EP: 76 Selecting the Right Camera for Your Hunt. In this episode Chris and John Petersen talk cameras. There are a wide range of cameras you could select to take on a hunt. From your cell phone to high end DSLR cameras. There are endless options. In this episode we talk through some of the basics you should consider when selecting a camera.

Disclaimer: this text was produced through an automated transcription service likely contains errors. Please listen to the original audio for exact content.

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I always tell people, you can never take too many pictures. The the photos are such a huge part of, of making up memories to me. And so you’ll notice in lowlight situations, which happens a lot on Hunts,

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Anything to do with Western big games.

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Welcome

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To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Epic Outdoors Podcast. Today we’ve got myself, Chris Peterson here with John Peterson. First as we start, we’d like to thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast, and along with a lot of other things that we do, we really appreciate them. They have great gear. We’ve been using it for years and years, especially the new stuff coming out. It’s amazing. We’ve seen sneak peeks and it’s, it’s a huge jump up. So most of it’ll be hitting in July, so go to ua hunt.com, check that out and, and you’ll be able to order in July. But really cool advancements. I I’m, I was impressed. More advancements this year than I’ve seen in the, probably the past three years combined. Yeah. A few weeks ago we went and tested some of the new gear that’s coming out and super impressed with that.

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You can check out a YouTube video on our channel where you can see a lot of that gear. We’d also like to do a, a shout out to one of our sponsors, the state of Wyoming, who’s doing a super tag raffle. And so it gives you 10 more chances to draw the tag of a lifetime. And those tickets are only 10 bucks each. And the trifecta, which gives you a plethora of tags, it seems more than you ever needed one. Right. You get a choose three species in Wyoming, which is pretty amazing. You could choose an elk tag, a a bear tag. Yeah. Pretty much any species that’s available, you can choose that and go on a hunt. And those tickets are 30 bucks each. So that’s it. Deadline is July 2nd to get, get your tickets purchased For that to purchase those go to wg fd.wyo.gov/epic outdoors.

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Don’t forget that. Slash Epic Outdoors today, one of the things that we’re gonna focus on is cameras and Yeah. And Chris and I are ultra passionate about cameras. One of the reasons probably is we’ve been in, in the media side of, of the hunting industry Oh, for, what, 15 years or something now? Yep. And so we’ve been printing hunting stories and, and hunting magazines for the last 15 years. And we’ve seen a huge difference in quality photos versus, you know, really horrible photos. And when we started out, we were scanning all the photos that we got sent in, and the quality was horrible. And, and then we saw the quality go up with digital photography, and it went up and up and up. I think one of the best days of my life was when all of a sudden we didn’t have to scan any more photos.

00:02:51:23 –> 00:03:46:12
We, we stopped getting three by five photos in the mail, no longer had to scan photos. And we started getting digital files and we were getting amazing pictures consistently. And then cell phones kicked in and, and we started getting cell phone pictures. And at first they were just horrible. Remember little flip phones? Yes. The photos were like, inch, inch by an inch was terrible. Yeah. And all of a sudden that better photo quality that we started to get from digital photos dropped, like crazy. Cell phones have, have been a blessing and a curse. Some of the pros I think have been that more people have, have cameras that they carry on their hunting trips. And, and I hear a lot less, Hey, ha, I totally forgot my camera, because they’ve got a backup. And I think another one of the, the benefits has been phone scope footage and that, that’s been great.

00:03:46:14 –> 00:04:36:04
And then that’s one of the things that, that cell phones are excellent at is, is that the phone scope type footage. Yeah. It seemed like years ago, a lot of these memories on hunts just basically got forgotten and you couldn’t share ’em. Yeah. They would just disappear with time, because if you don’t have a picture, memories fade and you could tell stories all day long, but if you don’t have a photo, it, it kind of, it takes away from that. And, and what, 10 years ago seemed like we had a lot of circumstances where we’d have people that went on hunts and we’d ask ’em for a story and they didn’t have photos. Yeah, no photos at all. We both grew up our grandpa telling us hunting stories and there’s, there’s no photographic evidence. So yeah, I remember Juan, he shot an eight by eight buck, and I always wondered in my mind what that buck really looked like, what it really was.

