Taylor + Lucien's Winter Wedding at The Tinsmith

For the second Saturday in a row, I had another lovely wedding on a cold and clear winter day.

Taylor and Lucien were married in front of family and friends at the Tinsmith in Madison, a modern and industrial venue site on the east side.

Lucien and his groomsmen got ready at home along with their two gregarious large dogs Tizzie and Stanley. The men watched golf on the big screen as the dogs went from person to person looking for attention.

The girls were staying downtown at the AC Hotel just off the square and had hair and make up done at a nearby salon, Arch Apothecary.

On the 9th floor of the hotel, there is a stunning view of the Capitol and it was the location where they had their first look as well as a private reading of their vows.

From there, the couple and the bridal party headed for the East Steps of the Capitol, just a couple blocks away. The dogs were brought there by a friend and stayed focused in the cold for a few minutes as they were photographed with the couple.

Then the bridal party came out for a very brief group portrait — the cold was bitter and the wind blowing making anything longer difficult.

It was off to the Tinsmith for indoor family portraits and the final preparations for the ceremony that started at 5 pm.

As guests arrived the excitement grew and the ceremony began. Taylor’s friend from fifth grade, Kat performed the ceremony.

At the last minute, they decided to read their vows (the ones that they had read earlier in private at the hotel). They were personal and poignant and led to happy tears.

And just like that, they were married and the party began.

I had first met them in early 2020 and they had originally planned for a March 2021 wedding but it was postponed due to the pandemic. Thankfully they were able to celebrate their day surrounded by a group of friends and family that had an incredible time dancing and partying late into the night.

Congratulations to the couple and thank you for having me and second photographer Wendy document the day!

#sonyalpha #sonya9II #sonya1 #sonya7sIII #wisconsinweddingphotographer #weddingphotography #winterwedding

The Think Tank Retrospective 7 -- Rekindling my affection for a run and gun wedding bag

I hope you're having a great start to your week.

It's a cold day here in Wisconsin and we're expecting a storm this afternoon -- pretty common for a midwest winter day. At the local coffee shop and having a hot chocolate.

On Saturday I had another winter wedding (which is rather amazing because I have probably had more weddings in Wisconsin in February this year than I ever remember having in CA during a February when we lived there).

For the past couple weddings I have been using a shoulder bag that I have owned for a several year but haven't used much of late.

That bag? The Think Tank Retrospective 7 (in black).

Mine is the version one, and the version two looks to be a solid upgrade. https://www.thinktankphoto.com/collections/retrospective-series?rfsn=140905.1cb641 (this is an affiliate link).

What made me bring this back into the rotation? I had been using a bag from another manufacturer and that bag is very contemporary and stylish. The thing is that I found it difficult to simply "jam" gear into and out of it as is common when you are in a run-and-gun world of weddings.

The other bag's tighter configuration made it tougher to grab and go that is my (bad) habit from years of newspaper work.

That bag is more like skinny jeans and I guess my Think Tank is more like cargo pants.

The Think Tank just has a little bit more room for lenses and other accessories and is not much bigger so it works incredibly well as a day long carry (using the bag slung across my right shoulder, bag on the left side).

The Retrospective lines harken back to the original canvas bag that many of my contemporaries from the news biz used back in the 80s and 90s -- the ubiquitous Domke bag. Domke was named after the Philadelphia Inquirer news photographer (Jim Domke) who designed and manufactured the bag before selling the brand a long time ago.

Think Tank is often known for their great rollers (which is well deserved) but for folks that like to work out a small shoulder bag that has real utility, I encourage you to look at the Retrospective Series because I think they are superb.

Hope you have a great week!!

Paul

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