Why Sony MUST make the A75 a winner!

In this episode of The Photography Pod, wedding photographers Steve Vaughan and Nick Church discuss the upcoming new Sony Alpha 7M5, scheduled for launch in early December. They discuss the pro's and con's of the rumoured specification, particularly for hybrid photo/video shooters. The guys also discuss their approach for shooting hybrid at weddings, including using the DJI Osmo Pocket 3.

Luke Vaughan Photography https://www.lukevaughanphotography.com/

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00)
Nick, we're now into winter, of course. And one of the things that always seems to surprise me about our great country that we live in is that we always seem to be surprised when the cold weather comes. Because we're in a northern climate and we're living in a latitude or is it latitude or longitude? Anyway, height, close to sort of Iceland and places like that. Why do we always seem to be surprised when the cold weather comes in? It always seems to catch us off guard.

Nick Church (00:17)
You

Yeah, it's that conversation, isn't

it? You've got to that conversation every year with somebody that says, God, isn't it cold this week? It's suddenly all winter's here, isn't it? Yeah. But then we'll have the same conversation in springtime. say, God, blimey, this is suddenly got quite, it was normal last week and then suddenly it's really warm.

Steve Vaughan (00:31)
It's supposed to be cold.

I know, it's unbelievable.

So I met up with some mates this week, people I used to work with a long, long, time ago when I was a research chemist. And we meet up every sort of six months ago. So, and we're all over the country now. So we meet in Brom, which is central for everybody, Birmingham, if you're not local, of course, I got a mate called Graham who comes down from Glasgow, bless him every time. And he didn't make it because the electric lines above the railway lines in Glasgow were frozen. Now, surely. ⁓

Surely in Scotland, you would think that they are prepared for a bit of frost on the electric lines, but apparently not. He got as far as crew and decided to turn around and go back.

Nick Church (01:13)
man. That's

worse than the wrong type of leaves, isn't it? Wrong type of leaves on the line or whatever it was that. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:17)
Round table, yeah.

When we used to live in America, like 20 odd years ago, I came back for a meeting in Cambridge, where my office was in the UK, and it snowed briefly on the M11. And I spent the whole night in the car, because literally everything just stopped on the motorway. And when I finally got back to Pennsylvania, we had like four feet of snow. But they just plough it out the way there. They're used to it, aren't they? are you keeping warm anyway in your little studio?

Nick Church (01:37)
Heh heh.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, it's cozy. Very cozy. Yeah. Yeah. It's toasty in here. Um, but it takes about two hours, but after that, once two hours has gone, it's fine, which is a bit of a pain if I have training clients in here because we, you know, I don't get in here two hours before they arrive. I can see the, you know, some people are really hot or really cold. I'm always really hot. So I don't mind it, but I can see someone people's face sometimes looking, Oh, right. I've got to be in here for a whole day. It's freezing. said, don't worry. We'll warm up. I'll give you some coffee. Give it an hour. It's going to be warm. It'd be fine. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:59)
same here.

Throw a few more logs on the fires or through a

few more old cameras and things. So, yeah. So, so you've been busy, how are things?

Nick Church (02:14)
Yeah, not, yeah, good. Yeah. Yeah. Busy with editing. my last wedding on, uh, Saturday last week. So two brides was really good. Uh, we're doing a video as well. So I've got to catch up with friend of the pod, Jan. So he was, he shot the video and, uh, uh, one of the, um, guys I'm mentoring through the Academy, Steve came along to that wedding as well to sort of get experience things he traveled from. It was in Cleveland. I'm Bristol, so it was 10 minutes for me. He came from St. Albans. So big, big, um,

Steve Vaughan (02:20)
Okay.

Cool.

for. Yeah. wow. That's keen.

Nick Church (02:41)
props to him for making our journey. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, and then last week, Dawn and I went to London for the day. I know we talked about, we're gonna do this meetup, aren't we? In the new year, we'll start planning that. So there's a few people on the Academy that are interested in that as well. we'll hopefully, but yeah, we talked about going to the Lee Miller exhibition, but I went there with Dawn last week at the Tate Modern, and it was fascinating. And I think the...

Steve Vaughan (02:43)
Why don't Steve?

In the new year, yeah, we'll plan it in the new year. cool.

Nick Church (03:08)
The feedback seems to be from other people that I've sort of talked to about it is that you don't go to an exhibition like Lee Miller's expecting to see photos that are just jaw dropping because they're not, they were taken in the 1930s. you know, it was the, kind of growth of photography was still happening. ⁓ it's more about the story. And I find that story of her really, really inspiring that she was with no interest in photography was a, you know, a model for Vogue and so on. ⁓

Steve Vaughan (03:23)
Mm. Mm.