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Was it really a monster or was it just a little tiny deer with eight points on each side? And we’ll never know, because guess what? They didn’t have a camera and didn’t take pictures of it. Yep. And one of the other things that Chris and I get accused of is going way overboard on taking pictures. So especially if we’re with Jason after the kill, you know, we’re, we’re taking every angle possible. Yeah. And, and sometimes we’ll take two to 300 pictures just, you know, after the kill, but guaranteed we’re gonna have a few good ones. Yeah. That’s kind of our motto. I always tell people, you can never take too many pictures, especially on a hunt. It’s one of those things, I’ve never heard anybody come home really and say, you know, I’ve got way too many pictures. It’s always the opposite. It’s, man, I wish I had a few more pictures.

00:05:20:23 –> 00:06:01:10
I should have taken a picture of this, or I should have taken a picture of that. Or I wish I had a different angle of something. ’cause once that hunt’s gone, once you’ve cut that animal up and taken it home, you can’t get that back. Like, you can’t go back and take those pictures. Yeah, you’re done. So take the time when you’re in that moment, it will pay off. And I, I cannot tell you how many times in my life I’m, I’m doing something. I look around man, and I see this scene. Maybe I can tell you when last year I’m coming down this trail. I was actually riding horses and I, I looked behind me and I saw the sun was setting and there was aspen trees, and they were all golden. I looked behind me and I, and I thought to myself, stop and take a picture.

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And of course I’m like, ah, I’ll get it 20 yards down the trail and 20 yards down the trail. I didn’t do it. And an hour later, I’m in totally different terrain. There’s no aspen trees, it’s all oak brush and it’s ugly. And I didn’t get that shot, and it’s still in my head. So when you have those moments, when something pops in your mind and says, take a picture, just do it. Take the time to take the picture. And for a lot of us, that’s the reason we hunt, is for the memories. And I think for me, and maybe it’s just because I’m such a visual person, the the photos are such a huge part of, of making those memories to me. And so one of the things that this year I saw was that someone giving a seminar on cell phone photography on your hunt and just made me cringe because cell phones have come a long way, but there are a lot of cons of using cell phones.

00:06:58:05 –> 00:07:48:14
Granted, they’re better than nothing and they have come a long ways, but they’re still not quite as good in a lot of cases as a better camera. Yeah. And John especially knows a lot of the details on that and why they’re not quite as good. Well, and we’ll go through some of those, but the, the basics one is lens size. If you look at the lens size on most cell phones, they’re about the size of a pencil eraser, and they’re just tiny. And even the cheapest point in shoot, you know, you’re looking at probably an inch wide or so. And so that’s just a lot more quality lens and a lot more light that comes into that sensor. And the next one, I think that’s a huge difference, is sensor size. Yeah. Sensor size to me is probably the number one factor in image quality.

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And that comes from light. Light is what makes photos. And if you have a larger sensor, you’re letting in more light and you’re recording more light as well. Yes. And so the smaller sensors just aren’t able to capture the light. And so you’ll notice in low light situations, which happens a lot on hunts, you start to get a lot of noise in your photos, and they just don’t look as good, they’re not as sharp. And the image itself is actually way smaller because your megapixels are smaller. And, and I mean, we could get real technical with this, but we’re gonna stay away from doing that just for the sake of people probably don’t really care to hear great details on get really detail Yeah. On photography. But long story short, small sensors make for lower quality images. Yeah. And I think, so you hit on resolution a little bit.

