A Conversation with Mike Banom - How Fujifilm Nailed 2022 and The Future of Fujifilm GFX

All right, so we have. Introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about who you are.

Hey, everyone. So my name is Mike Banham, and I guess I am a photographer in New York City.

Is that the title that you give yourself, or do you. Do you struggle with that title?

I mean, it's not what I do or you know, to make. To make, like, all the money that I need to survive, but, you know, it's what I do.

Yeah.

In addition to being on here.

Yeah. I think it's funny, right? Because we struggle. Like, you know, do we give ourselves that title if that's all we do? Or can we give ourselves that title if we do it for fun and get paid sometimes? Like, it's kind of a weird, weird thing. Right? But no, I'm glad to have you, Mike. I'm bringing Mike on today because he is becoming a person in the Fujifilm community, especially the GFX community, for someone that has a lot of great insight and is really putting out some awesome stuff where folks are getting a lot out of it. I personally have been following you for quite a while and got really drawn to your style and to your aesthetic. I think one of the things that you do best is you're able to take a really complicated piece of gear and just show your experience with it. I think a lot of folks out there online really start staring at walls and stuff like that. I think you're using some of this equipment in the real world and sharing your experience with it. I think that's the most valuable stuff. As a fan, before we get started, thank you for the stuff you're doing. It's super helpful. It's helped me influence a couple buying decisions. On its own, it's been really great. Before we get into it, I wanted to talk about maybe your camera journey right now. I know you're using probably a couple different cameras, but you've been using the GFX one hundreds quite a bit. Walk me through how you started. Maybe not from the very beginning, but from the most important pieces of. Of equipment to kind of how you got onto medium format into the GFX system.

So I guess, in short, my journey in the creative world started probably when I went to college. I went to Pratt in Brooklyn, New York, and I went to school for graphic design, and I kind of got into everything but graphic design. In school. I kind of. I kind of focused on motion graphics and animation and whatnot via after effects. But I always knew how to use a camera. I forget when I learned how to use it, but I took A photo class at Pratt, and I already knew how to work the three settings. Aperture, shutter, and ISO and all that. And everyone else was like, I don't know how to use it. But from there, I started working in New York City. But probably in 2018, I kind of said to myself, I want to start doing studio photography. So I basically started figuring out some lighting and whatnot. And, you know, from there, I had a good deal and I bought into the Fuji ecosystem. I bought the X H1.

There it is.

And there it is. The Epic X H1. And I don't know, it worked for a while in the studio. I used the 80 millimeter, which is a phenomenal lens.

The macro lens, right?

Yeah, it's a macro lens, but it's a phenomenal product. Lens quality is just insane. So. But as time went on, I found that 23 megapixels was not enough. And honestly, this sounds crazy, but I would do, like, sometimes I would do panos in the studio, like, set, set the scene and then, like, you know, do a pano shot. And I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, I think during. During the COVID lockdown, while everyone else was, like, watching Netflix and hanging out, I was like, okay, I made a list of like 10 projects that Studio projects that I wanted to do because I'm insane. And I shot my bike in my living room, my road bike. And I ba. I did like. I did like a 4x2 panel shot. And it was like the resolution actually was similar to the GFX100. So it was just like a matter of time. I could not. The 23 megapixels was not doing it for me. And so, yeah, so I kind of. I wanted to try out the gfx, but also I run my own design studio with my partner Lisa. Mostly I do web dev and stuff like that, but we have a bunch of clients. So for me, actually, if you want to bring up later how to make money doing this stuff, I could ramble on about that.

Yeah, I would love to hear that.

So I wanted to jump into gfx because I was like, well, I already was doing some photo work for my clients, for some of my clients, because it's a pretty easy transition because I already work with several clients and whatnot. And, you know, basically I could just extend the services. And once some clients found out about it, they were pretty interested anyway. So that being said, I. I wanted to try out the GFX, but, you know, from someone that bought the XH1 first, and I got a deal on it like that's a big jump, very big jump. And you know, especially when the one hundreds came out, six thousand dollar body. So I, it just turned out that I, I reached out to Fuji and one thing's led to another and they would just send me the GFX to try out. And initially I was like, when the GFX first came out I was like looking up on YouTube trying to find reviews on it and stuff and I couldn't find any. So my initial proposal was like, hey Fuji, I'll make you a killer review video. I've never made a video in my life before really. So like, especially like, you know, YouTube talking head and stuff like that. And they were like, yeah, let's do it. And I was like, oh, shoot. So that was, that's been my experience like ever before I bought a gfx, I would just get Fuji to send me some gear and it was like for the, for the next three weeks, once it arrived, I would just be doing street photography, some studio work every second of every day. And you know, I did it like three times and I was like, yeah, this is enough. Like I, I can't imagine using another camera because I would, I would justify my purchase in doing like a studio first purchase because it would apply to making money.

So yeah, so I mean. And now you're filming here on the GFX1 hundreds, right? What lens do you have on there?

I have on the 50.

