“Big patches of mossy stuff” Yep, definitely started following your channel for the excellent photography compositions and tips rather than your expertise of nature. Another great video. Most of my shots are taken at 24mm but on my regular walk, I often come across Herons, Egrets and Swans where 200mm is an ideal length. My daily kit consists of a 24-200, small shoulder bag and wrist strap. The 45mp camera easily lets me crop in 3x effectively giving me a 600mm lens. Took me a few years to come to this but it suits me perfectly. Looking forward to your next video.
hahahhaha its safe to say I cant tell a bush from a tree most of the time! Maybe if I ever end up with an abundance of free time ill brush up on my nature knowledge 😂 - Sounds like an awesome set up you've got going there though! I do miss having that advantage when it comes to the 45mp+ cameras, I used to use the R line from Sony back in the day with that exact approach. Which body do you use at the moment for the 45mp? Cheers for watching Alan & have a good one!
Great stuff, Greg! I enjoy a 24-70 for most of that style photography with a 150-600 for my wildlife images. This keeps my kit minimal, but this is normally because I don't have the money for lots of kit. Thanks!
Cheers Jon! 24-70 is definitely the versatility king! There are not many situations where somebody is going to need to carry more than two lenses if you pick those two correctly anyway in my eyes, maybe an expedition to the arctic circle or something hah!
@@ColdCoffeePhotography thanks for watching and joining me!! - there’s a video on my channel from a few weeks ago called ‘stop missing your shots’ or something along those lines 😂 that goes through the modes I use, but I do need to make one about how I set up my custom buttons! - also quite a few city/street povs on my channel although I’m not that great at street photography (yet) hahahah
Lovely photos and a good discussion to go along with them, thanks! I especially liked that you frame this idea by using your kit as an example of how to get to this minimal kit but not telling us that we "need" to make those same choices. For me, the biggest benefit from going with a minimal kind of setup is that after a while, the gear starts to get out of the way; I can spend less and less mental energy on how do I set the camera or lens to get the results I want. Muscle memory starts to allow me to concentrate much more on what I want to see in the photo--and what I want to exclude--and how I want to represent the scene. Less stuff to carry is its own benefit that I appreciate more and more as I get older, too. :)
Thanks so much! Exactly yeah :) everybody else’s needs and preferences for photography are different, I can recommend things for sure but that would just be my experience and doesn’t always mean it’s right for somebody else! And totally agree with you, you start living in the environment and photos when carrying less gear instead of inside your bag or thinking about choices! Thanks so much for watching + taking time to leave a comment!!
I really like you´re thoughts on gear and relaxed approach to photography. It should just be for fun and being outdoors and enjoying that. It´s the best times when i go out and empty my head with all the fresh air and photographing. Have a great weekend, best regards from Sweden.
In a never ending quest to lighten my gear, I recently went from shooting with A7RV cameras to using an A7CII and A7CR. Love both cameras. My main lenses are the 24-70 GM II and 70-200 GM II. Sony has made those lenses smaller and lighter than the previous versions. But, hopefully there will be even small and lighter versions in the future. I've tried just using primes, but that didn't work for me.
Thats awesome! The C cameras and similar will be the future I think (as bodys once again get smaller) - I'd have loved to have got the A7CR when I was weighing up my options but it was just a bit out of budget for me at the time! Maybe a future rendition though!
Great stuff and great advice for people. I used to go out with primes here and there to make myself focus on composition and such, though, with more hiking/walking distance the past few years my setup had switched to a all in one zoom. Being g a Nikon guy though they have a sweet 40mm f/2 I was thinking of picking up and I’m gonna use your video as my sign to follow through. Haha. Anyway, great content, keep up the great work. 👏🏻👏🏻
Cheers mate appreciate it! - I hear you, zooms that cover most of the ranges are so enticing for when we are putting the miles in hahah, that 40 sounds awesome though give it a whirl I say, I have a few friends who pretty much exclusively shoot with a 40 and never take it off their camera, definitely adds that 'just right' feel to the photos. Thanks again have a great weekend ahead! 🙏
I have too much gear, lenses from 12mm to 300mm (I shoot m4/3 so that gives angles of view fro 24mm to 600mm). However I find the two lenses that get the most use are my 25mm f1.7 (a nifty fifty angle of view) and my 14-150mm zoom (looks like 28-300). I used to carry a bag full of lenses and often suffered from indecision that resulted in missed shots (and a bad back). Yesterday I took just one camera with the 14-150 and lots of batteries and memory cards, I ended up with quite a few acceptable images.. Good advice.