00:08:44:03 –> 00:09:34:10
So resolution we’re gonna talk about a little bit more down the line, but basically the cameras just haven’t caught up to even the, or the, the cell phone cameras haven’t caught up to the basic point and shoot cameras yet. And so that’s, that’s another big factor. One of the other ones for me is the cell phones try to compensate on quality by computer, by the, the processing of the chip inside the camera. And so you’ll get an overprocessed picture, which a lot of times will look like a painting. And so you get these soft edges and, and nothing, and it’s not just not quite as clear. Yeah. One of the things on, on a high-end camera, which that’s what I love the most, is high-end cameras and all the images, basically I shoot in what’s called a raw format. And if you look at the image, they’re very flat, they’re unprocessed.

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And so you can go in later and adjust and you can modify or get the most out of those of what’s there. Whereas the cell phone, it overcompensates and it crushes those photos and it processes and over processes. And once you bring those in to, let’s say, if we’re just designing a story, there’s very little that you can do to make that photo look any better as far as adjusting colors or bringing up shadows. It’s, or saturation. Yeah. That detail is gone. Yeah. Yeah. So, and a lot of this has to do with us designing a magazine and the stories at the end, the photos that we get out of the, out of the, the, the phones just, we see the difference. And, and it’s huge. Not saying that if you have cell phone pictures that, that, you know, and you wanna do a story, a lot of those do make the magazine, but a lot of ’em is the difference between making a cover and not, not that we wouldn’t ever put a cell phone picture on the cover if it’s great, sometimes they look good, but we have had pictures that would’ve definitely made the cover if they were taken on a normal camera.

00:10:41:08 –> 00:11:37:21
And since they were a cell phone, the quality was just horrible. Yeah. And going back to light, sometimes if you have a cell phone camera and you have really good light quality, you can have a picture turn out pretty good, but as soon as you get low light or less than perfect light, your chances of having a great photo kind of go out. Go light. Yeah. They go out the window. And then, so I did wanna bring up one other thing. We’re talking about computer processing, the new iPhone 10. I have one. And it’s phenomenal, especially for Instagram photos and, you know, photos that you’re looking at as big as the screen of your phone or your computer, and there’s a new mode on there called portrait mode, and they look phenomenal on the screen. It blurs out the background and it’s, it’s actually trying to mimic, you know, a higher end D S L R camera where you can get that shorter depth of field.

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And so you’re, you know, the, the subject that’s close, like the hunter is totally crystal clear, and then the background’s blown out and it has this high end look. The problem is all of that, the out of focus is fake. And so your camera is actually guessing what should be in focus and what shouldn’t. And so Chris has a recent example of that. Yeah. So we had this, it’s basically a horror story of what can happen if you’re using portrait mode. So if you didn’t catch it already, do not use portrait mode. Just shoot in a regular mode on your ca on your phone if you happen to use your phone, if that’s all you’ve got, do not use portrait mode. Here’s the story. We got in a bunch of photos recently, a great deer. It was a 200 inch deer outta Arizona. And when I first looked at the photos, I’m thinking, this looks awesome, looks, looks like kind of like a high-end camera.

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Yeah. And as I zoomed in on those photos, it looked like a terrible, terrible, terrible Photoshop job. And what had happened is that phone had basically guessed where it should blur. And so in between each tin, it couldn’t quite tell where the foreground and the background was different. And so it just guessed. And so you have certain tines that were completely blurred out, and it, it literally, it looked like a terrible Photoshop job p job. So that certain times were just gone. Yeah. When, when it had never seen Photoshop, this was an image straight from a camera, yet it looked terrible. And so we don’t want anybody to have to deal with that, because if that’s all you have and you come back, basically all your photos are junk. Like you have times missing there, there was cheaters on this buck that were gone because the camera blurted out because it thought, oh, that’s part of the background.