Cool. Yeah, I have my, my 50s too with the 50s sitting on it. So yeah, it's a great lens. Just have on there and shoot. That's awesome, man. So, I mean, what a journey, right? I mean, I think you've kind of settled to where you know, you need to be on gfx. And I saw a comment on, you know, you're, I know you're on the. I was talking to Tongue a couple weeks ago and he's on the Facebook groups and I know you're on the Facebook groups and it's a little, it's a little crazy there sometimes, but I think there's some good kind of nuggets here and there. But I think one of the things I saw was, you know, it's always, hey, I'm going from Sony or a Nikon, I want to get into Fuji. And everyone's honest, right? No one's ever like, oh, you'll do it. You'll never look back. They'll be like, hey, you're missing this, you're missing this.

Yeah, yeah.

But one of the cool things I saw Today, a guy wanting to go from Sony to gfx, he said, you know, what do you guys think? And someone just wrote, hey man, if you're thinking about gfx, you might as well because there's nothing else that compares to it. And I think, you know, that that really segues nice into kind of the next point I wanted to make where like, look, I mean, I'm going to be honest and shameless plug for your channel here, but you're becoming super well known now for your love of pixel peeping, right? Maybe you don't love it personally, but your ability to do it in a kind of stream of consciousness way that for viewers it's kind of easy to pick up and say, okay, where's the detail? I want to see what this lens or this body looks like. You've done a really good job showcasing wide angle lens options not only for the G mount, but also for the X mount right on your X H1. Most recently you did the 8 to 16.2.8 going up against the 2035, which to be honest, man, you were one of the few people out there who did a real deep dive into that lens. That wasn't a produced throwaway video about your thoughts on it. You're like, here is the performance. You did it in one of the best places in the world, New York City, which we'll definitely talk about here in a moment. But what are your thoughts on pixel peeping in the grander scheme of things? In terms of there's a lot of folks that say it's worthless, but I've personally gotten a lot out of your pixel peeping videos and I think there's a lot of folks out there who have as well.

First of all, thank you because you are such a fan of my work and I greatly appreciate it. Obviously I'm a very small fish. I hope I am becoming a bit more known. But yeah, also that GFX group, it's like the best place and the worst place because you do have a lot of people who obviously most people love photography. There's a few rich people I see on there who like, they buy some equipment and they're, you know, they're not, they're very new to photography and there's nothing wrong with any level you're at. I'm by no means like the top of the hill, but you know, then you get the people who are like very angry. Everything sucks. It's a very polarizing place. But you know, people like you give good comments on that place and keep it positive. And I love that I lost my chain of thought.

Pixel peeping.

Pixel peeping. Okay, so pixel peeping. I have to admit I do it all the time. Like with, especially with my cousin Steve. We would, I would always compare my XH1 to his Nikon Z7 and which by the way, he's switching to Sony, all the, all the Nikon people out there. But we would do it like religiously because he has a hyper competitive drive. I have a hyper competitive drive. And so it was a little bit of competition, but it was also like just comparing. So that's kind of where my heavy pixel peeping started. And to me, I don't know, then that was just my natural thing of doing of the video progressions. Like, I didn't do it a lot in my first couple of videos or my first, my first main video, but that's basically what I wanted to see because like I was always looking at a camera from a studio first perspective and I wanted to see how the pixels really performed. So it's just a natural thing to me. And it's, I'm definitely going to keep doing it. Like when I, when I look for new lenses and whatnot on the gfx, you know, I'm always looking for people pixel peeping. And I guess a lot of people don't do it. Like a lot of the main YouTubers, they just do like the slideshow and that's great, but it's hard to really get a grasp on the lens characteristics, you know, I don't know why people don't want to do it. It's not like people are gonna steal your image from like screenshotting from YouTube.

Yeah. And we hear a lot that nobody looks at images on a lot of these YouTube reviews and gear talk. They'll say you're only looking at the image on your phone screen. Right. You're only really looking at it zoomed out. I'm like, well, not necessarily the case. Right. I mean, if you're interested in gear and you want high performance gear and you're doing stuff like studio stuff and you mentioned product photography, you have to have that fidelity. You have to have that resolving quality. So that's where pixel peeping I think does have a place. And you've done a lot of that and especially with the wide angle lens where you're like, look, it's amazing, but here's the distortion I'm seeing, here's what I did to correct it. Here's that result. Take it for what you will. And I think A lot of people are like, dang, I'm happy with that because unfortunately, other reviews of the lens that do the slideshow, I'm like, where's the distortion? How are you correcting that? Is this process you're answering those questions on your channel?

Yeah. Fuji sent me that lens. I was really lucky to get it just as it came out. I mean, I really milked that lens. I put out like at least four videos on that lens, but it's a great lens. That was, to me, that was part of finishing my journey to jumping onto the gfx because I like shooting with wides. And I'll save the rest of that for your question. But also, one crazy thing I do, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, I do need 100 megapixels. It doesn't, you know, it's not really. It makes no sense. I mean, I could tell on Instagram, you know, what, like, what kind of camera you shot your photo with. Like, I could see the depth. I could see. Obviously you could see the depth of field and whatnot, but I could, I could see, like, how the contrast is on a lens. Instagram, for the most part, doesn't destroy images. It just kind of dumbs them down. So you can really tell a lot if you kind of zoom in a little bit on Instagram. So I'm even pixel peeping on Instagram.

