TWiT+ Club Shows 766 Transcript - Photo Time With Chris Marquardt #21
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Chris Marquardt [00:00:00]:
This is TWiT.
Anthony Nielsen [00:00:03]:
Hey everybody, it's time once again for photo time. Leo is out this month, so you got me. I'm Anthony. I produce around here and a lot of other things, but more importantly, we got Chris with us. Chris Marquardt joining us from Germany. Chris is a brilliant photographer.
Chris Marquardt [00:00:17]:
Hello!
Anthony Nielsen [00:00:17]:
Hey, hey. Um, brilliant photographer. You got chrismarquardt.com and, uh, your workshops at discoverthetopfloor.com. Hello, Chris.
Chris Marquardt [00:00:28]:
Hey, Anthony, how are you doing?
Anthony Nielsen [00:00:30]:
Doing all right. You know, Leo's busy dealing with some contractors at the house, so I'm pitching in and hopefully you'll safely guide me through this scary process. That's totally cool.
Chris Marquardt [00:00:42]:
I have it all covered. I have it all prepared.
Anthony Nielsen [00:00:46]:
Other than that, how's your summer been doing?
Chris Marquardt [00:00:48]:
Oh, it's been doing good. Germany was hot and dry and it's getting worse, but other than that, everything's cool.
Anthony Nielsen [00:00:56]:
Now, been very busy.
Chris Marquardt [00:00:56]:
You've been finishing up a manuscript, which I handed in yesterday. And if things go by the plan, there will be a photography book, a new one on the market in the holidays, not in English at first, in German in the beginning, but then let's see how it goes.
Anthony Nielsen [00:01:22]:
Awesome.
Chris Marquardt [00:01:24]:
a publisher in the US picking it up.
Anthony Nielsen [00:01:27]:
Okay.
Chris Marquardt [00:01:27]:
So that's the plan for now.
Anthony Nielsen [00:01:29]:
Yeah. So, uh, normally we start with the, uh, the photo review, but before we get started, um, if you, if you have, if you watching have any questions, we have the tfttf.com/ptq that you could— did I get that right?
Chris Marquardt [00:01:45]:
Yeah. Yes. And it's the worst, the worst link ever, but it works just fine.
Anthony Nielsen [00:01:50]:
Yeah, send in your questions and we might be able to get to them at the end of the show.
Chris Marquardt [00:01:54]:
Yes.
Anthony Nielsen [00:01:56]:
And then our assignment this month out of the fishbowl was, I believe, rugged, right?
Chris Marquardt [00:02:02]:
Rugged. Well, we did not get a single rug photo, I think, I believe. So people completely misunderstood it and went for rugged, which, well, that's language for you, right?
Anthony Nielsen [00:02:16]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:02:17]:
So yeah, people brought their rugged photos and quite a good selection this time. A lot more than last time. I think we had 4 last time because we forgot to announce the whole thing. Well, anyway, so there's plenty of photos this time. And yeah, I did what I do every month here. go through them, make a choice, the 3 of the 3 that we want to talk about.
Anthony Nielsen [00:02:49]:
All right.
Chris Marquardt [00:02:49]:
And I made a choice. Let me open them here myself. I should have done this. Here we go. First one is by— yeah, by our good old friends Demi Lente, the couple who do photography and The description says, when life is not coming up roses, look to the weeds and find the beauty hidden within them. Nice description. That's what plants do. They're rugged.
Anthony Nielsen [00:03:26]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:03:26]:
They grow in every crease, in every corner. This case, at a wall coming through the asphalt. It's just a really nice little vignette, very shallow depth of field. warm, as in the heat. So yeah, good, very good, very simple, but it completely covers the rugged aspect of this assignment. So, uh, good job, good job. Um, let's see, next one is by RB19. He titled it Godzilla.
Anthony Nielsen [00:04:10]:
Actually, sorry, I think I got the wrong one here.
Chris Marquardt [00:04:13]:
Yeah, just the other link. Godzilla. It's a— what is it? What is it? Is it an iguana? I'm not sure. It definitely has something Godzilla-like, even though if it was real Godzilla, it would probably be photographed not from the top down, but from below. Rugged. I would say that holds true here.
Anthony Nielsen [00:04:43]:
Yeah, look at that skin texture.
Chris Marquardt [00:04:45]:
It's just amazing detail. Good contrast with the background, which is just a concrete floor. So there's not a lot of distraction there. Yeah, very cool. Thank you, RB19. And last but not least, we have Joseph. Josef opted for an old piece of machinery, an old car. I don't even know what that is.
Chris Marquardt [00:05:11]:
Do you?
Anthony Nielsen [00:05:13]:
All I see is the Ford, but I couldn't—
Chris Marquardt [00:05:15]:
Oh, it has a Ford logo there. Okay. So it's some old Ford from the— I don't know, '70s? '60s, '70s, something like that. I like the style of the photo that goes really well with the old car because it looks like an old analog shot. But if you look at the EXIF data, that one's been shot with an iPhone.
Anthony Nielsen [00:05:40]:
So yeah, could have fooled me.
Chris Marquardt [00:05:42]:
Yeah, some app, some filter, something going on there. But it's a good fit. The only thing that gives it away is the cars in the background. They are distinctly more modern here. Yeah, but yeah, I just, I like what film or this film simulation, what they do with the colors, with the contrast and things.
Anthony Nielsen [00:06:05]:
Yeah, like the blacks are a little lifted.