00:13:37:24 –> 00:14:24:12
Yeah. So stay away from portrait mode. So if you’re taking pictures of your kids and you just want ’em for Instagram, then go ahead and do portrait mode. But if, if you’re for hunting photos, then just stay away from it, because, because of the, it’s not perfect. Maybe down the down the road, they’ll get perfect, but right now that they’re far from it. And so you got stuff that’s blurred that you don’t want blurred and stuff that’s sharp that you would’ve wanted blurred if it was done right. So, yeah. Another thing that’s pretty important, if you are on a hunt by yourself, it’s really hard to get good photos of yourself without a tripod. And I am guilty of this myself. I’ve been out on a hunt, I get the kill and I’m like, oh, great. How am I gonna set up my camera without a tripod?

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If you’re stacking rocks, yeah, you’re stacking rocks, hanging in tree limbs, trying to balance your phone or your camera, whatever you’ve got. And if you don’t have a tripod, you’re, you’re probably gonna have less than optimal photos. Yeah. And by the way, I’m gonna bring this up, the selfie with the animal. It’s not gonna make the magazine. It depends on how big the animal is. Yeah. I guess that’s true. If, if it’s really good, but typically it’s not as good. It’s really hard to take a selfie and get all the tines in the picture, you know, maybe a mountain goat, but, you know, usually it’s just, it makes things difficult, you know? And if, if the only thing you have is your cell phone, then a, a tripod adapter for a cell phone would be nice. And they’re really cheap. You can get ’em at amazon.com.

00:15:13:02 –> 00:16:23:22
Another site that we like to use for photography equipment is b and h photo.com. They’re, you can find stuff a little bit cheaper, but they’re really good with returns, you know, for an internet site. And we’ve had really good luck with them. Also, Walmart, walmart.com is another good place. Yeah. All that being said, don’t look at photography as something that if I don’t have the best gear, if I don’t have the best camera out there, that I can’t take pictures at all. Use what you have. And like we said, take as many photos as you can. Yeah, great. Gear is important and we’d love to have better quality photos, but if you don’t have them, and you’re not going to have them, don’t go out there and not take photos because of that. Bad photos are better than no photos. Exactly. But, and one of the, one of the reasons I kind of wanted to explain why, why we talk about, you know, cell phones take great photos when you look at them on, on your cell phone or you share them on social media, but the difference between print resolution and, and digi digital resolution, just really high level explanation.

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Most screens show 72 dots per inch. And that’s, you know, if you, if you get really, really close, you can see those little color dots and or with a magnifying glass. And there’s typically 72 of those in each one square inch. When we print the magazine, there’s typically 300 of those dots in every inch. So let’s say you’ve got an eight by 10 photo that looks awesome at eight by 10 on your, on your computer screen, well, you convert that for print and you’re looking at, you know, a two or three inch wide photo at full resolution. So it’s, it just print takes a lot more dots. And so you, you just see the flaws a lot more. You see a lot of pixelation. And if you want to test the quality of your photos from your cell phone, you know, take one of your old kill photos, zoom into your face, and a lot of times you’ll see your eye is just one pixel, you know, and so you have a square for your eye instead of, you’ve got the whites of your eye and, and highlights and shadows and things like that.

00:17:23:16 –> 00:18:17:28
So that’s one thing you wanna look at. Just one of the reasons that even a a, a cheap point and shoot model just takes better photos than your cell phone right now. And we’re gonna get into some of those, some examples of some of those cameras and, and give you a couple of of options. But first we’d like to talk about our doll sheet punt giveaway. Last day will be June 1st. So if you’re listening to this on June 1st, you’ve got one day left to, to get in for that. Basically you join Epic Outdoors, a hundred bucks for a year membership, and you’ll get an automatic entry into our Doll Sheep Hunt giveaway for full details. I won’t go into all of it, but it’s truly a hunt of a lifetime type hunt. And just go to our website, epic outdoors.com, click on one of the first two banners and you can read the details on that.