That's right, yeah.

Nick Church (03:34)
spent

long enough in front of it that she decided I could do this, you know, and for a woman to do that back in 1930 is pretty amazing. not only, well, yeah. And, you know, working with, ⁓ Man Ray, which was a sort of collaborator and they, did some really, you know, they're really right on the bleeding edge of art, you know, that whole art movement, you know, their pals with Picasso and things like that.

Steve Vaughan (03:41)
especially as a wartime photographer as you became, yeah.

Nick Church (03:57)
Some of the techniques that they talk about in the exhibition that they showed was things like sodalization where they're using light leaks that they'd found by accident, found this way of creating really interesting, almost like tie dye patterns in parts of the image. And that's something that didn't come through at all in the film. was, they sort of skipped the whole kind of technical side of it. But of course that's probably because apart from you, me and our listeners would find it really boring. But yeah, then of course to go into become a wartime photographer and some of the photos from that time are pretty harrowing.

Steve Vaughan (04:08)
Yeah.

People like you and me.

Nick Church (04:26)
Dawn didn't go and see that bit. ⁓ so I, did that on my own, but, yeah, was really, it was good. Take modern. Yeah. think it's going on until January. I don't, I actually, I've said that I've got no idea. think, I think it's certainly there for a while. ⁓ yeah, it was good. Yeah. I would, I would really recommend it. And like I said, somebody that on the Academy catch up we did yesterday, just, you don't go expecting to see like the world's best photos or photo, you know, like you would if you went to.

Steve Vaughan (04:29)
So this is on the tape modding you see, yeah.

I'll check or put it in the show notes because I know my son will want to go. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick Church (04:55)
I don't know, like the, the wildlife talk for the year exhibition or something like that. That's, that's not the reason for it. Some of the photos are ridiculously small in big mounts. So when it's quite busy in there, it's quite hard to see something. You have to kind of just queue up a little bit to be otherwise you're looking, you're looking at a postage stamp, but yeah, it was great. It was really good.

Steve Vaughan (04:58)
show.

Hmm.

bring me glasses. Yeah.

thanks for the tip. Let's start the show, Nick.

Nick Church (05:14)
Yes.

Steve Vaughan (05:15)
So hello, welcome again to the photography part with me, Steve Vaughan and my good mate, Nick Church. So what are we going to look at today? Well, we thought we'd jump on the rumor treadmill about the forthcoming Sony a seven five. In by the time we listen to this, it may even be, may even be here with us. ⁓ so we're going to look at what we understand about that camera, what we hope is going to have as opposed to what we think it's going to have. And then that will perhaps lead us into a discussion about shooting hybrid, which is something that both of us do more and more at weddings.

Nick Church (05:42)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (05:45)
now. So let's start with the Sony A75. I think this is a really important product release for Sony because I think, I don't know, but I suspect they've lost a fair bit of market share recently. What do you think?

Nick Church (05:56)
Yeah, I think, I mean, the official announcement, as you said, Steve is, um, the second of December 3 PM apparently. don't know if that's us time or, or, or here, I'm not sure, but I think they have got to the specs right. And if the rumors that I'm seeing are correct, then I think they have, it would be a camera that is going to be extremely attractive to a huge number of people.

Steve Vaughan (06:16)
Well, let's look at what we understand. So this is obviously come from the Sony Alpha Rumors website. So you, I haven't seen it at the time of recording. you have, so what are the key takeaways from what they're saying?

Nick Church (06:26)
the,

I think there's a mixture of rumors on there from multiple sources, which are all the same. And there's a couple that are from one source. I think Sony, you know, Sony alpha rumors are pretty good at saying, look, this, this bit, we're pretty sure about this bit. We're not, know, that, so the, um, I think what's fairly clear is the 33 megapixel sensor. Um, but it's going to be a brand new, um, partially stacked sensor. Um,

Steve Vaughan (06:32)
Hmm.

Okay, good.

okay. I wasn't sure that

we're getting new sensor in time. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah.

Nick Church (06:55)
Yeah. So

that's the rumor that it's going to be this partially stacked sensor, which for the listeners is, would involve faster readout, making it less susceptible to things like rolling shutter and presumably banding and LED lighting. I guess it's the same, the same issue. Not fully stacked, know, so 33 megapixel. Yeah, enough with the, with the crop modes as well. there's like 14 megapixel medium size and a smaller one. There's now this, one of the rumors that was.