Chris Marquardt [00:06:07]:
They're Yeah, and then just the whole— the greens are a bit warmer than they probably are in real life. Everything is just a bit different. Definitely not how a modern smartphone would take the picture out of the box. So yeah, that's rugged for sure. If it's still around, it's got to be rugged.
Anthony Nielsen [00:06:31]:
Well, thank you everyone who submitted. This month. And, uh, so we, we have the fishbowl, right? For anyone new, Chris has a fishbowl of words that he has no idea what he's going to be pulling, but whatever comes out, that is the next assignment for the next 4 weeks. Let's see what we got here.
Chris Marquardt [00:06:50]:
And we have— oh, I like this one. We have smooth.
Anthony Nielsen [00:06:58]:
Smooch. Smooth. Oh, smooth. Yes.
Chris Marquardt [00:07:01]:
Not smooch, smooth. Yeah, smooth, whatever that means for you and your photos. The way to participate is you can take as many as 1 photo per week for the next 4 weeks before we come back with another Photo Time and put them on Flickr. So what you do is you add them to Flickr, you Tag them with #TGsmooth, which is the Tech Guy Smooth hashtag for this photo, and you add it to the Tech Guy group. And you can find the Tech Guy group by just looking for the Tech Guy group. It's— I think it should be easy to find. It has so many members, I don't even know how many. But, um, Flickr—
Anthony Nielsen [00:07:55]:
I could probably figure that out too.
Chris Marquardt [00:07:58]:
Let's see, groups. Tech Guy has 14,008 members now, almost 8,000 photos. If you find that, that's the one where you add your photo, and if it's tagged TG Smooth, um, Renee Silverman, the moderator, will, will pick it up. and add it to the assignment. And then next time I will make my selection, pick out 3 photos, and then we'll talk about them here in the show.
Anthony Nielsen [00:08:41]:
Excellent. What do we have next? The news segment, is that what we're heading into?
Chris Marquardt [00:08:44]:
Oh yeah, we have a whole lot of news items. that I picked up over the last weeks and things I found interesting or worth talking about. Have you ever done any astrophotography?
Anthony Nielsen [00:09:04]:
I took astronomy in community college. I think I— like, the best I've done, I think, is point a cell phone at a telescope.
Chris Marquardt [00:09:15]:
I mean, if If you look at it in the traditional sense, it is a very, very technical kind of photography, right?
Anthony Nielsen [00:09:25]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:09:25]:
You need typically a huge setup. You have a camera with a telescope, you have a guiding telescope, you might have a guiding camera in that, you have a tracker that keeps following a galaxy or a star, countering the Earth's motion, a computer. There's a lot of post-production. You have to do stacking and filtering. And for a few years now, there has been this, at least for me, new category of devices on the scene, and they're called smart telescopes. So a smart telescope is very much an astro cell phone. You could say they really use a lot of computational photography like your smartphone does. They like the photo merging and the stacking and the processing is built into these things.
Chris Marquardt [00:10:20]:
They have motors, so they can— and they have databases, and they have a GPS, and they can find out where they are, and then they can find constellations. So you have an app and you select Andromeda and it points to Andromeda, and then you can take pictures in a pretty much automated fashion. So it will take multiple shots, Depending on what you want to photograph, it might take you a while, but the telescope will do that for you. It'll compute those pictures together. It'll merge them. It'll stack them. It'll process them. And it takes a lot of the hassle out of doing astrophotography.
Chris Marquardt [00:11:11]:
It makes it accessible to a lot more people.
Anthony Nielsen [00:11:14]:
For sure.
Chris Marquardt [00:11:15]:
which is very interesting. This again, until a couple years ago, I didn't have that product category on my radar. We were talking— the last time I looked, they were somewhere between $500 and $3,000 plus. So they start somewhat cheap-ish, but of course—
Anthony Nielsen [00:11:42]:
Starts at $300?
Chris Marquardt [00:11:42]:
Yeah, that's very 300 to 500, somewhere in that range. Again, quality-wise, I think as with the distinction between the cell phone and, or a smartphone and a big mirrorless camera rig with dedicated lenses, you will get better astrophotos out of the bigger setups, but they also will take you much, much longer to do that.
Anthony Nielsen [00:12:08]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:12:09]:
And you need much more skill to do it. So The pictures I've seen out of these smart telescopes, for what you pay and for the amount of effort you don't have to spend, is incredible. They are really incredible.
Anthony Nielsen [00:12:29]:
Wow.
Chris Marquardt [00:12:30]:
And of course, as they are app-connected, you can sit in your living room, put this thing out on the patio and and drink a beer in the warm while your telescope does the work.
Anthony Nielsen [00:12:44]:
Look at that. That's wild that you could. Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:12:49]:
It's very accessible. Again, you will not get the top level of quality, but then again—
Anthony Nielsen [00:13:01]:
Sure. But look at this though.
Chris Marquardt [00:13:04]:
Not a lot of skill required. You can pretty much set that thing up and you can set it up. You don't have to go to one of those dark places. You can pretty much do this in a city with the smart telescope taking care of a lot of the filtering and the computational removing of—
Anthony Nielsen [00:13:31]:
Noise. Very cool.