Yeah. And they've allowed you to zoom in now, which is kind of a newer thing over the past few years.

Yep, yep. But, yeah, you know, I'm always zooming in, pixel peeping everywhere I go. Pretty much.

Yeah. And it's, it's a beneficial thing, especially when you're going to spend the kind of money that this stuff costs. Right. And you want to make sure that it's not a good. I mean, look all. And we're going to probably touch on this in a second, but all of the G mount native glass is incredible. There's not really one bad lens. I think you're going to purchase a lens, you're going to spend this money. It's going to be amazing. But you want to make sure it's right for you, the stuff that you're doing. You mentioned some of the design work you're doing. Is it well suited for that? Can I get more out of this lens than just as a hobbyist lens? I think that's where pixel peeping comes into play. You know, on that note, I think it's good to ask you. I think I personally want to know. I know some Other folks that have watched your videos, like, what is your favorite lens? Right. And I think that's kind of a funny phrase, like, what's your favorite lens? Well, there's so many. Let me just. Right, but which one really speaks to you? You mentioned the 80 millimeter on the X mount, but in terms of the.

G mount, I love it.

Well, not just the favorite, but incredible lens. It's super underrated. I just got the 30 millimeter macro and I love it. And I'm thinking, man, do I need. Yeah, the new one. I'm like, yeah, do I need the 80 millimeter now? So different story. But X mount lens, like, what would you say is your favorite, like desert island lens or whatever cliche you want to use. And then for G mount as well. Where are you at on that?

So I can't narrow it down to one. If I had to pick, I would pick the 5140 and the 8 to 16, which I just dropped my lens cap. Those two are my favorites, which I would not. I would use. I've used the 8 to 16 in the studio a bunch. The distortion is way better than the 20 to 35. But those would be my X amount favorites. That's what I would use in a street photography setting, I guess you could say. That's kind of like my favorite form of photography. So those two, like I went to Miami in, in May and I brought both those lenses. I didn't bother bringing anything else.

Oh, wow.

The X, the 80 is a phenomenal lens, but to me that's just a. A product lens. I wouldn't really use it on the street for the gf. I just got the system. But the 110 is obviously supreme. Reign supreme. That's the lens. If you're going to buy the GFX, if you're buying it for something other than the 110, you know, it depends on what type of photography you do. But that lens is a lens to buy a system for, so. And I would buy it now before they hurry up and do some. Something crazy like a Mark 2 version and then, you know, the mark ones you can't get anymore. That lens is phenomenal.

Yeah, no, definitely. You know, for me, I think the. On X mount, I don't know, I made a video about the 3314 and I just love that lens so much. I think I got it here on the XH2. Love this lens a lot. Probably say that's probably my favorite on the X mount system. I also, you know, I really love the new 56 Mark II, the 1.2.

It's phenomenal.

The optical characteristics have changed quite a bit. There's a really great guy on YouTube. His username is Callie. All starring, but his name's Shing and he's a California photographer. Does models and stuff like that. This guy just pushes gear out videos all the time. And he does really good real world stuff. And a lot of the stuff he's done with the 56 versus the 50F one. The 56F one. 2 Mark2LMWR. The names are getting long. Fantastic. And I had the original and I was super happy with it, but I just didn't want to grab it that much because it had a lot of chromosome chromatic aberration. It just felt kind of like vintage Y and ended up selling it for the new one. And the new one is like the new LM ones, except it doesn't have lm, which is the big, big. The linear motor. Of course, it's the big kind of oversight on it. But story for another day, I think on the G mount. My favorite. I mean, I love this 53.5 because it's super underrated. I mean, the optical quality here is insane for a pancake, right? But I would say my favorite lens is the 81.7. It's kind of funny. A lot of people are in the 80 camp. A lot of people are in the 110 camp. You know, on the 80, I miss having the telephoto. I hate the slow speed of the focus, but it's definitely that more character ish lens. Whereas the 110 is a tiny bit more clinical, but it has a linear motor, so it's way faster on auto focus. So I love that lens. And then probably my other favorite lens would be the 45 to 100 that I just bought because I've been having so much fun with that lens. It's really like a portrait zoom. And I've been using it for street. I've been using it for landscape even, and it's fantastic. So super happy with those lenses. But you can't go wrong on the. On the G mount. But, you know. Yeah, so go ahead.

I've never used the 45 to 100, but it's on my list. I hear very good things about it.

It's just strong. I mean, that focal. And again, lenses, I'm not really talking so much in terms of what a lens can do, but when you put that lens on the camera, it really puts you in A zone. So 8 to 16. When that lens is on your camera and you're in Miami and you're walking around and maybe you left the 5140 in the hotel room. You're like, okay, I gotta do something with this. So your mind is thinking differently, Whereas with the 45 to 100 you're thinking differently as well. And that's why I like that a lot. With the 53.5, I'm really just like, okay, I'll do some street stuff. It's kind of got that smartphone ish focal range. I think it's around 40 millimeter equivalent or something like that. But yeah, so a little interesting of a lens, but there's a lot of good glass out there and you can't really go wrong. But I want to touch on. I mean, we're getting close to the end of 2022. We're at the end of getting towards the end of December here. And I think Fujifilm, I mean, I've been following them for 10 years. I've been using the system for about seven years. This year has been incredible. And as a fan, it's like you're. Your favorite video game company's coming out with a new video game and it's like hyped and it's great. Look, they came out with a stacked sensor camera. They came out with, I have here the XH2s and they came out with this camera. Didn't really surprise too many people. Unfortunately, a lot of their stuff gets leaked and that's just the name of the game nowadays.