00:18:18:14 –> 00:19:23:13
Really awesome. And the odds on that are gonna be phenomenal. Also, one of the, one of the most coveted tags that is out there as a stone sheep, we have decided to give away a stone sheep hunt. And this one’s real special because the deadline is coming up very quick. So it’s a very short window, can have a little bit better odds because of that. This deadline to enter is June 19th. So it’s coming up quick. And this is also a hunt for this year. It’s $25 for each ticket, five tickets for a hundred dollars, 10 tickets for $200. Another cool thing is if you buy $200 worth of tickets, you get a free outdoor edge knife. That’s an Epic Series knife, great knife, I’ve been using it on my hunts and I love it. It’s a replaceable blade. If you wanna go check out those knives, you can look at ’em at outdoor edge.com, you’ll see the knife, or you can go to epic outdoors.com and click on the, the Stone Sheep giveaway and you’ll see an actual picture of, of that custom knife.

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So we’d like to thank Outdoor Edge for, for being one of our sponsors as well. And let’s get into the, a couple of models. So give you some ideas, any, and we’ll, we’ll start on the low end point and shoot low end and just give you some good options that are, that are better than your cell phone. And my philosophy on cameras is if you’re not gonna do a lot of research, you’re pretty safe. Stay staying with the big three. Canon, Sony and Nikon, there are some other companies that make some great models, but if you’re, if you don’t really want to get into the nitty gritty, do a lot of research, you can’t go wrong. Kind of like Ford, Chevy Dodge type deal, you know, really an F one 50, it’s gonna work for you. You know what I mean? Even if you’re not a Ford guy, pretty reliable.

00:20:10:26 –> 00:20:58:10
They got a track record. We could cause some debate on this subject, but yeah, I think I’m the only Ford guy in the office, so, oh, anyway, so, but those are the main three. If you, you know, you walk into Target or Walmart and you buy one of those models, you’re pretty much not gonna go wrong. You’re gonna have some decent photos. Yeah. And there obviously there’s a disclaimer of there are other great brands, but if you’re not gonna do research, if, if you don’t wanna look into it, you’re pretty safe with those three. Yeah. So point and shoot point and shoot basically means as small and compact as possible. They’re not interchangeable lenses and they’re just, they’re so small you can put ’em in your pocket. Sometimes they’re just a little bit bigger than a deck of cards and sometimes, you know, they’re quite bigger.

00:20:58:14 –> 00:22:02:07
But on the low end, your budget of around a hundred bucks will get you a good low end point and shoot camera that, like I said, is probably, you know, four times better than your cell phone. And so for a hundred bucks, you’re looking usually 16 to 20 megapixels and you’ll usually get, you know, four to six times zoom on that. Couple of examples on that end, the Canon Power Shot elf series have a lot in that range that are really, really solid. And those start like 20 megapixels and got a sensor size that’s like six millimeters, which for just reference, you know, the old 35 millimeter camera that’s, you know, that’s about full frame was 35 millimeters. And, and on this it’s six millimeters. So there you can see a little bit of difference. Those really high end cameras, like Chris shoots, you know, are getting close to that full resolution, which has got the, the 35 millimeters and, and this is six and a couple of others in that, that range.

00:22:02:07 –> 00:23:07:13
Look at the Nikon Cool Picks cameras and the Sony D s C series cameras. So then the next range up, I think, you know, you’re looking like 200 to two 50, then you’re typically over that 20 megapixel range. Megapixels is a little bit misleading, but we’re just gonna use it for now because it kind of gives you a general idea of, of how big, you know, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re, well, typical cell phones right now, even, you know, the, the good ones are 10 to 12 megapixels max and, and we’re throwing out sensor size and just looking at megapixels, you’ve also got smaller sensors on the phones, but the, the iPhone 10 that I’ve got 12 megapixels, and that’s on the back camera. So then if you take a selfie of your animal, you know, you’re down to, you know, between five and seven, the pixels usually max, a lot of you probably have noticed that if you, if you use the selfie angle, that camera is significantly lower in quality.