Chris Marquardt [00:13:37]:
Yeah. So yeah, Demolente writes, our skies just aren't dark enough here. Joshua Tree is the closest dark sky to try astro stuff. Again, these things are kind of tuned for you to not have to do that, which of course has a lot to be said about going to a place like Joshua Tree, setting up a telescope, a proper big telescope, setting up your camera, setting up your tracking equipment and making that into, I'd say, almost kind of a meditational exercise, right? You— but then again, most people will never be able to do that. So—
Anthony Nielsen [00:14:17]:
Oh, let's see if I can actually— let me pull in the Discord here because there was— Jammerbee shared a photo. Oops.
Chris Marquardt [00:14:29]:
Does he, does he have one of these?
Anthony Nielsen [00:14:31]:
Not one of these, but here's a little bit more.
Chris Marquardt [00:14:35]:
There wasn't any post-processing when I was doing astrophotography.
Anthony Nielsen [00:14:38]:
Well, let me, uh, here's that. Here's this photo. It's got an icon.
Chris Marquardt [00:14:44]:
That's it. That's some proper setup for sure.
Anthony Nielsen [00:14:48]:
Yeah, very cool.
Chris Marquardt [00:14:52]:
But you can, you can tell the difference, right, of this kind of a can and the small folding up, uh, smart telescope.
Anthony Nielsen [00:15:01]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:15:02]:
And also, when we look at how this— how the advent of smartphones has changed photography, I think we'll see something similar here. I mean, there are smartphones now that will— I have the manuscript that I just handed in. There's probably 30% of smartphone photos in there now. So it's not hard to take good photos with whatever camera right now. So smartphones have taken over. They are a bit of a problem for the traditional manufacturers, for sure. And something similar might happen here. So anyway, let's go on to the next item.
Anthony Nielsen [00:16:01]:
Sure.
Chris Marquardt [00:16:04]:
Speaking of businesses getting into trouble, have you heard about GoPro? GoPros?
Anthony Nielsen [00:16:13]:
Well, they're not doing too great.
Chris Marquardt [00:16:17]:
They're not doing too great is an understatement. They are doing really bad.
Anthony Nielsen [00:16:23]:
I mean, they have— they had—
Chris Marquardt [00:16:24]:
they had a loss in Q2 of $51 million.
Anthony Nielsen [00:16:28]:
Wow.
Chris Marquardt [00:16:28]:
Um, so that's just a short piece of news because I have no idea what's going to happen, but their revenue is down 31%, their hardware sales dropped almost 40%, um, even though they just brought out their new Mission One cameras with bigger sensors and a—
Anthony Nielsen [00:16:45]:
And you could like—
Chris Marquardt [00:16:46]:
Better quality.
Anthony Nielsen [00:16:47]:
That's one where you could like— it has like a Micro Four Thirds mount that you could like attach a lens to, right?
Chris Marquardt [00:16:53]:
But that doesn't seem to be helping. So at this point, I've— yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's obviously there's just a ton of competition if you look at DJI, if you look at Insta360. The Chinese are eating their lunch.
Anthony Nielsen [00:17:07]:
I think the last GoPro I bought was the Hero 5. I don't know what year that came out. Um, but yeah, everything I have now is either Insta or DJI.
Chris Marquardt [00:17:19]:
There are also new categories coming out. I'm not sure how GoPro serves those. I'm looking at these handheld small gimbal cameras, the Osmo Pocket, these kind of cameras.
Anthony Nielsen [00:17:30]:
I got one back there. I love it. It's really cool.
Chris Marquardt [00:17:36]:
I don't think GoPro has anything in that range, at least not that I'm aware of. So they're now starting to put like high dynamic range sensors in them, the new low-fix sensors. Um, things are really accelerating in that field.
Anthony Nielsen [00:17:53]:
I feel like, like they went— GoPro went hard on the whole drone thing, and then that like was a terrible product. Like, and I feel like ever then, ever after, ever since then, like it's been kind of a misstep and they never really caught up. But—
Chris Marquardt [00:18:09]:
And the interesting thing is GoPro became big with drones. Remember when DJI had GoPro cameras under the drones initially?
Anthony Nielsen [00:18:20]:
Yeah, right, right.
Chris Marquardt [00:18:21]:
So that was one of the things where GoPro was— where DJI was not— I didn't expect them to become a camera manufacturer, but of course that's what they have become in addition to other things. So GoPro has, has, has had better days. So they are, at least this point, I think they're looking for options, including selling the company. The stock is down to 70 cents from over $90 a couple years ago. So yeah, we'll have to see.
Anthony Nielsen [00:18:55]:
Yeah, I'm not sure what— yeah, we'll see what happens. But, you know, they're so far behind now, I'm not sure what value, like, another company would Besides the brand recognition.
Chris Marquardt [00:19:05]:
But no, I, I mean, they might be sold and the brand might live on for sure. GoPro is a— I think there's value in the name for sure.
Anthony Nielsen [00:19:14]:
Like a Kodak, right?
Chris Marquardt [00:19:17]:
Yeah, like a Kodak. Yeah, there are more, more, more brands now.
Anthony Nielsen [00:19:21]:
Uh, or is it Kodak or Polaroid? Yeah, it's like where like some other company just like picked it up and used it to like paste.
Chris Marquardt [00:19:27]:
Kodak has brand deals for sure. Polaroid as well. Yeah, anyway, speaking of, of, uh, small gimbal cameras, um, have you seen the Honor robot phone?
Anthony Nielsen [00:19:45]:
Uh, yes, I've seen that, uh, like in social. I haven't really like gotten it.
Chris Marquardt [00:19:51]:
So here's a video by Kai Wong who's testing that.
