Krystal & Steve's Winter Wisconsin Wedding | 2.12.2022

On an Arctic February day, Krystal and Steve receited their vows at St. Mark’s Ev. Lutheran Church (W.E.L.S.) in Watertown.

After the ceremony in the vintage mid 1800s church (which is directly across the street from another W.E.L.S. church!), the couple and their bridal party wound their way to Beaver Dam where the reception that was held at Cantafio’s Buckhorn Steak House which wasclosed to the public for the reception.

The cozy country restaurant was filled to the brim and the food prepared individually for each guest. It was quite the feat and yet the wait staff handled it with ease, grace and speed.

The members of Krystal’s family asked the restaurant staff to create special “Grasshopper” drinks in honor of Krystal’s grandmother who tragically passed away early in the morning of the wedding day. It was her favorite drink.

Love triumphed on this bitterly cold day and Krystal and Steve and their families and friends were a joy for me, Wendy, Jeremy and Henk to document in both photographs and video.

How to "Quick Switch" Between Stills and Video with the Sony a1 and a7SIII

Ever since I have been shooting Sony, the ability to simply push the red button and shoot video has been a major appeal.

The thing is that often the shutter speed for stills is quite different from video (if you follow the 180 degree shutter rule).

And now that I am shooting the a1 and a7sIII I am shooting all S-Log 3 with video so then having to change shutter AND the profile (because I don't want to shoot Log with stills) -- well it's just more things to change.

In the past with previous Sony cameras, I set the 1, 2 and 3 buttons to 24p, 60p and 120p respectively but that wasn't perfect.

When the Sony a7IV came out I was intrigued by one feature which may seem a very minor improvement to some, but it really was an eye-opener.

The sub dial below the mode dial on the a7IV allows you to quickly switch between Stills, Video and S & Q mode with the previous settings saved.

That is genius, I thought and I want that on my a7sIII and a1.

I called my friend El-Deane Naude at Sony and expressed my frustration that a similar feature wasn't available on my a1 and a7sIII.

"It IS" he proclaimed.

Really? How did I miss it?????

In order to have separate settings for your Movie settings and your manual stills settings so that it remembers the last thing set all you have to do is this:

Menu -> Setup (Suitcase/Gold) -> 3 Operation Customize -> Different Set for Still/Mv

Then I check all the boxes for Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, Exposure Comp., Metering Mode, White Balance and Picture Profile and then scroll down to OK.

There you go -- now you can dial in different settings for your camera for stills or video! When you now set your camera to the Video setting (film strip on top dial) and set your frame rate, bit rate, profile, shutter, aperture and ISO or whatever you want of those 8 variables and your camera is now ready for video.

Switch to manual (M on the mode dial) and it will remember the settings that were there before.

This way if you want to shoot 1/50th with your 24p video all you have to do is move the switch from M to Movie and go...whatever you used previously will be remembered and used.

Want to shoot stills at 1/1000th of a second (or whatever speed), then simply switch back to the M and you're good to go.

Now, the camera is an even better hybrid camera allowing me to dial in my preferred movie AND stills settings for maximum performance.

I hope you found this helpful!

ENJOY!

Paul

135

The 135 mm focal length is one of my absolute favorite focal lengths, and has been since I first received one as a gift from my parents at Christmas in 1979 (A Vivitar brand with a mount for Olympus)!

When I first received it I thought it was kind of an odd choice but as I used it more and more over the years, I found it to be the perfect focal length for so many things.

News, documentary, portraits, sports, and weddings are all seen beautifully through this focal length especially in low or marginal lighting.  And it's been that way for me more decades now.

When I was a young photographer working the late shift at The Chicago Tribune in the mid 80s I shot a lot of society events and sports events.  It seemed like for weeks at a time (especially in winter) the only lenses I used were the 135 f2 and a 35 1.4 (back in the Nikon days).  That and a trusty Vivitar 283 with a bounce card made out of a small envelope or white card were about all I really needed.

And it's funny how that with my Sony's (35 1.4 GM and 135 f1.8 GM) it brings me right back to that time.  They simply work for how I see and frame the world and the work I do.

Here's a photo I made back in the Tribune days with the 135mm focal length. 

Michael Jordan slams a dunk against the Cleveland Cavaliers during his rookie season at the Old Chicago Stadium.