00:23:08:05 –> 00:23:56:24
And man, I, I dealt with that for a while. I thought, why are, why are my pictures that are facing this direction so much worse? And it’s because the camera quality is literally not as good as the, the back camera. Yeah. So then, and in this range from the 200 to 250, you know, you, you just go up in features, you get a higher zoom, usually a lot of the cameras in this range, you know, 25 times zoom is pretty normal. And you’ll start to get a couple, like into the wide angle lenses, which wide angle is anything below a 28 millimeter lens is considered wide angle. I think the sweet spot there, I like wide angle lenses, but you can’t go too far or it starts to just distort your pictures like crazy. 24 is about the lowest. I think you want to go on that.

00:23:57:08 –> 00:24:48:12
We, we did have one story this year that they had a extremely wide angle lens. Lens even I think it was a fish eye lens and every, it just distorted everything. So you want me to start seeing the, the background look like a bubble? It’s warped. Yeah. You don’t want that. Like, you want a photo that looks natural and you, you don’t, you wanna stay away from those super wide angle lenses. And the other thing, oh, digital zoom versus optical zoom. That’s a good thing to explain on your cell phones, typically you don’t, you have a digital zoom, but not an optical zoom. Optical zoom means the lens actually moves and it gives you, you know, it it, it gives you a bigger picture at zoom’s in and you have the same pixel or the megapixels result. Well, a digital one, all it does is blows up your picture.

00:24:48:26 –> 00:25:42:06
And so you’ve got the same number of pixels, they’re just all bigger. And so your detail’s not increased. You’re just, you know, looking at a smaller portion of your photo. So one of the things kind of tied in with that, if you have a cell phone camera or even a point and shoot that doesn’t have much of an optical zoom, the thing you want to do is if you’re taking maybe a kill photo, get closer to your subject because if we have to zoom in you the quality of the image is gone. That’s called a manual zoom when you walk closer. Exactly. Manual zoom, walk closer if you have, if you are taking cell phone photos, don’t stand back 20 feet and take your photos, get up close. I would say get as close as you can and still have the entire animal in the frame.

00:25:43:05 –> 00:26:31:28
Maybe even get up close and do some portrait photos, which is vertical. Yeah. So turn your phone or your camera vertical and get up as close as possible. And that way you’re gonna get as much detail as possible in that photo. And I think we’ll probably do another podcast on some tips on actual taking pictures, you know, and, and get into some more details on that. But one quick one is don’t cut off the tines or the nose when you’re taking pictures. Like I know Adam’s pet peeve is when the noses are cut off and, and when we’re doing the magazine, he always circles those. Yeah. When we’re showcasing the animal you want, you wanna see the whole animal and at least, at the very least, the nose and the top of the tines, like John Sand. And one of the big reasons it just, it draws extra attention to why is it cut off, you know?

00:26:32:04 –> 00:27:22:04
Yeah. It just looks odd. So keep that in mind when you’re taking photos. So go to the next range up, you’re looking at 250 to 500 typically. And, and in this range you’re getting really a pretty quality camera in, in the point and shoot that said, so yeah, you’re usually over 20 megapixels. You’ve got that wide angle. Some of these cameras you’re looking at 42 times zoom, and that’s an, that’s an, an optical zoom, so you can tell, I mean, the difference between that entry level at a four time zoom and, and here at, you know, 42 or greater is quite, quite different. A lot of these cameras too have wifi enabled and Bluetooth. So those are really cool. One of the nice things about your, your, your cell phone camera is you’re looking at ’em instantly and you can share ’em with friends and things like that.