Anthony Nielsen [00:19:55]:
I love that channel too.
Chris Marquardt [00:19:56]:
He has a really good channel. Absolutely. I think it's only on the Chinese market at this point. So there's a— but that's something that I'm always quite wary of, of these all-in-one devices.
Anthony Nielsen [00:20:13]:
Right.
Chris Marquardt [00:20:14]:
But this one, I think this one has— I find this interesting. So what we're looking at is a smartphone and the combination of a smartphone and this small gimbal camera. And this one is built into the phone so it can flip out or it can hide in the back of the phone, which is wild, I think. And it means for you, it means that you don't have to bring one more device. You can leave your gimbal thing at home and use that instead.
Anthony Nielsen [00:20:52]:
Honestly, I don't know what— like, Like I said, I do have a gimbal camera, like a pocket one. I still don't— I'm still undecided if this is gimmicky or not. But you're right, it's like, you know, the best camera is the camera that you have on you, right?
Chris Marquardt [00:21:09]:
Well, Kai Wong says in the video, the best gimbal is the one that you have with you.
Anthony Nielsen [00:21:15]:
The question is, like, can it— would the sensor Are they making compromises in the sensor to fit it in the gimbal versus just in the phone is my question.
Chris Marquardt [00:21:27]:
The camera part doesn't look that much smaller than the Osmo Pocket, does it?
Anthony Nielsen [00:21:33]:
Yeah, I guess not.
Chris Marquardt [00:21:35]:
I don't know. I mean, and then of course, I mean, image quality, it looks decent. I haven't done any pixel peeping, but I don't do pixel peeping anyway. So Um, if you look at the, at the target for, uh, for the videos that come out of that, it's gonna be smartphones. So yeah, the, the quality of individual pixels doesn't matter, I think.
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:02]:
Fair enough.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:02]:
And it doesn't look like a potato.
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:04]:
No.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:05]:
Does it?
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:05]:
No.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:06]:
Not really.
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:10]:
I—
Chris Marquardt [00:22:10]:
Would you buy one of these?
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:11]:
I still think—
Chris Marquardt [00:22:11]:
That's the main question.
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:17]:
No, I mean, maybe if for some reason Apple did, because I like, you know, I'm an iPhone user.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:21]:
Okay, so you'd have to give up your iPhone because Apple's not gonna do that for sure.
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:28]:
No, I'm happy with a separate gimbal.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:31]:
Yeah, so you don't mind carrying a second device, and it's not a big device, right?
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:37]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:38]:
I mean, As long as you don't go for the latest Insta360 flagship gimbal cameras that are big.
Anthony Nielsen [00:22:49]:
With the 2 lenses. Yeah, they're getting bigger.
Chris Marquardt [00:22:52]:
They're getting bigger. They have to. I mean, optics, physics doesn't allow you. They do trick physics quite well with a lot of the stacking and the multiple exposures. But yeah, at one point you have to size up. That's also why those camera bumps are getting bigger because you need to cram in some— they need space for good optics. So I would not buy this, but only because it's not a camera that I need.
Anthony Nielsen [00:23:30]:
Yeah, like if I was getting a new phone and it just happened to be in the phone that I wanted, Like, yeah, I guess. But, um, I don't know. I'd also be worried about, you know, I'd be worried, especially, you know, since phones are quite expensive. Like, if that thing breaks, then, you know.
Chris Marquardt [00:23:51]:
It does look a bit, a bit dangerous in terms of if you drop that, that gimbal breaks off, probably.
Anthony Nielsen [00:23:59]:
Like, I got my, you know, gimbal for— I know it retails for more, but, you know, I got it for sale, you know, around $300. Like, that's completely different than whatever— like, that's gonna be what, a $1,200 phone potentially? So I'd be a little bit more nervous.
Chris Marquardt [00:24:16]:
Again, I'm not sure if it's gonna be available in the West.
Anthony Nielsen [00:24:22]:
Yeah, probably not.
Chris Marquardt [00:24:22]:
I don't know. All right. With your— I don't know, what do you shoot with as your, in air quotes, proper camera? That's not a phone.
Anthony Nielsen [00:24:40]:
I don't— still photography, it's basically on my phone. I have some film cameras that I toyed around with, but that was it was too much work and I didn't keep up with that because I was even trying to develop it on my own, which was crazy.
Chris Marquardt [00:25:00]:
So what I want to get to is batteries. It's one of those areas that I've never thought of innovating, right? I started out with proper digital photography with a Canon, uh, what's it called, Digital Rebel, the original one. Um, and then the 20D, and, and they— the Canon batteries, the LP-E6, um, very typical Canon battery, has been around forever pretty much. They upgraded it with more capacity over the years, and initially in the early days, I tended to use third-party batteries because they were like half the price, but still decent. And at this point, I'm on the original batteries because they're just better. And never looked at third-party again. But now Falcam has brought out new batteries that replaced them, the LP-E6 and the Sony NP-F.
Anthony Nielsen [00:26:15]:
Z100s.
Chris Marquardt [00:26:16]:
And they have a couple of really interesting features in them. First of all, they have a USB port, so you can plug it into any USB charger, any USB power supply, and charge them directly. You don't need to carry the dedicated charger, but you can use them and charge them in the dedicated charger. That's a nice kind of thing. Capacity seems decent. They have 2,600 milliamp-hours capacity. But the really interesting thing is they have Apple's Find My built in. So they are AirTags.