But I think they leaked their own stuff.

You know what? That's true. Maybe they do 100%.

They have to. They would have killed the person at this point who.

That's true. Yeah, maybe they do. And it's different in Japan too, right? But they came out with XH2s, it came out with X H2 and the X T5. Surprisingly, I was talking to Tongue about this. Kind of was a surprise. It was rumored, oh, next year, and all of a sudden it came out in people's hands. Now, in fact, you can walk into a Best Buy right now and get a kit version of it. But nobody's buying that because most folks that are going to buy the X T5 already have the kit. So they made a lot more kit cameras obviously to push some revenue. So kind of an interesting thing. But the GFX series didn't get a whole lot of love. Right. The GF20-35 came out, not much else. So what are your thoughts on going into next year? They've Talked about some of the tilt shift lenses. They've talked about some of their vision for it. There's a rumor of a new body because the GFX1 hundreds went on sale for the first time.

I hope not.

Fujifilm has had a really strong history of putting stuff on sale in the typical way of kind of getting rid of some inventory. So where do you see the company going in 2023 and, and how do you think this year went?

This year I'm with you. I mean, I, I don't really have any plans at the moment of getting an XH2 or 2S, but what a year. Like, phenomenal year. I, I really hate back screens of the XH cameras. I don't like how they, they got rid of that. That tilt up. To me, that's a big.

That's.

If I'm doing street work, I am definitely tilting the screen up so I would probably have a hard time using that screen for a while. But aside that aside, I had to mention phenomenal year. The cameras are amazing. I actually got to use both of them briefly and they are truly amazing. I use the 50. I mean, the XH2 with the new 56. What a phenomenal lens. I, after like reviewing the footage, I was like, man, this reminds me so much of the 100, the 110. I almost had a little bit of buyers remorse. I was like, oh man, I should.

Have just held strong on the pixel peeped. And you're like, no, I'm good.

Yeah, I picked the peep. And I'm like, nah, I did it for a reason. You know, I think the GFX never gets a ton of love. Right? You look at their lens lineup, like most, half of them are from like the original, you know, first couple years, you know, or even more. I, I think that's gonna be the case, right, because it's just such a premium camera and the price tag is insane. But I think next year is going to be cool. I've never used a tilt shift lens, but you can be assured I will get my hands on them hopefully as soon as they come out. And I watched a few videos on them. Actually, someone from the Facebook group, they, they commented on my 2035 video and they were like, you know, talking about how I was talking about the distortion and they linked me to a tilt shift video and I'm, I am really excited to try it out.

I mean, you live literally in the place where you could really, really dive into these lenses, right?

Yeah. Oh, 100%. 100%. So, yeah, the tilt shift is going to be amazing. I think that, you know, if you look at, they have the 81 7, they're going to announce the 5517. You know, they're going to have a 35 17. I mean I bought the pancake on the GFX because I specifically wanted to wait for the 51.7. Instead of going with the 45. I would get the pancake anyway because there's going to be situations where you don't want a super heavy camera, which is GFX is anyway. But I'm really excited for that 55 that, that to me is exciting. But in terms of new body, I forget someone had a good comment on the group, but there's like very mixed, mixed ideas. I could see them coming out with a mark two of the one hundreds, although the one hundreds is kind of a second variation anyway. And adding, doing more with the autofocus, adding the bird and the train and all that crazy stuff that the XH2s have. But also, I don't know, I could see it's such like a monumental camera. Maybe they need more time. I'm really not sure. But I don't, I don't think you could ever, you could ever like replicate the hype on the XFS system for the gfx. Like. Yeah, they're just not going to release that much gear, you know.

Yeah. And I, and I think you make a good point with that where you know, the cost of entry on GFX actually isn't that bad.

Right.

And I think a lot of people have talked about at length about this where when you're looking at some of the higher end stack sensors, the A1s and the Z9s of the world, the cost of entry is huge there. And then you look at the lenses and the lenses pound for pound are just right there with gfx. And then you get the whole medium format versus a full frame conversation going. But I think you're right. I think for them to do a mark two of the S and put a new processor in some of the autofocus stuff, I can totally see that happening. But like you said, it's such a monumental camera for them. I mean it changed the game of medium format in terms of price, $6,000 to get in. And actually the craziest thing is I'm waiting. Fujifilm actually ships their gear, refurbished gear, out of a warehouse here in Cypress, California just up the street for me. And they have.

Oh wow.

Yeah, they have. So it's like next Day delivery for me, which is amazing. Kind of like you need the plane. Yeah, right. And one of the funny things is they have a GFX one hundreds. Well, I mean they usually have them refurbished for 36.99.