Steve Vaughan (07:05)
Yeah, particularly.

Hmm.

Enough.

Okay.

Nick Church (07:23)
just from one source is that there's going be a 30 frames per second shoot rate at the fastest in electronic shutter, but in 14 bit raw. I mean, a lot of these specs that have leaked are great for sports and wildlife, and this is one of them. So yeah, 30 frames per second, which is incredibly pretty amazing. The buffer is rumored not to be as big as the A12, so it's not going to be, know, they've got to make sure that they're

Steve Vaughan (07:29)
Electronic shutter presumably. Well that's video effectively isn't it? okay that's different.

Mm.

It is, yeah.

Nick Church (07:53)
not encroaching on their own other products and stopping sales there. But that's still going to be a massive, a massive business. The autofocus system is going to be calculated at 60 frames per second, which is faster and it's using a new AI chip. So again, it's going to be good for sports and wildlife. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're going to, they're going to bring that in, which I think we probably assumed that they would, they would do that.

Steve Vaughan (07:56)
No, they don't want to kill the flux ships. They're like, no.

Wow. Like in the a seven C two and then a seven C, a seven R and things like that. R five. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

⁓

Nick Church (08:18)
⁓

they're going to, the rumor is that there's going to be pre-capture supported against something great for wildlife and sports enthusiasts. So that's where it's, you know, you press the shutter, but it's, it's collected a bunch of shots from before then, and you can then just save those. ⁓ so if you've just missed that, moment, yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, but it doesn't last an hour, All right. ⁓

Steve Vaughan (08:31)
So when people like me miss the shot you mean? ⁓ thank you. If you're listening dear bride, I don't miss brides walking down the aisle, though I did try to do a photography with you today and I missed a coo, but

anyway that's another story.

Nick Church (08:46)
Uh, what else have we got? Uh,

the, the, big massive one. And I'm, you know, if I was a religious man, I'd be praying that this is true. And it's from multiple sources that the 4k 60 frames per second video mode will be uncropped. So that'll be, you know, the full thing. And that isn't going to be an absolute deal breaker. And to be honest, that's something that I was looking at a seven five for my next range of cameras, depending on the spec.

Steve Vaughan (09:01)
I'll go for that.

Nick Church (09:11)
And then thinking I might go to the A1 if it didn't have that crop mode, if it has got that, you know, the faster frame rate for slow motion without the crop factor coming in, then that's going to be a deal breaker. And for me, that's going to be, you know, make my decision for me on that one, on that one spec item alone.

Steve Vaughan (09:28)
So let's pick some of that for a minute before we move on. So

the AI chip. So we went up to North Wales a couple of weekends ago for our wedding anniversary up to Klendon. Klendon, Klendon, whoever you say it, because it's a place that me as a kid spent a lot of time. And I'd seen on a YouTube video from four years ago when they launched the original Sony A1, which as you know, we just bought, that they went to an owl sanctuary near Klendon.

Nick Church (09:48)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (09:53)
We went along and we dropped a note beforehand and said, if we make a bit of a donation, can you get some of the birds out? And they did. And Sam's really into bird photography. So they weren't flying around, they were tethered. But we took the A1 with us. And I was taking pictures of Sam and the bird. I can't find how I say that, Sam and the bird. With the A1, and because he doesn't have the AI chip. And while it was focusing...

Nick Church (10:11)
It's like a picture of the bird. Yeah, like a cockney.

Steve Vaughan (10:19)
as you described with Sony, wasn't always eye focusing and picking up the bird, whereas I'm pretty sure if I'd have took the A7C2 that I'm talking to you on now, it would. So it does make a difference.

Nick Church (10:29)
And is the

A1 on par with the AE74 then in that regard?

Steve Vaughan (10:34)
Yeah, and focusing accuracy and speed, would say, is similar. Obviously you have the benefit of the 50 megabyte stack sensor for the benefits I bring you. I would say focusing was similar to the A74, not as good as the A7C2, which I've got, which has got the AI chip. And it definitely recognizes the difference between the different humans, animals, whatever. Which of course the ⁓ A12 does have. So I think that AI chip does make a difference, certainly.

Nick Church (10:50)
Interesting, interesting.

Yeah.