Chris Marquardt [00:26:50]:
These batteries are AirTags, including the acoustic signal. You can make them beep. And initially I thought, hey, who needs that?
Anthony Nielsen [00:27:02]:
Yes, I'm asking the same question.
Chris Marquardt [00:27:03]:
Do I need to find my batteries? Not really. Typically, I know where my batteries are.
Anthony Nielsen [00:27:09]:
No.
Chris Marquardt [00:27:10]:
This thing can, of course, let you track your camera.
Anthony Nielsen [00:27:14]:
Oh, why didn't I think of that, Chris?
Chris Marquardt [00:27:19]:
And then I went, oh, exactly like you just did. It's like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. You don't have to tag anything onto your camera. It's in the camera. It is part of the camera. And yeah, I find this really interesting.
Anthony Nielsen [00:27:36]:
I'm, I'm interested. Yeah, I'm sold.
Chris Marquardt [00:27:39]:
You're a bit more on board now, right?
Anthony Nielsen [00:27:40]:
Yeah, well, we could keep talking, but I do want to— like, I am a fan of Volcam. Uh, some of their other stuff I could talk about after, but, uh, all right. Yeah, yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:27:52]:
I, I've never— I was never aware of this, this brand at all, so that's how they came into my, uh, into my field of view. Um, they're also working on, on like broader battery support. They're working on Fuji replacements and so on. Um, $70 apiece, so it's not cheap, but then on the other hand, what you get for it. Yeah, I mean, that's interesting.
Anthony Nielsen [00:28:15]:
Yeah, well, here, let me, uh, go to the main shot here. Um, when you're asking your, your questions about batteries and film cameras, I, I don't really have film cameras that use batteries, but I do have— I don't know if you— I have a stack of batteries for my video cameras.
Chris Marquardt [00:28:33]:
And they're probably Sony's among them.
Anthony Nielsen [00:28:35]:
Uh, I think most of them are third-party, uh, like, but yeah, like NP-F, uh, but yes, like, yeah, the new thing is USB charging. Um, let me, let me just grab some.
Chris Marquardt [00:28:46]:
And NP-F has been around forever.
Anthony Nielsen [00:28:48]:
Yeah, I'll be right back.
Chris Marquardt [00:28:50]:
Sure. Yeah, so, so I've been— I have LP-E6 Canon batteries that go back to the first ones, I think. And with every camera generation, they upgrade, which I find interesting because— or good because they also will work in the older cameras, but they have a lot more capacity. So over the years, they've added more capable cells in them, so they have kept up with the times. And the thing is, I mean, I came from third-party batteries, but the original Canon LP-E6, not a sponsor, but I've taken them through really bad conditions in terms of really low temperatures and really hot temperatures and not taking them out of the charger for a week. They are so forgiving. They have been such good batteries.
Anthony Nielsen [00:29:50]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:29:51]:
whatever they bought in terms of cells and whatever they put in there in terms of battery management and protection is working absolutely.
Anthony Nielsen [00:30:01]:
So yeah, another one I recommend is— this is a V-mount battery, but this is SmallRig. Yeah, this is— yeah, and like you could see, not only got the V-mount, like you have D-Tap on each side, but you also get, you know, USB ports that you can That's this fancy, the fancy stuff you video people use.
Chris Marquardt [00:30:23]:
I've never worked with a V-mount battery because I never had to.
Anthony Nielsen [00:30:28]:
I mean, they're— yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, like, yeah, you got the NP-F and everything. Back to Falcam, the, the way what I use, the products that I use from them are their— they have like a quick release system. Have you seen these?
Chris Marquardt [00:30:41]:
No. I have not.
Anthony Nielsen [00:30:43]:
So, um, like basically you get, you know, a little catch.
Chris Marquardt [00:30:48]:
Your Arca-Swiss kind of thing there.
Anthony Nielsen [00:30:50]:
Actually, I think they're, they're compatible with Arca-Swiss, the big one. They have a, this bigger format and a tinier one I could show you in a second. But like, you know, you just kind of quickly slide it in. You can lock it. Um, with this, and then you press it and it comes right out. Uh, this is, this is the Mike Campbell. camera, by the way. This is the, uh, X3 Muse, um, which is basically DJI's other company they spun up just to hopefully—
Chris Marquardt [00:31:20]:
Oh, the thing around the tariffs?
Anthony Nielsen [00:31:22]:
Yeah, yeah, tariffs or, or FCC bans. But, um, they have a tinier one too that I use for basically any, any small stuff that I mount to my video camera, like monitors and stuff. And it's, it's the same principle, it's just like way tinier.
Chris Marquardt [00:31:38]:
Right.
Anthony Nielsen [00:31:38]:
So like, I don't want to— on a shoot, I don't want to deal with pulling out a, um, you know, like a screwdriver and try to mount and unmount stuff.
Chris Marquardt [00:31:50]:
Very inconspicuous.
Anthony Nielsen [00:31:52]:
So like here on a tiny arm, I have one, and then like, let's say, you know, I want to mount the camera. There you go. So I do recommend these quick releases. from Volcam.
Chris Marquardt [00:32:06]:
Awesome. Yeah, so I've— I have them on my radar now.
Anthony Nielsen [00:32:12]:
Yeah, definitely. Oh, well, yeah, I mean, um, Peak Design has something similar, but you know, they also—
Chris Marquardt [00:32:19]:
Yeah, well, they, they're kind of the original. The Peak Design, uh, Clip is kind of the original system in terms of quick releases for virtually anything.