Yeah, I saw that price, I was like oh my God.

And they come up every so often and I'm kind of sitting there, wait and see. Because the thing with the 50s II that I hate obviously is the auto focus. You can really work around it. But when I'm jumping between systems, I mean I have the X H2 and XH2s now and even my X100V it's like light years ahead of this where if I'm doing the 50 on here or even the 45 to 100, I'm doing kind of more street stuff. And you do want to have a little bit more respective autofocus and some of the side by sides I've seen with the 1/00 and after using it before too, it is a lot better. So it'll be interesting to see. But for 36 99, think about that. I mean that's the A7R V that just came out is in that price. Yeah. So it's like what? And the glass for Fuji system for GFX actually isn't that bad. Right. And you look at some of the native Sony glass, the G Master. And by the way, as a consumer trying to get into Sony or Nikon, I mean just trying to understand the glass situation is crazy. Right? You have GE lenses, you have G Master, you have the E mounts and then the fe. Oh, that's for the full frame camera. So you're like, unless you have a lot of research, you don't know. Whereas gfx, it makes it very simple. Yes, it's expensive, but it's still.

Even the X Series, same thing. Even the X series, they have 2.8 and F4. Like there's no guesswork and there's no Sigma, there's no third party. So it's pretty easy. And all the Fuji glass is pretty good.

So yeah, there's not really a bad lens and that's kind of the cool thing. But you know, so I mean, who knows if another body comes out, I think it'll still be an interesting thing. But you know, I want to go back to. So you're in New York City. Did you grow up there or what's your history there? Did you spend a lot of time there?

I grew up in North Jersey.

Okay, so in the area.

Okay, yeah, in the area.

Not like From Ohio and move to Brooklyn.

No, no, no, no.

Because that never happens.

Well, I mean, there's a lot of New York City is, you know, a transplant.

Oh yeah.

But yeah, I went to, I went to school in New Jersey and whatnot. But I went to, to college in New York City. So that's where once I went to college, I never really went back. I moved into an apartment right after I graduated.

Nice, nice. Because, you know, you use New York City in your videos. It has become sort of like this second character, which I think is so cool. You obviously have a love for dogs, but I want to go into your love for New York City. And I think, you know, as someone I visited there many times, I always brought my camera and some of my favorite photos are just street photos from New York. And you know, some of the most successful YouTube people, especially in the Fuji world, are just doing street stuff in east coast cities like Philadelphia or New York City and just getting incredible shots. And people at home are like, I need new gear. It's like, well, you guys have to understand too that to be fair, I mean, you walk around in these cities, you can't take a bad photo sometimes. There's just so much going on and so much awesome stuff in what we perceive as cool reflections and kind of lights and things like that. That's everywhere in New York City. So where you live, you may not have any of that. It doesn't mean you need a better camera. But you've used it for pixel peeping. I think it's an incredible place for pixel peeping. A lot of the people that went to Fujikina and got their hands on the gear, I know like Gordon from Camera Labs did a really cool XH2 versus XH2s and he was on the rooftop that most people were on. And just the detail, right? And people were like, wow, okay, there's the first video that shows me the difference between the sensors. And it wasn't because of the person doing the video, it was because of the location. So what makes New York City, in your opinion, being there? You're from the tri state area. What makes it such a special place to shoot and get some of the most incredible results as you have gotten?

So I'm really sorry for everyone watching this, but New York City is essentially the capital of the world. It's really without a doubt my favorite place. It's a. It's definitely a miserable place to live. It has many challenges even to work and live here. Like it is a hard city. You are operating at A level that is a bit, you know, it's higher requirements to live for sure. But it's just a phenomenal place. And I've traveled. I was fortunate enough to. To take two road trips across the US in the last couple years. And, you know, I've traveled to, you know, many other cities like Dallas and, you know, I've been to Miami a bunch of times. And other, other, larger cities in the US Like Boston. Don't get me started on Boston. And, you know, they just. Everything is just like, basically like a knockoff New York City. It's like, you know, it just doesn't have as much going on. New York City is, like, phenomenal in many ways for. For photography. There's just so much to do. Some cities are. They have a lot of cool buildings or a section of large buildings, but there's nothing to do. New York City has, like, a lot of outdoor stuff. This has been a topic I've been discussing with my fiance for the last couple of months. And it's like, well, New York City, they just have lots of parks, and their parks aren't just grass. There's, like, stuff to do. Like, Central park is, you know, massive, and there's tons of different sections. Even Prospect park in Brooklyn. Like, there's zoos inside these parks. There's all these, like, you've never. Any of the parks in New York City, you've never explored them all because there's so many. There's just so big, and there's so many hidden things in them. And you're like, what? There's a zoo in the park? I've never seen that zoo. Like, I would cycle around Prospect park all the time, and it's. Oh, is this there? Like, I don't know. New York City just has a lot going on. And if you don't want to do something outside, there's plenty of things inside. Um, I don't know, just great. Like, lots of people, lots of cars. I went to, like, when I went to. I just did a small road trip, Northeast road trip, and I went to Boston. Did two days in Boston. Um, the public library is, like, amazing. If you're ever in Boston, you have to go there.