Of course,

Steve Vaughan (11:02)
Yeah, so interesting. the video and well, the 4K 60, I for anybody that perhaps doesn't appreciate why that's such a big deal. Why is that so important for you,

Nick Church (11:03)
Well, that's

Well,

it just means you can do slow motion so you can shoot at, mean, that's 60 would be for the U S but for the, in the UK would be shooting it. Um, you want to shoot 25 frames per second for normal motion. have to have your, um, show speed twice the speed of that. we're normally fixing our shutter speed at a hundred or sorry, 50 for 25. Like I've got on here. Um, if you can do twice as many frames per second that you're shows because it's a hundred hundredth of a second, but it means you could then in post slow down to,

normal speed and you're getting two times slow motion. that's for almost certainly all cases I've ever come across. That's, that's fine. I would never stay down more than that anyway. there are no, I mean, 10 ATP, you can do a hundred frames, but that's yeah, too slow. takes so long for anything to happen. It's a.

Steve Vaughan (11:48)
Not for wedding use, no, it's just for those night. Yeah, that's too slow. That's too much. Yeah.

So that's

for those nice sort of dreamy shots of the couple walking along into the sunset and having a kiss and things,

Nick Church (12:00)
Yeah, exactly. It's just, yeah.

And it just really, you know, I really love it. think it's not used by a lot of video. There's a lot of video videographers that don't use that because it, you know, maybe falls in some of the cliche area. I think it looks great. I think it really adds quality to it for certain moments. Um, and of course it also means you don't, you've got the ability to stabilize a bit more. So slowing, slowing down that, slowing down the footage.

Steve Vaughan (12:16)
I think so too. Yeah.

Nick Church (12:27)
You're slowing down all your shakes and bumps and things like that. And it makes it much easier to keep things steady. Certainly if you do the warp stabilizing premier or stabilization in final cut, then that makes it a much easier job if you're, if you slow down. So yeah, and the A74 will do that, all of that, but with a crap crop, you have to cut that out. Can't take. Yeah, Freudian slips.

Steve Vaughan (12:29)
Mm.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

You might have been right first time. And why is it a pain? means that

your 60mm lens suddenly becomes a 24mm lens.

Nick Church (12:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. Which is, it's not, you know, it's not the end of the world, but it means if you are certainly for anything like architectural stuff that I do, then I can't, I can't use it because it's, it just makes a 40 mil lens, you know, something like a 20 or something. And it's, and it's just not quite wide enough. And, it just can be a pain because then the footage doesn't match. So if you're doing slow motion, you know, your lens suddenly jumps in and sometimes that can be fine depending on where the scenes are cut. But sometimes you've got a of a mixture of 35.

Steve Vaughan (13:07)
Yeah, you can't go wide enough.

Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Church (13:23)
24

type, you know, so it looks a bit odd. So not having that is just going to be, yeah, massive. That's going to be a deal breaker. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:30)
Yeah, well, let's hope you're right. I think on the buffer

side of things, because I've got a couple of compact flash cards now in the Sony A1. And I mean, you never get close to filling the buffer. So presumably if you use the same in the new A75, again, you're not going to have an issue filling the buffer ever really.

Nick Church (13:45)
I guess so.

Yeah. And it supports those, you know, those, haven't got these Uber Uber fast kind of cards, but, but it supports those in both card slots as well. That's the other thing. estimated price around $3,000. She's pretty good to me, you know? ⁓ so present that normally translates to 3000 pounds, doesn't it? By the time it comes here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then so is everything else. guess, ⁓ composite raw is likely to be supported like on the a nine three.

Steve Vaughan (13:54)
Mm. Mm.

I mean the price is creeping up isn't it? was like two and a half I think here, the last one here. Yeah, well true.

Nick Church (14:13)
⁓ where that that's where you take multiple images and it, ⁓ just uses some algorithm to remove the noise because noise is random. So if you've got a shot of the same thing with noise in different place, you can remove it and end up with, ⁓ a perfect image. Not great for moving stuff, of course, but like bracketing doesn't, you know, when you try and combine it, has to be all stuff in the same place. one of the downsides, which I've not even heard of is open gate.

Steve Vaughan (14:26)
That's good.

No, no, of course, yeah.

Nick Church (14:37)
um, open gate feature for video, which is something that I was not aware of, but the idea of an open gate, which a lot of me, think Canon and Nikon might support this is where it doesn't do like a, a, a 69 or whatever ratio inside the sensor, which just capture the whole sensor in video, which just gives you more flexibility in post to sort of move the crop region.

Steve Vaughan (14:45)
I think they do.

Mm.