00:27:22:04 –> 00:28:13:02
Well, this gives you the, the opportunity to just transfer those wirelessly to your phone, so they’re just as easy to use. So that’s awesome. Awesome. Also, the video quality goes up in this range. Your low light quality goes way up and you start getting a little bit larger lenses, which just lets in more light with document, it’s all about light. And what I give credit to on that is larger sensor size. As you go with a larger sensor, you’re letting in more light once again. But with that price is gonna go up and size is gonna go up. So as you scale up on sensor size, your cameras are gonna be bigger, harder to carry, and they’re gonna cost more. And if you remember how big those 35 millimeter slides are, that’s, that’s one of the struggles that cell phones are gonna have is it’s 35 millimeters is pretty big.

00:28:13:10 –> 00:29:05:08
So you put that on the back of a phone Yeah. To get that big a sensor, it’s, it’s gonna be pretty big. So they’re, they’ve got some challenges size-wise, on, on competition with, with traditional cameras. And I know the new iPhone, their sensor is significantly bigger and they do a pretty good job. But still you’re, you’re, you’re very limited because you’re trying to stay in that compact frame of, of a phone and you’re just not able to have that big of a sensor or that big of a lens on something that small. Yeah. So a few examples in this range would be the Sony Cyber shot, D Ss c h x 80, the power shot, which is a Cannon SSX four 20 is, and anyway, those are in that, that range two 50 ish. And as we’ve said before, there are so many options on cameras.

00:29:07:18 –> 00:30:04:19
I would suggest as you go out to buy a camera, do your research. I mean, Google search, it’s, it’s easy. It’s, and maybe now’s a good time to give, one of my favorite sites on researching cameras is DP review.com. Just more information than you know, than, than you want. So if you really want to get into researching it, it compares models, has details, detailed reviews, all that. But for, for most guys it’s a little bit overkill on that. So, but, but if you’re really into it, that’s a great site. Next I would say would be the high end point and shoot cameras, 500 to 800 and offers, you know, more manual controls, different types of sensors. But I would say if you’re getting into that, especially for hunting, I would personally look at the mirrorless cameras and there’s some, some new ones and some great, some great advancements with the mirrorless camera.

00:30:05:16 –> 00:30:59:12
And just on a high, high level, the difference between a mirrored camera, which is the old traditional, kind of goes after how the film went through your camera and it had a mirror there. So when you look through the viewfinder, it was reflecting the light off the mirror going through the lens so you could actually see, you know, what, what the light was coming into the lens. Then when you push the shutter down, the mirror rotates and flips up and it exposes the, the sensor and then, you know, the light gets imprinted on the sensor. Now mirrorless ones bypass that step and it just goes through and hits the sensor directly. And then you’re looking through, you know, the, the L C D monitor on the back to see what that, that’s gonna be like. But it takes out a little bit of space. So some of the, the benefits of those mirrorless cameras versus your big D S L R cameras are size.

00:31:00:04 –> 00:31:53:10
And one site that really shows that well is camera size.com. You can, you know, look at all the sizes of different cameras compared to each other and see what you’re getting into. Yeah. And typically as you get into these mirrorless cameras and, and that you’re starting to get into interchangeable lenses and those are things you’re gonna have to carry extra gear, switch out lenses. Just keep that in mind. Yep. And yeah, cost, I think you’re paying as much a lot of times for these, for the lenses as you are for the camera body. Oh, definitely. Yeah. So like a couple of good examples on the mirrorless series, you’ve got the Cannon M series, they’ve recently released that E O S M 100, which is, has just gotten awesome reviews and it’s like four 50. So you know, that’s not too bad. And then you got lenses on top of that, but you’re hitting 24.2 megapixels.

00:31:53:22 –> 00:32:48:11
The sensor size is 22 millimeters. So if you think about, you know, on the really expensive big cameras, you’ve got 35 millimeter sensors. This is 22. I mean that’s pretty good at getting close at the entry level was, you know, six millimeters. So you just a lot higher quality. My personal favorite in these is actually from the Sony and they’re the Sony Alpha series. They’re such a great camera. And I would say the high point on those is actually their video. So keep those in mind. They also take great photos, but they are a little bit more pricey and a little bit tougher to learn. Okay. And yeah, just some great, great features on that. There’s some, if you’re looking at the mirrorless Fuji film and Panasonic have some great models as well, you know, outside of those top three of, of Nikon Canon and Sony.