Anthony Nielsen [00:32:29]:
Yeah, um, so So like when I go out, you know, on a shoot or something, then I'll just kind of keep it on my bag. Anyways, we can continue. Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:32:44]:
All right. So let's see the next one. Okay. So there's another interesting thing that I've seen seeping into photography. is fashion. I've seen that, and for filming, I've seen that with Rode added these color options to the microphone, right? You remember those with like 10 or 12 different color, not plates, but the actual microphones were colored.
Anthony Nielsen [00:33:15]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:33:18]:
And the colors seem to be getting some attention here. For example, by TTArtisan, they make a 50mm lens, f/1.8 for $89. It's pretty much cheap full-frame autofocus 50mm lens. They come in Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount and L-mount. And the other thing they released are files for you to 3D print armor for them. Yes. So you get to customize their look.
Anthony Nielsen [00:33:58]:
That's cool.
Chris Marquardt [00:33:59]:
I mean, these look like Fisher-Price lenses, right? But that allows some interesting customization. Look at the scales on that one, for example. These lenses are autofocus only, they have no focus ring, so you don't get to do any manual focus on them. But quality is good. And initially I thought, oh, that is tacky, I don't know. But then just imagine, I mean, this lets you quickly identify a lens in your bag. This, I mean, it doesn't have to be like—
Anthony Nielsen [00:34:39]:
It doesn't have to be crazy like that.
Chris Marquardt [00:34:42]:
You can use it for creative branding, for like branding your photo business. It makes them much less intimidating. So if you shoot pictures of children, for example, colorful lens cover or Lens Armor might be helpful.
Anthony Nielsen [00:35:01]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:35:01]:
Accessibility. You can print additional like features into them that help you grabbing them better, for example. One that I wrote down is a conversation starter. How about you want to— let's say you do a street photography project somewhere and you want to talk to people.
Anthony Nielsen [00:35:24]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:35:24]:
With that kind of a lens, you will be talking to people for sure. So I think it's a nice nod towards the maker community.
Anthony Nielsen [00:35:35]:
Again, you sold me. I was initial— my initial gut reaction—
Chris Marquardt [00:35:39]:
This is the thing, right?
Anthony Nielsen [00:35:40]:
But yeah, um, but yeah, okay, this could be useful.
Chris Marquardt [00:35:45]:
It doesn't have to be Fisher-Price themed. It can be anything, right? I mean, these, these are— these make for good, uh, for good clickbait screenshots for sure. Yeah, but, um, I see, I see that as useful thing for sure. I mean, on the other hand, if you have a 3D printer and you have a decent smartphone, you could probably just 3D scan your lenses and build an armor around it. But hey, if they supply that for you, um, nothing wrong with it, I think.
Anthony Nielsen [00:36:12]:
Yep.
Chris Marquardt [00:36:15]:
All right, um, quick look into film. Have you ever shot 110 film?
Anthony Nielsen [00:36:22]:
Never. No, I don't even know what—
Chris Marquardt [00:36:24]:
But you know, you know the format. It's like half width of 35mm. It comes in these thin cassettes that go into cameras.
Anthony Nielsen [00:36:35]:
I'm looking ahead. I have not seen this. This doesn't look familiar to me.
Chris Marquardt [00:36:40]:
It's an old format. 110 is an old format. They used to have, back in the '70s, they used to have the double size of 110, which is 35mm film in a cassette. So you can take it out and you lose one photo because the rest is in the dark. And the 110 used to be for smaller cameras. And until recently, there was one manufacturer, Lomography, who made 110 film, and that was it. And now the number of 110 film manufacturers just doubled because there's one new one. and that's Reflx Film or Reflx Lab, Reflx Lab.
Chris Marquardt [00:37:29]:
They brought out 2 new 110 films, which again, Lomography had that monopoly for 15 years, so Reflx Lab has taken the crown and they are— I mean, these films are not new films. They have not really made new films. They're respooled from I think one is a Chinese Lucky C200 color negative film, and the other one is a respooled 16mm Kodak Ektachrome, so a slide film, which again, I mean, these must be the cutest slides at the size. And the cartridges that they come in, the cassettes, the cartridges, they 3D print them because I think it's cheaper to 3D print them at the numbers they sell than having some injection molding molds made. I think that would probably do it.
Anthony Nielsen [00:38:27]:
Like, what do the cameras look like? I'm curious.
Chris Marquardt [00:38:30]:
Oh, 1/10 cameras, usually a bit of a toy camera kind of thing. There are— there is one.
Anthony Nielsen [00:38:37]:
Oh, okay, those little guys.
Chris Marquardt [00:38:40]:
There's one, there's an actual SLR, a 1/10 film SLR from probably also the '70s. So there are some— the Pentax Auto 110, that's, uh, if you look, if you look at the Pentax Auto 110, it's a, it's a proper SLR camera, but it's tiny.
Anthony Nielsen [00:39:00]:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Marquardt [00:39:01]:
Uses 110 film. Minolta 110 Zoom, there's a Rollei E-110. So it's, it's not just the toy cameras. Some of them are, for sure, because with the format, the film being inside this cartridge, it's easy to just attach a camera to the part where the film is exposed, and that's it. And normally that film, as as roll film, that film also has back paper because there's a little window with numbers on the back. Oh, I see now. So you save on having a counter in the camera, right? It makes it cheaper. That's the main reason that roll film doesn't have or that roll film has the backing paper.