Bad back is definitely a killer for photographers, I had a trapped nerve a while back because of the heavy bag/long days at a desk editing situation! Indecision like you say though, definitely the main reasons I stopped carrying 3-4 lenses and a bunch of accessories that hardly got used! Thanks for watching!
Last year i spent 6 months travelling through the uk,europe,turkey,middle east an usa.i only travelled minimum gear as living out of a suitcase for so long is hard, walking hundreds of kilometres etc. I took my a7r5 and the sony 20 70mm lens only. I took a compact lightweight tripod but seldom used it as the image stabilisation is so good now on the a7r5. Great video. Minimum kit weight is key when hiking or long duration travelling. One other thing, so many people say lots of megapixels isnt important, they are wrong. It allows me to get 105mm equivalent out of my lens and i saved many photos by having the ability to heavily crop.
How did you find the 20-70? I’ve been wondering if that type of zoom would be the replacement to the 16-35 and then technically I wouldn’t even need to carry the 50 either (mind you I do love using a tiny prime 50 and feeling like I’m carrying a feather haha) And totally agree with you, the ability to crop with high megapixels is incredible, I do miss that from when I used to shoot with the R line!
@@DISTANTMEDIA Love the 20-70mm. It is light, wide enough for most uses and very sharp. If i had to be fussy about 2 things with this lens it would be 1. The focus ring is very light and 2. It is not as sharp at 30-40mm as the rest of the range. F4 maybe a limitation for some, but it was not a problem for me for travel photography.
@@Bigtbone205 thanks man!! Yeah I actually rarely take photos below f4 anyway to be honest, it’s nice to have that option but for somebody like me who can’t drop a couple grand on a lens whenever I want sacrifices have to be made 😂😂
@@DISTANTMEDIAthey are cheaper here in Australia. At the current exchange rate I paid equiv 850 pounds for the 20 - 70mm lens and 2500 pound for the A7r5 a year ago when it first came out. Like your content mate, keep it up!
Great video. I do think this is a great subject in todays world! My go to kit is easily the A7Riii & 35GM for sure but sometimes paired with the Tamron 70-180/2.8 (& A7) too. I find that a great focal range & aperture for what & how I shoot - I do tend to shoot the same subject from different angles/viewpoints & focal lengths though as I enjoy to make a 'set' of images. I have the 24GM but that is strictly night skies & coastal for foregrounds and the FE85 I tend to use for automotive stuff & occasionally instead of the 70-180mm if I want to go "light" :) To add to that, I recently picked up a Fuji X100f for extra simple & extra light........
Thanks mate! I like the idea of something similar to the Fuji X series and just going proper small with the kit! 😂 mind you I tired that years ago with an RX100 and just ended up opting for my main camera all the time haha! Yeah I definitely still say shoot different angles/details etc but just don’t really enjoy diving in the bag to change lenses etc. it’s all personal presence I guess! Thanks for watching mate!!
APS-C mode allows you to use APS-C lenses. There is no other use for it, and the fact you can engage it does not make it a good idea to do so. When you engage it, you are saying, "I want to use only the centre 24mmx18mm area of my sensor, and the decision is baked in. You can also make that decision later. but you can choose 24x18 from lower down, higher up, or any other part of the sensor. You you can choose 36x18 for a panorama. Again, from any part of the sensor. Or any other shape. I would choose a 24mm TS-E lens for that scene, or perhaps a TS-E 17. I have ND filters for the first. TS-E lenses don't work well on E mount cameras, so no Sony for me. I use a Lumix S1R camera, it can produce 187 megapixels raw files. I don't need so many pixels to print, but 16,000 pixels wide gives me a lot of scope to crop to make my photograph, shot with my TS-E 17 to look like I used the TS-E 24.