00:32:48:11 –> 00:33:36:08
So look at those as well. And then moving into the really high end cameras, the D S L R cameras with interchangeable lenses and they’re the giant cameras to see what all the professional photographers use. Like Chris, Hey, that’s all I will carry. Yeah. And, and actually if, if those of you who don’t know, Chris takes most of our photos for us that you see on the website, the stuff that just looks awesome. He takes, and he actually takes a lot of cowboy photography as well. So you follow him on Instagram, go check out some of his cowboy stuff. It’s diehard cowboy underscore, is that right? That’s right. So I know he didn’t want me to give him a plug, but anyway, just see some of his great photography on there and a lot of our great photography Chris has done with his D S L R camera.

00:33:36:15 –> 00:34:29:19
So anyway, if you’re gonna look into really getting professional photos and Chris, what would you suggest? Honestly, you’re gonna be spending a lot of money and if you’re gonna do that, do your research. Don’t just go out and buy the first camera that you see or that someone recommends. Do your research. There are a lot of D S L R cameras that are entry level, that are good, that are great starter cameras that you can learn on. And actually for a lot of people, if you’re not trying to do professional photography, those entry level DSLRs are great. And even on the automatic settings Yeah. They take pretty really good photos. Yep. So don’t think you have to have the best thing if you’re not out to do professional photography. But I would recommend if, if you’re going to look at those higher end cameras, do your research, feel free to call me if you want, but do your research.

00:34:29:29 –> 00:35:22:17
We won’t go into all the models and and that here just because they are endless. But you’re looking two grand Oh yeah. Three grand just for the, for the camera body alone. For the camera body. And then you add on a lens for, I mean, 1500 bucks Yeah. Is, is nothing. So you’re gonna be in it some, some money Yeah. To get to that level. And I think that site that I mentioned before is, is covers that stuff really well as well on, on the, on the high end, that’s DP photo DP review. Yeah. And high end cameras are great. We love when we get photos from high end cameras from someone who knows how to use that camera. They are awesome, no doubt. But most guys a good point. And shoot camera is gonna gonna do you well. Yeah. So anyway, we hope that you learned a little bit today.

00:35:24:20 –> 00:36:12:17
If you have any questions, like I said, you can call either John or I on cameras. We hope to see a lot more photos in the coming year. And so I think the big takeaways today, if you get nothing else out of this, it’s if all you got is your cell phone shoot pictures anyway. And yes, we will print your stuff, but if you know at the least get one of the small point and shoot cameras, they’re tiny, throw it in the bottom of your pack, you know, with maybe an extra battery and, and have it there when you, when you kill and take some photos with that. Take some photos with your cell phone as well. Can, you know, interchange a little bit so you got some backups, but if, if all you got your cell phone, that’s all right. But we, we see a huge difference in the real cameras versus the cell phones.

00:36:12:20 –> 00:37:10:28
So to preserve those memories and then, you know, it just makes a better quality story if you wanna send it to us and get it printed in Epic Outdoors Magazine. You know, just take that little bit of extra effort and throw a camera in your pack. So we’d like to close out here with thinking one of our other sponsors, Hillberg tents. If you listen to us before you know that I’m a huge fan and rave about their tents and the quality, go on to hillberg.com, check out the different models they have. They’re all so phenomenal people that really understand the needs of hunters. So give them a call if you know, don’t know where to start, don’t know what to look at. Their number is 4 2 5 8 8 3 0 1 0 1. Later this summer we will go into more detail on how to get better photos and a lot with in the field photography tips. Also gonna do some video tips. Awesome. So be looking for that. But we appreciate you listening today and we’ll catch you on the next one.