's the "low end" one. If it come with 36 Megapixels that would be perfect.
For now this is all speculation and I will probably buy something after its been on the market for a while, perhaps get a good deal on a used body.

Update: Now aiming to purchase the A7rIV in late April to coincide with my birthday. Of course, that will depend on my ability to save money to buy it. Right now it seems like I would be able to pull it off, but life sometimes happens when you're making plans.
Of course I will need to buy some batteries and the LE-EA4 converter to be able to mount my current A-Mount lenses on it. Eventually I will want native lenses so will also have to start saving money for future lenses. Hoping that some video work will pay for all of this.
I will probably also need to change the name of this blog, after years of shooting with the A99 and the A99ii. I think it will be good to have an e-mount camera so that my blog will appeal to more people.

Post

I think it's time to talk a little bit about what I now use to process the images that I take with my trusty A99ii so that they will look their best when I eventually show them.

I currently am using Lightroom Classic CC for most of my processing needs, finishing some photos in Photoshop CC. I do try to NOT use Photoshop is possible but it does allow me to overcome some issues and improve on what the camera captures.

My previous posts showed me relying on Irfanview for culling, the process of initial selection of which photos to keep and which to reject. I still use that tool from time to time but once I got my new fancy workstation I sought to just use Lightroom instead, and even called support to describe to them what my needs were. We finally came to a method for culling that I really wish would have been easier to access and find but is definitely there!

What I wanted is a way to easily view photos full screen, and mark which ones I didn't want. Once marked, I wanted Lightroom to advance to the next one and not show unmarked ones anymore. It might sound petty but when you have 5000 photos from a wedding to go through, this is can be a real time saver. The other issue was that I wanted to go through all the photos quickly without the need to create tons of previews, a lengthy process when you have a lot of photos. Instead I wanted to use the jpg preview already built into the RAW files the A99ii generates. 

To do that, when importing I chose Build Previews: Embedded & Sidecar.

I also generally choose Develop Settings: Creative - Warm Contrast, to apply my favorite preset to all the photos. I will describe how I use the preset later on.
Now that I have all the photos in Lightroom, on the right lower side of the screen I will switch to the filter to flagged.As nothing is currently flagged, the view will show none of the photos.

Then I will click the middle flag. This will now show all the photos except those that have been marked for deletion. Having a 4K screen this process that I have to do each time is quite inconvenient but it works.

Now I press F on the keyboard to enter full screen mode. pressing the right key cycles through the photos while X marks photos you don't think you'll need. Once flagged for deletion you'll no longer see that photo and Lightroom will cycle to the next one. Sometimes I just want the best photos marked and leave some of the others just in case. In that case I mark for deletion (X) all the ones that are out of focus or otherwise unusable and press 5 on the keyboard to give a 5-star rating  to the photos I really like.

Once done, Ctrl+Backspace will offer to delete all the photos marked for deletion. To see just the photos marked as 5-stars I switch the filter to rated and press the five stars button (also a bit small for my 4K screen.

What about editing? What do I commonly use?

As mentioned, I really only use the one develop setting: Creative - Warm Contrast. The reason why I like it is because it warms up any scene, adding some pleasant brown to it. I find that it works much better than simply warming up a photo by adjusting the temperature of a photo. That said, I almost never use it in the default setting of 100. Instead, I typically crank it down to 50. How much I actually use depends on the original photo. There are of course situations where I don't use it all like a scene lit by candles or fire and full direct sun scenes. The full benefit of this develop setting will show when shooting on overcast days.

The downside of this develop setting is that it sometimes makes blue objects go green. If that happens you can change calibration settings to add some blue back.

That might alter the look of the photo in ways you might not like. Lowering the vibrance might help somewhat but in some situations you might need to finish a photo in photoshop, layering two instances of the photo, one with the develop setting and one without.

I really wish Adobe add a tool enabling selective use of develop settings to Lightroom so that blue objects could be excluded from it.

