Photographic Preferences

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hey cool! This is a huge aspect of our video/photo interests and workflow that we don’t really get to talk about much. Thanks for the question!  Simple answer – there is no simple answer 😛

We use  everything from expensive prime lenses and the standard kit lens for both video and photo. With the recent videos we have moved more towards zoom lenses again, for the sake of an easier workflow, not focusing too much on achieving the shallowest depth of field possible. Because there was a time where you could say we might have overdone that a little bit (like with “Morning Has Broken”) where we ended up with a depth of field of about two eyelashes ?

We shoot with a Sony a7 iii and also use a lot of Sony lenses, especially while filming. Their autofocus has actually become decent these days 😉 The ones we shoot with most often are the 28-70mm (f/3.5-5.6) perfectly fine kit lens, a 16-35mm (f/4) great for smooth wide angle gimbal shots, and a 85mm (f/1.8) prime lens for close-ups and a shallow depth of field. If I had to pick just one lens for photography I’d go with a 50mm 🙂

Dad always takes care of the video side of things, is always up to date with the latest gimbal, drone and camera developments. He’s always working on his rig and figuring out which lenses, microphones, etc. are most suited for his latest contraptions. He could probably start his own YouTube channel just about cameras and how to get the most out of your equipment 🙂

And we definitely agree with you on manual over autofocus. The new Sony cameras have become more reliable but whenever we can we also avoid autofocus!

[Paul Steinmayer]

Wow…  Fascinating to hear this!  I’m a bit of a photographer myself, although in no way professional.  I used to work with 35mm and 2-1/4 medium format.  I also had my own working darkroom and processed my own film and prints (in B&W – Color I sent out).  Of course, that was back when film was still king!  I still have all of my darkroom equipment, but sold off my cameras years ago.  Now that said, my maternal grandfather was a true professional photographer.  He worked with both still (in several formats) and film and was one of the main camera men for a company called Jam Handy here in Detroit!  He also had a full darkroom and processing lab built into his basement too.  He was also a bit of a fanatic about it.  My mother used to tell us how he would write scripts for family vacations, and then film them like he was producing a Hollywood movie!  LOL

[Jacki Hopper]

That was an interesting Q to ask and Lisa gave an informative reply to which I enjoyed reading though, I may not know much about all that goes into aspects of photography, video/filming stuff, tech aspects, etc… I still learned something new… I still own my very first camera given as a Xmas/Bday Gift to me as a kid, it was a Kodak Instamatic I think, lol… Then I had a Kodak 110 style camera before I went onto a digital one, and currently own a Purple Sony SureShot I think it is. My parents had one of those Brownie style cameras with the Frikkin huge flashbulb that’d blind someone… Lol ??

[Jung Roe]

I love digital photography, but I’ve never really been a technical photographer using a proper digital SLR with professional lenses.  Been more a novice with the point and shoots.  Started off with a Canon G1 when digital cameras first came out around 2000, and then went to a Canon S2IS in 2005 with a 12X optical image stabilized zoom (6-72 mm) which I’ve been using strong until it finally died on me last Christmas when I went to use it.  But man I’ve had so much fun with that camera.  The 12X optical zoom really could reach and frame many perfect shots for me, and the 720 DPI video was still decent, and I could zoom in and out while filming and snap still shots at full 5 MP with the video running, so I could have videos and photos of the same shot.  The shutter priority and aperture priority manual features as well as manual focusing enabled some nice creative shots too.

Now that Nikon P1000, to replace the Canon S2IS, with that insane built in 24 to 3000 mm lense (125X optical zoom) got me thinking.  Might be able to catch aliens sneaking around in one of the craters on the moon.  🙂