It's from Michael Jordan's rookie season from a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

I was the "early guy" shooting b & w and getting it out quickly while taking the "color guy's" film (that was Chuck Cherney) that would be then replace my black and white in the final edition.  We had very similar images and the change worked well.  He was closer to the basket shooting with an 85mm and I was on the corner with the 135.

When I switched to Canon in the late 80s, they made a 135 f2 in their FD mount which was a huge chunk of glass though very good.  The 135 f2L lens that I bought when it came out in 1996 for EOS was one of the sharpest lenses that Canon made, IMHO and one of the very last lenses that I sold in 2014 when I moved to Sony.

At that time, Sony had an A mount 135 lens (the old Minolta mount that Sony used when they first got into the still camera game in 2006 after buying the assets of Konica/Minolta). That lens was a Zeiss design and had a maximum aperture of f1.8 and it was superb. 

I never bought it because I wanted E mount for everything (I believed A mount would eventually be supplanted by E mount) so I waited until Sony remastered that lens in their E mount.  And boy has it been worth the wait and about 2 years ago the 135 1.8 GMaster came out.

The Sony 135 f1.8 is a stunning lens that is probably the sharpest lens that I have ever used, of any make.  When coupled with the speed and focus accuracy of the a1 there is simply no better tandem for low light indoor sports on the planet.

Last night I used this combination as I shot our Lake Mills HS Girls Basketball team and it is the workhorse.  Shooting jpegs (21 megapixels) gives me still a large file and I can punch in to the aps-c crop using one of two buttons that I custom programmed for that (rear dial center button and focus hold buttons).  The quality is superb even at 12,800 ISO which is WAY better than 1600 color neg film from the ancient 80s.

Sophia tries to score against Lake Country Lutheran during action from the first half of Tuesday night’s game in Lake Mills, WI. Photo made with a Sony a1 and 135mm f1.8 G Master lens (10,000 ISO; 1/1600th at f2 with APS-C cropping engaged).

It also is a stunning combination for indoor prep volleyball. 

The 30 fps speed might seem like overkill (that Jordan photo above was made in 1984 on a Nikon F3 and an MD-4 motor that went 5 fps with a rechargeable battery) but having that extra speed gives me just a few more cracks at having the ball in the photo in a fast-moving sport like volleyball. 

Here's a strip of an example of a back court play from the fall that I simply could not have made with any other camera because not only did it grab focus (I literally just pointed to the action and fired!) it gave me four images with the ball as the player moved out of bounds. 

Do you have a 135mm lens?  If so how does it fit into your style?  What do you use it for most?  Portraits, sports or weddings or something else? Do you prefer it to the 70-200 f2.8 zoom? 

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this interesting and helpful.

Paul

My Wedding, Portrait & Video Checklists

The other night I woke up after one of those "panic" dreams.

I was working in Annapolis, MD (no idea why) with a couple friends of mine from the DC area on a wedding and I had to get back to my vehicle to get some more gear. I was already behind in covering a wedding (I was shooting video) and doing the set up and knew this would put me even further behind.

One of those days when you feel like you're in quicksand and can't get from point A to point B fast enough.

Then I realized that I couldn't get back to my car because I was taken to the location on a boat.  Just one of those great kind of restful dreams, right?

What it DID make me realize again, how important a checklist is before big events.

It is so easy to just miss those little things that make all the difference. 

I've forgotten batteries and even lenses in the past and it always leaves me frustrated so I try to now pack the night before a big event a use a physical checklist to make sure I don't forget anything.

How about you?  Do you ever have those kinds of dreams? 

In an effort to help you I've created a set of checklists for weddings, portraits and for video and all are at my gumroad site and are free. https://paulgero.gumroad.com/l/pffcyt

Feel free to download them and use them as you wish.  Of course, they are Sony specific, but can certainly be adapted for any brand.

Hope you're having a great day!

Paul

To get your free copy of my wedding, portrait and video gear checklists for this coming year, please go to: https://paulgero.gumroad.com/l/pffcyt

Appearing on the PhotoBizX podcast

I just got word today that my interview with Andrew Hellmich of the Australian podcast PhotoBizX is now online!

You can listen to it here: http://photobizx.com/389

Thank you Andrew! It was fun to chat! Hope you find it helpful!