You’re right but it’s all personal preference. I’d rather see the frame cropped in real life in real time and not do it in post, and I know thousands of photographers have the same approach. Yes it’s not what it’s made for, does it come in handy in certain situations, yes. Would I rather not use it? Yes. That’s exactly why I want to change my main lens :)
The A7R5 is definitely the better camera but if a lighter smaller carry is a priority for you when travelling and you don’t mind losing the higher megapixels then go for it! These days there’s no bad cameras really, just personal preferences!
@@DISTANTMEDIA Sorry another question ... how do you find the EVF, many reviewers say it's not good? BTW you have a new subscriber, really enjoying the style of your videos.
@@robj1366 thanks so much I appreciate that!! - the EVF is just as good as any of the other EVFS on modern cameras, but I’m not the biggest fan of EVFS, so may take some adjusting if you are coming from a DSLR, I normally shoot via the LCD screen to be honest!
Have a great weekend yaaaa!! 📸
“Big patches of mossy stuff” Yep, definitely started following your channel for the excellent photography compositions and tips rather than your expertise of nature. Another great video. Most of my shots are taken at 24mm but on my regular walk, I often come across Herons, Egrets and Swans where 200mm is an ideal length. My daily kit consists of a 24-200, small shoulder bag and wrist strap. The 45mp camera easily lets me crop in 3x effectively giving me a 600mm lens. Took me a few years to come to this but it suits me perfectly. Looking forward to your next video.
hahahhaha its safe to say I cant tell a bush from a tree most of the time! Maybe if I ever end up with an abundance of free time ill brush up on my nature knowledge 😂 - Sounds like an awesome set up you've got going there though! I do miss having that advantage when it comes to the 45mp+ cameras, I used to use the R line from Sony back in the day with that exact approach. Which body do you use at the moment for the 45mp? Cheers for watching Alan & have a good one!
@@DISTANTMEDIA my camera is a Nikon Z7. Chose it more for the handling and menus than anything else
Great stuff, Greg! I enjoy a 24-70 for most of that style photography with a 150-600 for my wildlife images. This keeps my kit minimal, but this is normally because I don't have the money for lots of kit. Thanks!
Cheers Jon! 24-70 is definitely the versatility king! There are not many situations where somebody is going to need to carry more than two lenses if you pick those two correctly anyway in my eyes, maybe an expedition to the arctic circle or something hah!
@DISTANTMEDIA Well, I also have a 50mm f/2.5 macro just for fun, but it does take great portraits.
Geeezzz, this video is so much better then your subs suggest. Well done mate!
Hahaha thank you very much bud!!
Glad to have stumbled apon your channel.... 6:30 would love a vlog on how you now use/setup your A7Cii & also city/street photography maybe?
@@ColdCoffeePhotography thanks for watching and joining me!! - there’s a video on my channel from a few weeks ago called ‘stop missing your shots’ or something along those lines 😂 that goes through the modes I use, but I do need to make one about how I set up my custom buttons! - also quite a few city/street povs on my channel although I’m not that great at street photography (yet) hahahah
Great stuff, mate. It's amazing the quality of images that can be achieved with such little weight nowadays, especially compared to the DSLR days.
Thanks fella! I know mate I think in a 2 or 3 years we’ll be back to pocket cameras but with pro specs 🙈
Lovely photos and a good discussion to go along with them, thanks!
I especially liked that you frame this idea by using your kit as an example of how to get to this minimal kit but not telling us that we "need" to make those same choices.
For me, the biggest benefit from going with a minimal kind of setup is that after a while, the gear starts to get out of the way; I can spend less and less mental energy on how do I set the camera or lens to get the results I want. Muscle memory starts to allow me to concentrate much more on what I want to see in the photo--and what I want to exclude--and how I want to represent the scene.
Less stuff to carry is its own benefit that I appreciate more and more as I get older, too. :)
Thanks so much! Exactly yeah :) everybody else’s needs and preferences for photography are different, I can recommend things for sure but that would just be my experience and doesn’t always mean it’s right for somebody else!
And totally agree with you, you start living in the environment and photos when carrying less gear instead of inside your bag or thinking about choices!
Thanks so much for watching + taking time to leave a comment!!