So I was talking to my good

mate who we need to get on here actually, my good mate Luke Vaughan, no relation, who's a gig photographer and photographs lots of bands and does a great job. But increasingly he's having to do video work as well because of TikTok, social media, but also his clients want video work as well. And he's a Sony shooter. shoots a seven fours, pretty much the same kind of gear, but he's considering going and buying a Lumix.

Nick Church (15:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (15:24)
camera purely for the open gate functionality, because you're at a gig, you need to deliver video, obviously photos as well, but video. And you want to be able to shoot video 16 by nine, widescreen for your clients, but also they want TikTok and Instagram video and to be able to the same or get the same video from the one device would be really, really powerful. So

Nick Church (15:26)
Really?

Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (15:50)
So I think that not having open gate is an open goal. I miss goal for 70s personally.

Nick Church (15:55)
Yeah. I mean, I suppose it's, it depends what the limitation is. If it's, it's a software feature, ultimately, isn't it? It's a firmware feature. So it isn't something that is something that they could maybe bring in, who knows, but maybe it's not powerful enough to do that. Or maybe the high resolution, higher frame rates, can't do it. And they're figuring, let's just not support it right now, or maybe leave it out altogether. And then to make you, although it doesn't support it on the A12 either. So.

Steve Vaughan (16:01)
Absolutely it is,

I'm not sure any Sony cameras in the cinema line, might be, but I'm not so familiar with those. I mean, the Sony, sorry, the Canon R6 Mark III was launched a few weeks ago. And it's the first time I've looked at a Canon camera for a long time and thought, I quite like that. You know, and that does have open gate, believe. I think I'm right saying anyway. And what I would love, and it won't happen, but on this next camera, I'd love them just to update the looks of them slightly. I know they've changed the ergonomics a little bit, but

Nick Church (16:19)
No. Perhaps.

Steve Vaughan (16:44)
It's the same box now and it's been the same box since 10 years now, something like that. And it will be nice to have something. mean, the new cannons look very curvy. They look a little bit sexy. I know to camera, I don't need to get out more.

Nick Church (16:55)
I think they do. And I think I find the

same in Nikon as well. They're just a bit more ergonomic somehow, because maybe they've come from a DSLR background. So they're bit more styled like that. I don't know what it is, but they certainly change the, they gradually change the grip as we've gone through the ranges, haven't they, to make it a bit bigger. But ultimately it looks exactly the same. It's the same chassis, I'm guessing it's the same tooling for a lot.

Steve Vaughan (17:04)
think that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It'd interesting.

So it's a big camera, I think, because it's obviously in that mid-price sort of high-end enthusiast, low-end professional camera really. if they get it wrong, you know, when the A7 IV was launched, Canon and Nikon were only just getting their act together when it came to mirrorless cameras. Now they've got serious products at serious price ranges and they've got to get it right.

Nick Church (17:31)
Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's, that's

to the benefit of people that shoot Sony, the Sony system, like us, and that might be looking for, for, for cameras next year or whenever the benefit to us is of course that they can't keep throttle back on the features to try and push the higher, higher end because there are other options there now, which are, which are relatively easy to switch to that are just as capable. yeah, hopefully that does keep them on their toes a little bit with regards to this.

Steve Vaughan (17:52)
Mm.

So I'm going to say this

and you can remind me of my words sometime in the near future, we're not going to buy one. Because we are still working to an 18 month windup of our business. So I don't think we need one. And if we did buy one, it would be as part of closing our business down and having a camera for us really. But at the moment, I don't think we'd buy one really. The work that we do.

Nick Church (18:01)
All right.

Yeah.

Well, yeah,

we'll see. I'm sure I will next year. I've got a seven now that my last wedding's done up for this year, I can send my, um, the camera body back. That's being a bit temperamental with, um, with the lens. What do you need to send that just to get the, um, to get that issue resolved and then, you know, I can then sell those on. So I think in, summarize that the A75 looks like a better, uh, compared to A74, it's just better in all areas, including a few really significant ones, particularly.

Steve Vaughan (18:25)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Church (18:46)
⁓ significant for sports and wildlife photographers with the focusing frame rates and all those sorts of things, pre-capture and hybrid shooters that are using that camera for their main video, rather than being an A7S3 type shooter. So I think hybrid shooter, which, which kind of, ⁓ comes onto our, the next thing we're to talk about, that, that is something that I do often. I'm not going to, I'm not doing it enough that I would have an A7III or A7, you know, if the cinema line set up, it just wouldn't be worth it.

Steve Vaughan (18:51)
to.

No, I think you're right.

Sure.

Nick Church (19:14)
So I'm using the kit that I've got and it would be great to have some of those features on there.