Phenomenal photos. Yeah.

Truly amazing. But I was. It was like 11pm and we were getting the car from the garage, and I was like, oh, there's, like, windows in the garage. You could look down from the street. I'm like, I'm gonna take a quick, you know, quick, long exposure. And I did a long exposure and there's no cars to take to get the nice light trails. It's just like, where is everyone?

Yeah, everyone's asleep.

Everyone's asleep. They already left. And like, I also went to Providence Road island, which pretty, pretty cool. There's definitely some really nice sections, but same sort of thing. Like I was doing. I was on a bridge. I forget the name of the bridge, but the main bridge where you could see the whole skyline. And I'm doing, you know, long exposure of the skyline and whatnot. And I'm reviewing the pictures and I'm like, wow. You know, out of all the buildings there, there's only like a couple lights on. Like, there's no lights in these buildings to get the cool effects. So it's just New York City. You can go to so many different spots and get. Get the skyline and there's lights are on in every building because everyone is working and they're always tired and, you know, they're whatever. But it's just. It's just unlike anywhere else.

Yeah. And I think for your photography, right. I mean, it's almost like I've only seen, you know, pictures of and some of your work, right. That you have the animals during the day, and then as soon as the sun is about to set, that's where you shine, right. You've got the sun going down. And then night photography. Photography for you has been a really strong suit, right? It's difficult to do night photography, I think. Saw a comment one time on the Facebook group saying, oh, night photography is easy on gfx. Actually. It's harder, man. You have to have a tripod with you. You have to have time. You have to set things aside, and you have to be good at it. I think New York City is definitely the place for night photography. It's something that I haven't gotten into enough for many reasons. I have a year and a half year old. And also here at nighttime, there's nobody out here in California. I live in Orange county. And it's like, great point about New York. One in the morning, I'm up. You're doing some web development. I want to go shoot. Let me go do a long exposure and there's a playground for you. I think that's so cool.

You can also just hop on a train at any time and go. I think also I never really got into tripod stuff, long exposure, hdr until I got these. These GFX loans. But it's such. It is such a burden, though, to carry around a tripod and do that. I fully agree, but it's like once you do it, you do long exposure and then you get into hdr, it's like there's no going back. It's just everything is just not worth it.

And especially when you see the results come through of what bringing that tripod gave you, right? And what setting aside, hey, I'm going to take 40 minutes to an hour, whatever it needs to take to get these shots. Like, okay, now those are lifetime shots that maybe I can print on my wall. So, yeah, super, super worth it. I won't take up too much of your time this morning. I got a couple more things I want to touch on with you. I think one of the most common questions I get on my 500 subscriber channel is, hey, I'm with you, is, look, I own an X mount camera or two, I have lenses, I'm on the groups, I'm chatting with people, I'm out shooting. I want to jump into gfx, but I don't get paid for my photography. For a lot of those people, they say I'm a hobbyist. This word, hobbyist, enthusiast. I have been there for a long time, but in the past year for myself, I've been doing paid work and doing headshots. Family. There are so many people out there, believe it or not, even though everybody has a camera in their hand, there's so many people out there who don't know how to take photos, don't want to take photos, right? There's that whole desire to want to learn. And then they can tell the difference between an iPhone photo or a really good Android device photo, even in 48 megapixel raw whatever, versus an actual interchangeable lens camera. So I want to ask you, you've talked about some of the work that you've done. You have the studio going on, and what do you say to that person that says, look, I'm not getting paid for my photography right now, so it doesn't make sense to get into GFX, but I really want to. I watched Mike's 20 to 35 video. I watched his, you know, all these videos from him. He's pixel peeping. I want that quality, but I just don't get paid. So it doesn't make sense. And I think a lot of those people are like, my wife won't say yes, right? Or my husband won't say yes. And I get it, right? It's expensive, it's a big investment, and it gets addicting, right? You start buying lenses, you start saying, man, Mike made another really good Video about this lens. Maybe I should get it. So what do you say to those people who aren't getting paid right now, but they really want to get into it, how can they start doing that kind of stuff?

I'll give them the opposite advice of what you're expecting. I think like, you know, a lot of people, they, you know, the first of the year hits and they're like, oh, I want to go to the gym, you know. And like what they do is they, they're like, oh, I got to buy clothes. I have to have like all this fitness gear and stuff. And to go to the gym it's like, okay, why don't you just go to the gym, establish that you like it and then once you're into it, sure, you know, wear whatever clothes you want. Right. So if you have an xf, you want to get into the gfx, but you can't justify it and you want to, your goal is to start making money. Well, start making money first and earn the, the purchase. I'm a big time believer of like earning, earning things. You know, I will, I will suffer for a month for years before I, you know, before I do something. Like I've, I've used the GF for like well over a year before I bought it, you know, and I was, and then I, I really wanted it, but I just held off. You know, I wanted to earn it. But I think from a, from a freelance perspective you could probably give better advice. It sounds like you're, you're doing, you, you grew a lot in the freelance work you do, but I think you got to start small. And like from my own business, I could say everything is referral based. So if you, if you, but the, but it's a double edged sword because bad clients, you know, cheap clients or really, you know, like, you know, soccer mom client, you know, they may, they will most likely refer other bad clients. So, but it is all referral based. So I would say like you got to start small and most likely whoever you are, you have more connections than you think. So you start out, start. You take yourself, your immediate family and be like, okay, well you know, my dad has a company, you know, and I went to his website, man, the photos are really bad. Okay, so start there. Maybe he could, you know, do it. You know, I'm not a tongue would probably say do it for free. Get your foot in the door, get the work. I am not a believer of that. But do it cheap. You know, do just get some money, you know, recoup a Little bit. But just start doing work. And, you know, as long as you do good work, the referrals will, will come in. It takes time. But start small.

Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, what I've been doing in the past year is, you know, I bought GFX as a hobbyist kind of thing and then started sitting there looking at the bills, come in and say, okay, how do I. How do I recoup this? Right? And I'd be doing free work and free work and free work. And I said, wait a second, what if I just offer to do some paid work out there? And me personally, I have several jobs now. My main job, I do sales for a staffing firm. I also teach at a local college here. I'm a professor of English. So I'm wearing all these different hats all the time. And then I do this photography thing on the side. And there is a kind of a thread that goes through everything. But a lot of the work that I've been doing lately, I just shot a small business of six employees that their whole entire company had shot. And, you know, it pays pretty well. And I'm still well under the market rate, which there's a whole other discussion there where other photographers in my area would say, you know, you're bringing down the entire market. It's like, well, you know, it is competitive. And, you know, if I'm able to do this price with gfx, then you should be able to do a better price with your Canon D850. Right? Or Nikon D850, which, it's crazy. A lot of these portrait photographers mean props to them, but they're still using old SLRs and not inside mirrorless. And there is that fidelity that I think mirrorless does offer, especially at some of the higher lenses and some of the better glass designs.

But I'll just say enjoy the lack of sharpness. It is sharp. Mirrorless is next level sharp. But yeah, enjoy it.

And the optical designs on the mirrorless lenses that are designed for mirrorless are just so much better. The flange distance is better. I can go on about it for hours. But going back into paid work, I think you're right. I would say definitely build a portfolio, get a website up, start putting some photos, and also say, what are you interested in? If you don't like doing headshots, then don't get into paid work, because that's what a lot of it is. A lot of what I've been doing, I think probably 80% of the work that I've been doing is headshots for LinkedIn. And I'm in the staffing world, and so I'm very much a big believer in LinkedIn.

But that's perfect for you. That is a niche that you realized and you took advantage of, and that's why you start making money.

Yeah, definitely. And you'll see YouTube videos. People will say, oh, just start doing headshots. Well, if you don't like doing headshots, you're gonna hate it. Yeah, right?

I don't do headshots.

I don't like them. Yeah. And it's like. It's like. But people need headshots. You go to LinkedIn, you go to people's Instagram or whatever, People have terrible photos. And you don't need to do ultra professional. I don't do studio work. I only do natural light simply because I don't have access to a studio, but also because I think it's a little bit less crazy for people. But look, you can get paid for photography if you want, but yes, I think you're 100% right. You got to start with the camera you have. And if it's an iPhone, I don't recommend doing professional paid work with an iPhone, but find a way to build a portfolio. Rent a camera, right? Go to B and H, rent a camera, go to your local camera store, rent a nice camera and see if you love it.

But I think one other thing about that, too, people freelancing is a whole nother game, especially if you work a salary job. And if that is your justification, oh, I need to make money on the equipment that I buy one. You may hate the administrative aspect of freelancing, the paperwork the bill is, sending invoices, making, hounding people for the money, figuring out how to not get, you know, screwed over. That's a whole nother thing. But you may hate that aspect of it. You may hate. You may just not like doing something that isn't fully run by yourself, Right? Because the second you're doing work for someone, it's like, well, you have to schedule it, do it on their time, you know, all that stuff. And sometimes it takes away, like, the passion behind it. Like, there's. There's. I'm not gonna lie, there's. I do. I do photography, actually. I do. I'm fortunate. I have one client that I do, like, studio work for a couple clients. I do studio, like, only in studio, but then I have another client that I do, like, street stuff for because they do all the signage in New York City. And Whatnot. Like, every. Every major building, they do tons of signage. And I get to do sometimes outdoor stuff, indoor street work. And, you know, it's kind of like, really cool. It's a mixture of both worlds. And I would say, I know I've done it for a couple of years for the outdoor signage stuff, but so it kind of feels pretty natural at this point, but it feels less forced than the studio work. Sometimes I'm doing studio work and I get, like, feedback, and it's like, well, I wouldn't do it that way. You know, I would diverge from. They want me to diverge from it. And then it's just kind of like. It's not like I. Photography is like my passion, you know, and it. Sometimes it's not good to mix a passion with a career because it can. It can make you unhappy.