Great vid Greg. As an M43 shooter I completely get it. Normally only carry one or two lenses myself. 👍
Thanks again mate! - Best way in my opinion haha!
I really like you´re thoughts on gear and relaxed approach to photography. It should just be for fun and being outdoors and enjoying that. It´s the best times when i go out and empty my head with all the fresh air and photographing. Have a great weekend, best regards from Sweden.
Thanks buddy! - That's it, emptying your head, being free and escaping the busyness of normal life! You too have a great one from England!!
In a never ending quest to lighten my gear, I recently went from shooting with A7RV cameras to using an A7CII and A7CR. Love both cameras. My main lenses are the 24-70 GM II and 70-200 GM II. Sony has made those lenses smaller and lighter than the previous versions. But, hopefully there will be even small and lighter versions in the future. I've tried just using primes, but that didn't work for me.
Thats awesome! The C cameras and similar will be the future I think (as bodys once again get smaller) - I'd have loved to have got the A7CR when I was weighing up my options but it was just a bit out of budget for me at the time! Maybe a future rendition though!
Good advice. Again! Thanks!
Thanks Diane, you're most welcome!!
Great stuff and great advice for people. I used to go out with primes here and there to make myself focus on composition and such, though, with more hiking/walking distance the past few years my setup had switched to a all in one zoom. Being g a Nikon guy though they have a sweet 40mm f/2 I was thinking of picking up and I’m gonna use your video as my sign to follow through. Haha. Anyway, great content, keep up the great work. 👏🏻👏🏻
Cheers mate appreciate it! - I hear you, zooms that cover most of the ranges are so enticing for when we are putting the miles in hahah, that 40 sounds awesome though give it a whirl I say, I have a few friends who pretty much exclusively shoot with a 40 and never take it off their camera, definitely adds that 'just right' feel to the photos. Thanks again have a great weekend ahead! 🙏
I have too much gear, lenses from 12mm to 300mm (I shoot m4/3 so that gives angles of view fro 24mm to 600mm). However I find the two lenses that get the most use are my 25mm f1.7 (a nifty fifty angle of view) and my 14-150mm zoom (looks like 28-300). I used to carry a bag full of lenses and often suffered from indecision that resulted in missed shots (and a bad back). Yesterday I took just one camera with the 14-150 and lots of batteries and memory cards, I ended up with quite a few acceptable images.. Good advice.
Bad back is definitely a killer for photographers, I had a trapped nerve a while back because of the heavy bag/long days at a desk editing situation! Indecision like you say though, definitely the main reasons I stopped carrying 3-4 lenses and a bunch of accessories that hardly got used! Thanks for watching!
Small kit big results was my nickname in high school
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I totally agree. Regarding wide angle I use cheaper primes, not a big investment for rarely used lenses 📷👍
@@eltinjones4542 good shout mate! I’ve been trying to swap over to a one lens setup for a few years but still haven’t purchased the dream lens 😂
Last year i spent 6 months travelling through the uk,europe,turkey,middle east an usa.i only travelled minimum gear as living out of a suitcase for so long is hard, walking hundreds of kilometres etc. I took my a7r5 and the sony 20 70mm lens only. I took a compact lightweight tripod but seldom used it as the image stabilisation is so good now on the a7r5. Great video. Minimum kit weight is key when hiking or long duration travelling. One other thing, so many people say lots of megapixels isnt important, they are wrong. It allows me to get 105mm equivalent out of my lens and i saved many photos by having the ability to heavily crop.
How did you find the 20-70? I’ve been wondering if that type of zoom would be the replacement to the 16-35 and then technically I wouldn’t even need to carry the 50 either (mind you I do love using a tiny prime 50 and feeling like I’m carrying a feather haha)
And totally agree with you, the ability to crop with high megapixels is incredible, I do miss that from when I used to shoot with the R line!
@@DISTANTMEDIA Love the 20-70mm. It is light, wide enough for most uses and very sharp. If i had to be fussy about 2 things with this lens it would be 1. The focus ring is very light and 2. It is not as sharp at 30-40mm as the rest of the range. F4 maybe a limitation for some, but it was not a problem for me for travel photography.