Steve Vaughan (19:18)
So

when you're shooting hybrid, you, you're doing videoing with them? Start again, my teeth in. Waiting videography for your client or are you doing video content for your own marketing or both?

Nick Church (19:31)
Um, bit of both. So primarily it's for the clients. It's when they've booked a wedding film, but they want my lower range of packages, which is me shooting in between, um, photos of primary still focusing on the photography as the main thing, but getting sufficient clips to make a really nice highlights video out of it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll use the A74 for that typically with a wider lens, sorry, with a, um, tighter lens by 7,285. That's where I use that camera.

Steve Vaughan (19:39)
Mm.

So it's pretty much what we do as well, yeah, okay.

Mm.

Nick Church (20:00)
I used to have a static ace at my, that's what I used to bring my A7R3 out of the cupboard and have that as a static option. That's now been replaced by the Osmo Pocket, which is just an absolute game changer. It's turned the whole experience of hybrid into, from something I dreaded when you wake up in the morning and you think, ⁓ I'm doing hybrid today. For God's sake to being something that actually is a pleasant experience. It's so much easier with that Osmo. It's just, you know, it has been a game changer. It really is.

Steve Vaughan (20:19)
You

It's a game changer, isn't it? Really?

So we do pretty much the same. So we only sell video as an add-on to photography. We wouldn't do a wedding video separate to the photography. And we don't market it as a full wedding video, you know, as what a wedding videographer would do. If you do that book a videographer, you know, but for people who want some video from the day, usually it's a ceremony speeches, cake, cut first dance, you know, a few bits of slow motion, say a few bits of drone footage, that kind of thing, really. And the, and the Osmo three really is fabulous for that because you can

Nick Church (20:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Sure.

Steve Vaughan (20:55)
You can stick it on top of the camera. I know you do that. I do that as well. There's various brackets available. So for things like confetti run, you can shoot. there we go. There's your bracket. Yeah.

Nick Church (21:02)
There you are. So that's my small rig,

just cold shoe connector. Osmo sits on there. for things, I mean, some of this stuff, all this stuff, I got the ideas from Jan. So I do do a high end film as well, but then it's not me shooting. I get someone else. So typically Jan will come in and do that. But he uses Osmos as well as the side angles, rear angle, often using an Osmo. And so that's transformed.

Steve Vaughan (21:06)
Perfect.

Mm.

No, yeah, I would have to do the same. Yeah.

Nick Church (21:26)
his business, is a fully, you know, fully cinematic stuff. The videos that I'm producing where Jan's shot for me.

Steve Vaughan (21:30)
Well, it's a one inch center

and you can shoot a flat profile on it. So, so, so why not really having said that mine broke the other day. I mentioned we were in North Wales. So I woke up as I tend to do stupid o'clock and I thought it's a nice morning. I'm to go out to the front and photograph the PA over the sun coming up. So I did that and I took my tripod and everything and I, and I was doing some video with the Osmo pocket three again, you know, I always did shoot video with a view, doing something with it and I never have time to put it in your web. So

Nick Church (21:38)
did it?

Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (21:59)
But when I came to put it away, the screen wouldn't go back. I try and flick it back, know, the flip, the screen flips out. It wouldn't go back. It would sort of stop halfway. And then when I forced it, then it wouldn't come back on properly unless I held it. I had to hold it open for it to use it. And you know what I'm going to say now. So I'd bought the two year care refresh package on it and it had just expired. So I contacted them and

Nick Church (22:03)
right. Yeah.

I wish.

that's a shame.

Mm-hmm. God.

Steve Vaughan (22:24)
They've got a service center in, think, Derby, somewhere like that. So I sent it back, wrote and said, you know, we've got a DJI drone, Pocket 3, two action cameras, all the mics and things. And then I got a estimate repair for £120, which I wasn't really happy about. So I wrote to them and said, it's only two weeks out of your extended warranty. I didn't extend it because frankly, I didn't know it had expired. You didn't tell me. I've got all this gear.

Nick Church (22:27)
Yeah.

Mm.

No, that's a pain. Yeah, two years in.

Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (22:51)
And surprise surprise in the post yesterday, I got a brand new camera. So I didn't pay anything.

Nick Church (22:54)
There we go. But you still pay your fee.

great. Yeah. I mean, that's what they did with my drone. They don't, tend not to repair stuff to, they just keep it for spares and send out a new one. cheaper. That's decent. mean, ⁓ and you didn't use the, I'm an international podcaster line.