Godox TT350S

I've been looking for a while for a solid small flash to add to my arsenal. After a few years of just using OCF (Off Camera Flash - radio controlled). I felt I needed some on-camera flash to supplement my OCF flashes like the AD200 with some light bouncing from the ceiling onto people's faces.
I tried using My TT865s but it was too bulky and heavy for my style, especially when turning my A99ii sideways for vertical photos. Yes, I know some people have very large Canon/Nikon cameras with big flashes mounted, but I like to be very agile and flexible, especially in crowded events.
Once I got the TT350S I actually fell in love with it. It's nice to only have to use two AAs, and it's light weight makes it perfect to mount anywhere, to put in my pockets, and to give it to people to hold.


Here it is mounted on a railing above to provide a bit more subtle light.

 Here it is fist bumping the AD200 for a new style of photos I'm trying out, developed out of my Heroines of Light project.

And here is held in a demonstration/vigil in the Oregon Zoo.


It just shows how versatile that small flash is, and surprisingly enough unlike many other small to medium flashes it also tilts to the side in case you want to bounce some light from the wall, which surely will be useful once weddings season starts.

Tips for Family and Portrait Photoshoots

A lot of what I do is portrait photography so I thought I might share some tips with y'all. I will update this post periodically as more tips come in :)

1. Don't put people in direct sunlight. It is too bright and people will be squinting. Some people cannot even handle ANY sunlight, even if it's backlighting them. You can try to tell them to close their eyes and then open them when you shoot, but for some people that doesn't even work, especially if they have narrow or sensitive eyes. In any session I would recommend taking at least some photos in the shade and if possible using flash strobes to augment your shot.
2. Avoid shooting in weird shadows, like the ones produced by tree leaves. Otherwise you'll spend a lot of time in photoshop trying to fix it and often still having weird results. If you have too, use an off camera flash to even out the light on face. 

2. Shoot in different apertures. That way you'll have different options for the final edit. For example, I just shot this man and the eyes and hair were in focus but the nose was slightly out of focus. Luckily I could easily paste a nose for other photos while still retaining a nicely blurred background.
3. Small children tend to like putting their fingers in their mouth during photo sessions. To avoid that, ask the parents to bring a toy, a doll, a ball or anything that they would like to hold and be cute in the photo.
4. Most children do NOT have a long attention span. If possible, set your camera to high frame rate mode and take as many photos possible at the start of any group photo that includes kids.
5. When shooting more than one person, always switch sides and relative positions. That will help you immensely in editing in case someone accidently casts a shadow on the other person or if the light quality looks different for some reason.
6. When shooting in forests, have people wear colors that stand out. I would especially recommend avoiding greys, greens, browns and blacks. Any red, purple or blue will stand out in that situation and probably in any location.
7. Ask people to smile and then not to smile. If you do this a few times you might get a more genuine smile, just from them having to switch rapidly.
8. Ask families to sing. It loosens them up sometimes, choose a main person in the family and have them sing to that person. If they don't know any songs, pick the "A B C" song.
9. A lot of people tend to automatically put their hands in their pockets. Kids tend to put their hands in their mouth or worse, nose. One way of dealing with this is to ask people to clap before the shot is taken. This will sometimes also help with stiffness of body.
10. A lot of kids have oral fixations, which means that they put their hands or other objects in their mouth and do not want to pull them out. I've seen many parents pull their kids' fingers out violently. While that might work, the kids seem to be in a bad mood once that happens. Other parents start negotiating with their kids, even bribing. That also works sometimes but takes a lot of precious time out of the photoshoot time and other members of the family might lose interest at that time. One trick that I've used is to tell a posed family clap their hands. Hrd mentality seem to make kids magically pull their fingers out of their mouth and put down the stick they picked up that just doesn't fit in the photo. You don't necessarily have to take the photo where the family is clapping. With a bit of practice, tell the family  to stop clapping and then take the photo.