Chris Marquardt [00:40:09]:
But the Refleks Lab doesn't have that. So they have those 3D-printed cartridges. And yeah, I think you just shoot until the film stops winding. So yeah, there we go. And if, by the way, if you go to Japan, 110 film I think is still very much alive and kicking. So it's not a rarity in Japan. Lots of people still use it. It's a nice little tiny format.
Anthony Nielsen [00:40:42]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:40:44]:
All right. And then last but not least, this is vaguely camera related, but I found it so funny. Have you seen the Uh, the DuckDuckGo smart glasses?
Anthony Nielsen [00:40:58]:
No.
Chris Marquardt [00:41:00]:
So DuckDuckGo is a browser maker. Um, uh, they claim privacy.
Anthony Nielsen [00:41:07]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:41:07]:
And so they actually brought out a pair of, in air quotes, smart glasses without AI, without a camera, and without electronics, with infinite battery life.
Anthony Nielsen [00:41:21]:
Wow.
Chris Marquardt [00:41:21]:
With a permanent offline mode and with zero notifications, and it's $35. And it's just the best piece of satire that I have seen in a long time. I mean, it's so good. I was— yeah, watch that video. You can't hear the sound?
Anthony Nielsen [00:41:44]:
Yeah, yeah, it's fine. I didn't want the sound anyways.
Chris Marquardt [00:41:46]:
All right. So they have a whole ad campaign around it. It's just some of the best marketing I've seen in a long time. I mean, just the idea behind that, especially with a bit of a reputation problem that smart glasses have these days.
Anthony Nielsen [00:42:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't— do you see yourself ever getting Smart glasses? No.
Chris Marquardt [00:42:15]:
Yeah, no, it is weird.
Anthony Nielsen [00:42:18]:
It's just camera.
Chris Marquardt [00:42:20]:
It's, it's, I mean, I mean, we had the same, we had the same thing when, when Google brought out Google Glass. Yeah, um, it was such a major, such a, such a massive backlash, but at least you would recognize those as something new and different. But hiding that in regular glasses, even though most of the use is probably not nefarious. But yeah, but then there is nefarious use, and there is still a whole industry of modifying these things so you—
Anthony Nielsen [00:42:53]:
Exactly.
Chris Marquardt [00:42:53]:
Um, you, you, you can use the cameras without—
Anthony Nielsen [00:42:58]:
Right, Meta's having to like figure out a way to break the camera if you tamper with the the light or something, which is—
Chris Marquardt [00:43:07]:
Which is— I don't think it's easy or possible. So anyway, DuckDuckGo, um, taking that opportunity to, uh, to show their— to show their privacy is— I think it's, it's—
Anthony Nielsen [00:43:22]:
yeah, it's a good marketing genius play.
Chris Marquardt [00:43:24]:
Yeah, genius bit of marketing. So yeah, um, you can buy them, $35. I looked into it, shipping to Germany would be as much as much as the glasses, so I didn't get them. But I seriously wanted one, wanted a pair, because just to honor that smart bit of marketing.
Anthony Nielsen [00:43:43]:
Well, we do have a few minutes left if you want to get to some questions.
Chris Marquardt [00:43:47]:
I can certainly do that. Let me see. We've had— oh yeah, we have 2 questions. One is by Simon Brown. Oh yeah, he writes, Chris and Leo, thanks for critiquing my coastal sunset photo last episode. As you were wondering, I just wanted to add that it was taken on a Samsung Galaxy S22. Yep, I was surprised at how well it came out too. Not much skill involved, just recognizing it would make a good shot, framing it, and tapping the screen.
Chris Marquardt [00:44:18]:
Love the show, Simon.
Anthony Nielsen [00:44:23]:
Yeah, smartphones.
Chris Marquardt [00:44:25]:
are proper cameras now. I mean, they can handle— you can throw a lot at a smartphone without it breaking into a sweat. So smartphones, I shoot these days probably half of my photography.
Anthony Nielsen [00:44:43]:
Are you Android or iPhone?
Chris Marquardt [00:44:46]:
I'm on an iPhone.
Anthony Nielsen [00:44:47]:
Do you use any of those like RAW camera apps? Like, do you play with some of them, or you just use the Basic camera?
Chris Marquardt [00:44:55]:
Oh no, no, I play with a lot of different apps, of course.
Anthony Nielsen [00:44:58]:
What's your go-to?
Chris Marquardt [00:45:00]:
So my go-to right now is DazzCam. Um, DazzCam. There's a couple of them on the, on the App Store. Um, the one I use, um, has a round logo with like swirly different colors on it. Um, and it's a weird app because It gives you like 10, 15 different camera emulations, as in traditional cameras. You get Hasselblad, they are called different in there. The Holga is called Hogga. There's the S67, which is a Pentax 6x7.
Chris Marquardt [00:45:42]:
So aspect ratios, but then inside these cameras, you can also choose different...
Anthony Nielsen [00:45:47]:
Looks.
Chris Marquardt [00:45:48]:
film emulations.
Anthony Nielsen [00:45:50]:
Right.
Chris Marquardt [00:45:50]:
And some of those are so good that I have the app, I paid for like a lifetime license, which is, I don't know, $30 maybe. It's not for free. But if you get over the quirky handling of the app, And if you find just a couple of really good combinations, I have one standard setting now. Let me tell you which one it is because it's so film-like. It's the S67 camera with the 100 ERA, which is a— I don't even know, looks like a Kodachrome emulation. And I'm just So blown away by how good it looks. I mean, best film emulation, color film emulation that I've seen in a long time. So that's my go-to at this point.