Steve Vaughan (23:01)
Very nice.

⁓

I could have gone that. That was my nuclear option. Yeah.

Nick Church (23:13)
Yeah, it's great to have to have it on top of your camera for things. What I used to find the problem with, with hybrid is getting things like confetti or first, first kiss things that sort of time, you know, when you're shooting photos and then I'm trying to really rapidly switch to video, which as we've talked about before, looks like it takes back two seconds, but in the moment, feels like about a minute of missed stuff.

Steve Vaughan (23:24)
Yeah.

doesn't work. This doesn't work.

right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick Church (23:36)
So

just capturing the confetti with that absolutely perfect. And Jan does the same thing. He's got his Osmo on one of these on this little cool little side bracket sort of bayonet fitting. So he can use something tighter like a 50 or even 85 for, um, you know, the, the, the confetti and have a very wide option as well. So he can then switch between the two. Works really well. Yeah, that's good.

Steve Vaughan (23:56)
No, completely. It's

perfect for that. The last video we did, I had a camera to the side of me running on a tripod. I had one at the back for a rear view. And then I had the Osmo Pocket on top of the camera. So bright coming in, I'm taking photos and then the Osmo Pocket capturing that. And then I can switch then to the side view when I'm then, because I won't take video during the ceremony on the Osmo. I stopped and I revert to purely focusing on photos if you part of the point.

Nick Church (24:21)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (24:25)
Do you use anything like action cameras at weddings at all?

Nick Church (24:28)
I used to...

Sorry, apologies to the listener as I disappear from my, I just, so I've enough, I quit. So it was just in case anyone wasn't aware of what the Osmo looks like I thought it was worth. So yeah, it's just a tiny little stabilized sort of gimbal. Yeah, basically really, really great little thing. It comes with the, oh, I got the, you know, there's a creator kit. So it comes with an extra

Steve Vaughan (24:31)
I thought you'd run off. I've had enough of this nonsense.

Okay, there we go.

It's a drone on a stick basically.

Yeah, have fun.

Mm.

Nick Church (24:58)
like a battery attached to an extra battery handle. And these DJI mics are fantastic. They're really good quality. And they record 30 bit 32 bit web on board as well. So it's just a great system. The only problem I had, which was completely my own doing, I bought a screen protector because you want to be careful with your kit. You don't want it to break, right? It's do you know, so I got the screen protector and it came with a tiny little, um, so I put the screen protector on.

Steve Vaughan (25:04)
They are good, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like it did. It wasn't my fault, honest. ⁓

Mm.

Nick Church (25:27)
And it came with a tiny little lens. Can we see the lens? I get the light to no, not really. But it's a, it's pretty small lens on there. Uh, but it came with a little lens protector. So let me put that on, um, as well. Then I decided I, oh, actually I don't want that because that's, you know, you do things and after you think, did I do that? You know, it's going to affect the image quality. So when they take it off and I could not get the damn thing off, because there's a tiny little recess to the glass on the lens. The, the.

Steve Vaughan (25:31)
really know but I know you've got lens cover as well yeah yeah

Yeah.

Wow, didn't super

glue it on.

Nick Church (25:56)
that thick, it might as well have been that thing. Then the lens, the lens protector sits in completely flushed and there's no space around it. I ended up getting a scalpel to it to get it out. It was really strict. It took me about an hour. I was so annoyed that I'd done that. Yeah, well, I was absolutely terrified of it. And I thought, should I leave it on there? But by the time I had a bit of a dig at it, I thought I've scratched the damn protector anyway, so I can't leave it on there. But it came off and there was no permanent damage to it, thankfully.

Steve Vaughan (25:58)
Yeah.

Wow.

Did this crash the lens in as well? I would have been terrified to scratch the lens. Yeah.

can hear the swearing from here. That would have been me as well, to be honest. question I asked you before you disappeared off out of frame was, do you ever use action cameras at weddings?

Nick Church (26:23)
man, the walls were going blue, tell you. It was shocking.

Sorry, yeah.

Um, I've used, I did for a while. had, um, a GoPro that I would just, but I was using it as the same, this is like a rubbish quality version of that because action cameras are great for being action cameras. They're not brilliant, um, quality or certainly the, uh, the GoPro that I had. I did use it for one. There was one shot where it was confetti, uh, sorry, champagne and stuff flying about. And I put that in there that was quite a good, I just had it on. That was for photography. Just had it on. I did photos, but the photos, bit sketchy.