@@Bigtbone205 thanks man!! Yeah I actually rarely take photos below f4 anyway to be honest, it’s nice to have that option but for somebody like me who can’t drop a couple grand on a lens whenever I want sacrifices have to be made 😂😂
@@DISTANTMEDIAthey are cheaper here in Australia. At the current exchange rate I paid equiv 850 pounds for the 20 - 70mm lens and 2500 pound for the A7r5 a year ago when it first came out. Like your content mate, keep it up!
@@Bigtbone205 I'll have to start booking trips abroad to come back with gear hahah! Thanks mate appreciate it!! Lots more videos on the way!
Great video. I do think this is a great subject in todays world! My go to kit is easily the A7Riii & 35GM for sure but sometimes paired with the Tamron 70-180/2.8 (& A7) too. I find that a great focal range & aperture for what & how I shoot - I do tend to shoot the same subject from different angles/viewpoints & focal lengths though as I enjoy to make a 'set' of images. I have the 24GM but that is strictly night skies & coastal for foregrounds and the FE85 I tend to use for automotive stuff & occasionally instead of the 70-180mm if I want to go "light" :) To add to that, I recently picked up a Fuji X100f for extra simple & extra light........
Thanks mate! I like the idea of something similar to the Fuji X series and just going proper small with the kit! 😂 mind you I tired that years ago with an RX100 and just ended up opting for my main camera all the time haha! Yeah I definitely still say shoot different angles/details etc but just don’t really enjoy diving in the bag to change lenses etc. it’s all personal presence I guess! Thanks for watching mate!!
Have a look at the Tamron 35-150 F2-2.8 its excellent! ❤
I’ll check that out thanks very much!!
I think you must try 20-70G it is fantastic outdoor
Objektiv. It is as good than my 24-70GMii.
Bonus is it very good close focusin.
@@markkuautio7831 thanks buddy! I have tried it before but f4 would not be worth it for me if it was going to be my ‘one’ lens haha!
@@DISTANTMEDIA Ok. Everybody haves a different needs.🙂
@@markkuautio7831 very true! 😄 thanks for watching by the way!!
APS-C mode allows you to use APS-C lenses. There is no other use for it, and the fact you can engage it does not make it a good idea to do so. When you engage it, you are saying, "I want to use only the centre 24mmx18mm area of my sensor, and the decision is baked in. You can also make that decision later. but you can choose 24x18 from lower down, higher up, or any other part of the sensor. You you can choose 36x18 for a panorama. Again, from any part of the sensor. Or any other shape.
I would choose a 24mm TS-E lens for that scene, or perhaps a TS-E 17. I have ND filters for the first. TS-E lenses don't work well on E mount cameras, so no Sony for me.
I use a Lumix S1R camera, it can produce 187 megapixels raw files. I don't need so many pixels to print, but 16,000 pixels wide gives me a lot of scope to crop to make my photograph, shot with my TS-E 17 to look like I used the TS-E 24.
You’re right but it’s all personal preference. I’d rather see the frame cropped in real life in real time and not do it in post, and I know thousands of photographers have the same approach. Yes it’s not what it’s made for, does it come in handy in certain situations, yes. Would I rather not use it? Yes. That’s exactly why I want to change my main lens :)
AC2 for a trip to oz, to replace my A7r5 do you think it will be a good move, where are you on the Moors in this vlog it looks a great location
The A7R5 is definitely the better camera but if a lighter smaller carry is a priority for you when travelling and you don’t mind losing the higher megapixels then go for it! These days there’s no bad cameras really, just personal preferences!
PS sorry its the north pennies just below the border of Northumberland, massive old mining area with loads to explore!
If you had set out to buy an A7c for stills photography would you have gone for the A7cr ?
Yeah definitely, if it was solely for photography! In fact I’d probably choose the A7Cr over the A7iv
@@DISTANTMEDIA Sorry another question ... how do you find the EVF, many reviewers say it's not good? BTW you have a new subscriber, really enjoying the style of your videos.
@@robj1366 thanks so much I appreciate that!! - the EVF is just as good as any of the other EVFS on modern cameras, but I’m not the biggest fan of EVFS, so may take some adjusting if you are coming from a DSLR, I normally shoot via the LCD screen to be honest!