Anthony Nielsen [00:46:55]:
I'm just looking at the website. They got a double exposure too. That's pretty cool.
Chris Marquardt [00:47:00]:
They do. And again, they have a lot of things in there. Most of it I played with and never used again. I found 2 or 3 things that are now my go-tos, and that's what I use. I like it so much, I put it on my home screen as a camera option. So that's one I use. Then Halide, of course, if I want to really go as little processing as possible, Halide does a pretty decent job. I don't even know what they call it.
Chris Marquardt [00:47:33]:
Zero.
Anthony Nielsen [00:47:34]:
Zero.
Chris Marquardt [00:47:38]:
something. And I also sometimes go to the Argentum app with the— what do they call it? They call it the AA filter, which is, I think, reminiscent of Ansel Adams. So it's a hard contrast, dark skies kind of filter, as if you had a deep red filter on your black and white camera. I would it brings down the blue in the sky. But then again, I have probably 15 different camera apps on my phone.
Anthony Nielsen [00:48:15]:
I'm just curious what your go-to is at the moment.
Chris Marquardt [00:48:19]:
It's my go-to with the camera that I just mentioned and the film emulation. It does a really good job at— and again, I've compared it to a lot of different other film emulations, It's good. It's also very— it's a toy where if you play with it, it's a lot of whimsy in there. It doesn't feel serious when you play with it. But then on the other hand, I don't think it has to.
Anthony Nielsen [00:48:50]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:48:51]:
We have one last question by Dimilente, our friends. What goes into a title and how do you get there? I think it's about photo titling, your photos. We don't really apply titles as much as describe what, where, and who, since much of our work is Comic-Con related. For the rest, we use untitled or find a quote if it relates. So, um, longtime listeners will know that the photos uploaded anywhere without titles with img_3569.jpg As the title, it's one of my pet peeves. I think a photo deserves attention, and that extends beyond taking the photo. I think it extends, and a photo deserves a title. So what goes into a title? Simple is often better.
Chris Marquardt [00:49:47]:
I don't think you have to really break your head to figure out a title for a photo. I think it's perfectly fine to just describe, and a short description at that. Take a picture of a dice and call it dice. That's it. That's all it needs. I mean, famous painters have done that. The Girl with a Pearl Earring. It's a description, right? So I think description is fine.
Chris Marquardt [00:50:21]:
Sometimes if there's some writing on a photo, if you have a sign or something, I just take that. So I'm not being inventive when titling, but I think it's a sign of care if you title your photos. So that's what I do. I describe. That's pretty much it. Do you do anything for titles, or are you an IMG_359?
Anthony Nielsen [00:50:52]:
I'm sorry, I'm that. Yeah, well, yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:50:57]:
I mean, just imagine there's some art critic out there who looks around and sees your photo and thinks, oh, this is exactly what I need for my global advertising campaign. And then they look at the title and they go, oh no, he doesn't care about his photos. That would be a pity, wouldn't it?
Anthony Nielsen [00:51:18]:
It would. I will. I'll keep— I'll put that all into consideration going forward.
Chris Marquardt [00:51:25]:
I'll check on you. I'll check on you. Quiz, quiz next month.
Anthony Nielsen [00:51:29]:
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:51:30]:
All right. I think we have it. I think we got it.
Anthony Nielsen [00:51:34]:
I think that was a show. Uh, a great— I'm glad you were here. It was a lot of fun.
Chris Marquardt [00:51:39]:
Uh, it was a smooth show, right?
Anthony Nielsen [00:51:44]:
Hopefully. Yeah.
Chris Marquardt [00:51:45]:
I think it was.
Anthony Nielsen [00:51:46]:
Thank you.
Chris Marquardt [00:51:48]:
Uh, new assignment.
Anthony Nielsen [00:51:50]:
Yeah, new assignment. Uh, we'll be back September 18th. Um, make sure you, uh, join the, the Tech Guy Flickr group. And, uh, Chris Marquardt, chrismarquardt.com, workshops at discoverthetopfloor.com. Anything else you'd like to mention as we close this out?
Chris Marquardt [00:52:09]:
No, that's pretty much it. I can't plug the book just yet because it's not even out there. So, but we'll see for that.
Anthony Nielsen [00:52:17]:
You'll definitely hear about it on your website, right?
Chris Marquardt [00:52:20]:
Absolutely.
Anthony Nielsen [00:52:21]:
Excellent.
Chris Marquardt [00:52:23]:
All right.
Anthony Nielsen [00:52:23]:
Well, Chris, thanks for joining us. And thank you, everyone watching, for hanging in there.
Chris Marquardt [00:52:33]:
And thank you for doing a really good job being a stand-in Leo. That was good.
Anthony Nielsen [00:52:40]:
It's not, it's not my forte.
Chris Marquardt [00:52:41]:
Um, oh no, it was perfect.
Anthony Nielsen [00:52:43]:
It was good.
Chris Marquardt [00:52:43]:
It was, it was fun. It was fun nerding out with you.
Anthony Nielsen [00:52:46]:
Oh yeah, it was. It was. All right, guys. Uh, take care, Chris and everyone else out there. Get the— get out there and, uh, take some photos and we'll be back in a month. See you later. See you.