Steve Vaughan (26:44)
Yeah.

especially in a low light.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay, yeah. So we've

got an action four and action five TGI cameras. What sometimes we'll do is put both of them on a stick and give one to the bridal party and one to the grooms and just say video anything. And we don't charge them for it, but we don't edit it at all. just stick it all on the timeline. So there's going to be video of the feet and the ceiling and whatever. But it's actually quite a laugh when you look at it back because the drunker they get, the funnier it is really.

Nick Church (27:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

okay.

Steve Vaughan (27:28)
Yeah, and couples love it really. It's like a nice little surprise upgrade for them. It's not a winning video, of course, but the one guy really got into it. He started interviewing. How do you know the Brighton Group? Yeah, full back. What about into the 360s? Is that anything you tend to use or have you got?

Nick Church (27:32)
Yeah.

Just went full Paxman.

No, haven't. Um, no, it isn't. I, I, I got the GoPro partly for wedding stuff and to put on my motorcycle. So I I might get some, get some nice footage of that. I did that once did champagne once put it in the box for about a year and then sold it. Cause I didn't ever use it again. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (27:57)
⁓ Yeah.

Yeah, that's what tends to happen isn't it? I've got

it into the 360 but I've never really used it be honest. Yeah, again I know people who do a lot of behind the scenes footage, it's why asked you whether you did the video for your own use.

Nick Church (28:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, I looked at it

I thought that this is probably going to serve that similar sort of purpose. I've got a decent ⁓ selfie stick. Really good little thing actually is from a company called Ulanzi. And I've got two, I've Ulanzi, is they do light stands, which are fantastic. Really light plastic things. Yeah, really great. But they do a selfie stick style version as well that sits on, can use it as a light stand as well. Really light. And I thought if I do stuff, so I did a little bit in London with that.

Steve Vaughan (28:18)
Yeah, course it is.

Yeah.

Good stuff, aren't they? Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick Church (28:40)
going through Covent Garden just to chat about the Academy and stuff. me about what should take about 30 seconds to do a little clip for a reel. Took me about 25 minutes by the time I'd finished Dawn had buggered off. So she was fed up with hanging around. she'd gone to where we were having lunch. said, look, come if you want to, otherwise I'll see you later at home. So she's so flighty. So I caught up with her, calmed the waters and all was fine.

Steve Vaughan (28:54)
you

God's hair blame.

Brilliant stuff, brilliant. So I think we'll leave it there Nick because we've got more stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks. So we're going to do a Christmas show. We're planning to do like we did last year. So I might dig out a Christmas quiz again and have a bit of fun that way as well. And we also want to look, I'll give you a bit more notice this time. Yeah.

Nick Church (29:10)
Yes, absolutely.

I did so well last time, didn't I? Yeah, I was shocking.

Well, can't, there's not much you can, like, I can't really revise Christmas. If there's a Christmas wiki page, I could just revise, revise Christmas.

Steve Vaughan (29:24)
I can just see

your mastermind now, especially subject Christmas. And also, as we say, we are going to look at the plans for a meetup in London in the new year and be great if you can get some of your Academy guys along as well. So if you've enjoyed today's show, folks, make sure you give us a like and a subscribe to whatever podcast app you use. does help us in lots of weird and wonderful ways. Don't forget there is a Facebook group as well just called the Photography Pod where

Nick Church (29:30)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (29:53)
Always happy to chat, share photos, talk about anything to do with photography. We're very, very informal and very relaxed in there. We'll be back again in a couple

Nick Church (30:00)
And you can let us

know about what you want us to chat about as well. we're happy to take suggestions. Any guests you'd like us to interview. We're so grateful for the generosity of the guests and almost in almost all cases, any, any guests, regardless of how world renowned they are or otherwise, they genuinely are well up for coming on. you know, don't, don't think because someone's really well known, they may not be interested in coming on. I'd definitely reach out to them and see if they fancy it.

Steve Vaughan (30:03)
Absolutely. Yeah.

It's amazing. Yeah, it is.

And we are working on some interesting guests for next year as well, but it's a little bit too early to say any more on that again. Yeah, thanks for putting that out. And also don't forget you can email the show. And I never remember the email address, which is Nick.

Nick Church (30:26)
Absolutely, yeah.

studio at the photography pod.co.uk.

Steve Vaughan (30:37)
Thank you very much for that. I will remember it by the 500th episode or something, but now I can never remember it. It's my age. We'll be back again in a couple of weeks time dear Lister. Until then, happy shooting out there and we'll talk to you soon.

Nick Church (30:48)
Bye bye.