No, totally. I think you're. I mean, you make a really good point there. Right? And I think a lot of people, we see a lot of that. I mean, look at these photographers in your area that are doing paid work full time, right? They're unhappy. They're like, sure, what time do you want to meet? Like, it's not fun for them. I still get excited when I do this kind of stuff. I still get amped to go meet people. And, you know, luckily, I'm able just to do it probably once every couple weeks on the weekends, but in between my two other jobs. But it's like, you know, photography is a passion for me and it's something I want to always enjoy doing. Luckily, having a gear addiction like you do is always keeping it fresh. But it is a very special thing. So I want to wrap up. I really appreciate your time, Mike. You're an amazing mind and someone who definitely has a lot to say, and I hope to hear more from you in the future. And I think going. Looking at the Future, 2023, we're coming up. And I always hate this end of the year, beginning of the year stuff, but I think for where, especially where you are in terms of your journey, not just on YouTube, but kind of through your photography and through some of your lessons that you're trying to share with folks. Where do you see your channel going in 2023? What's kind of the next thing that you want to do as you continue to grow, as you continue to get more eyes on the videos and more people like me that realize, man, this guy has some really good points to make. Where do you see that going.

A couple different directions in terms of YouTube and whatnot I've kind of, I've got a little bit away from studio work and I need to get back into that doing more elegant studio shoots. So that's definitely something I need to do. How I'm going to Translate that on YouTube. I did a studio food shoot, studio video and I know it did not get a lot of traction. I will definitely try it again. I'm not going to base things fully on that, but we'll see. People may like just the review stuff. I want to start branching out into maybe topics like freelancing or just general topics. For me to make a video, it takes a ton of effort because I, I spend a lot of time editing photos. I don't just, I, I literally never shoot in film simulations and just hit, hit export or just out of camera. I'm always adjusting all the settings in every photo. So for me to make a review video, it takes a lot of time. Especially like if I'm doing like you know, 30 shots. It takes, it can take a lot of time to get the photos ready. So I want to start doing some videos that are, you know, not as content heavy, more informational heavy. That's one thing I also want to start. I thought I fought this for so, so long, but I want to get into more reels segmenting back into what you're talking about. It's funny because that, that reel I posted of all the, the pictures, I mean that was like condensed into six seconds of seizure, seizure photos. But you know, some, someone commented on that. They were like, oh, I can't really see the photos. Like, okay, man, like you're watching, you're watching YouTube shorts. You know that this is a fast paced format. Like, okay, but I want to get in the video. Yeah, I told him that. I'm like, well you go check out my Instagram and check out my pixel peeping videos. But yeah, so I want to, I want to start doing more shorts as well. You know there is one of my goals is definitely get monetized on YouTube. And I know it's not, it's not necessarily, it's not a lot of money by any, by any stretch in the beginning. But you know, I like, it's just a goal to hit and then from there you could go. So yeah, like right now I'm doing a lot of, I'm doing two, I'm wrapping up two, like, I don't know what you call it, trades barters. A company called Kolari Vision, they sent me some lens filters to test out. So I'm I'm releasing a video, hopefully it has to be this weekend, that there's a new tripod out called. I don't know how you say it, Heipi. It's like a peak. Peak design, you know, mod. But it's like, definitely a V2. Like, it's a really cool tripod. They're sending me that. I'm gonna test that out. So maybe some more brand stuff or stuff like that.

And. And, you know, honestly, like, I've turned down a lot of that kind of stuff just because I don't have time to do it. I would love to.

Yeah.

But I think there's nothing wrong with that. And I think, you know, you know, I was trying to buy a backpack a couple weeks ago, a non camera backpack, and there's no videos on it. I'm like, God, if it's a huge company, I won't name drop them here. But I'm like, I emailed them and said, hey, you have no videos on YouTube of this backpack that's been out for six months. Exactly. I need to know what it looks like. Your website has terrible photos. It seems like an awesome backpack. You have all these reviews, but who knows how many are fake? Let me do a video and I'll return the backpack to you. I don't want the backpack for free. I'll buy it, but it's like, just let me do the video for you. I want to help people. I want to get. Because someone else that's searching for it. It's not the end of the world, but it's like having that. So someone searching for that tripod. There may be a couple videos, but the way that you can do it and some of the fidelity and production quality that you have and giving your mindset of, hey, I do long exposures or I do night stuff on the Brooklyn Bridge through a break in the fence. Right. This is where it's good. I think that is the key to kind of progressing the conversation. So, yeah, man, I'm super pumped for you. And I gave Tong some ideas. So I'll give you an idea here. I would love to see kind of your editing process. You have a very unique color palette, gamut, whatever, for your. For your photography. And I think we've seen you in Lightroom a little bit. I would love to see kind of you walk through your process. I know a lot of people say, okay, I'm gonna put the highlights up. I'm gonna do this, like, really walk through where you see your colors and where your exposure going and what are some challenges you deal with shooting photos, and it's being honest, like, hey, GFX sucks at this, you know, shadow collection or whatever. Right. I mean, having that kind of conversation, I think would be super beneficial to folks.

I love it. I'll do it.

Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for your time. I will let you get going. Appreciate it. And so excited for all your success, man. And as things grow in 2023, we'll all be watching. So thanks again, Mike. Appreciate your time.

Thanks for having me on, and I appreciate you as well.

Thanks, man. All right, take care.

All right, bye.