Episode 367: Magazine Shoot, New Viltrox PRO Lens, Tamron CEO Resigns

Show Transcript

Greetings, you’re listening to the Liam Photography Podcast, I’m your host Liam Douglas and this is Episode 367. In today’s episode, I was hired to shoot for a trade magazine, which was surprising but fun and pretty good money for a 2 hour shoot. 

I honestly didn’t think many magazines were still doing actual print or hiring freelance shooters for their issues but I was contacted by Cole Publishing and asked to shoot for their Pumper Magazine, which is a trade magazine for Septic companies and they needed me to shoot a local husband and wife company in my area for their upcoming issue. The couple I worked with were very nice and fun people to spend time with and they only live about 3 miles up the road from where we live in Roxboro.

We traveled up to Halifax, VA to do the shoot at a job site as that is what the publisher needed so we spent a couple hours on site and I shot both stills and video as they did their work. It was certainly a fun and enjoyable experience and now I will be published once again, which is always exciting! 

In addition to this shoot I also released a new video on the new ICEFOX action camera to my Youtube channel, which you can check out at the link in today’s show notes. Find out if the ICEFOX is the new GoPro/Osmo Action killer at only $141 US!

I have also been spending time shooting with the new Fujifilm X-S20 camera and the new XF8mm F/3.5 lens and having a lot of fun with both. The super wide field of view with the XF8mm makes for some great landscapes and I have also enjoyed putting the X-S20 through her paces. I must say that the X-S20 is an excellent camera to shoot with and the built-in VLOG mode is super handy when you are a one man Youtube channel like myself.

Another exciting note is that this week Viltrox has officially released their next 1.2 PRO lens for the Fujifilm X Mount and it is the new 27mm F/1.2, which is another exciting lens to have for us Fujifilm shooters. I currently have two 27mm lenses, the Fujifilm Pancake lens as well as the ttArtisans 27mm F/2.8 but I am certainly going to pick up the new Vitrox to add to my growing Viltrox lens collection and this will of course give me my second Viltrox F/1.2 PRO lens. Let’s go ahead and look at the specs for this new, exciting lens for the Fujifilm X Mount, which will also be available for other mounts in the near future as well.

27mm Focal Length which is 40mm in full frame field of view

Viewing angle is 55.3 degrees

Aperture F/1.2 to F/16

11 aperture blades for excellent bokeh

Max magnification is 0.15x

Lens is 82x92mm in size

Weighs 560g

Front filter size of 67mm

The lens has 15 elements in 11 groups including 2 ED, 5 high refractive index lenses and 1 aspherical lens

Uses Japanese HOYA material on aspherical lens

The close focusing distance is 0.28m

STM motor design for high-speed and precise auto-focus

Dust-proof and Splash-proof design to better handle the elements

Multilayer rubber seals

Now this lens is not only designed for the Fujifilm X Mount, but it is also designed to be able to give superb performance even on the new, high resolution X-H2 and X-T5 with their impressive 40MP sensors so it’s a great lens for ANY Fujifilm body on the market. It is designed to be sharp from the center to the edges even at its maximum aperture of F/1.2 which is really exciting and I cannot wait to get mine and do a proper unbox and review of it. The lens retails for $4 less than the 75mm at $545 US. With this new second lens in the new Viltrox PRO line of lenses they are putting all the other third party lens makers on notice that they intend to be the new “King” of Fujifilm X Mount PRO glass.

I did reach out to Viltrox to see if they could send me a loaner copy of the lens to do a review on for my channel and this podcast but I have not heard back from them yet. I’ll probably have to wait until I can buy one for myself in the next couple of weeks, but we’ll see if they get back to me.

I hope all of my listeners are Subscribed to Chris and Jordan over at their new home on PetaPixel’s Youtube channel as the guys have been cranking out some awesome content as they always have and I am really excited for them at their new channel. I also wanted to let you all know that I am working on getting Elley back on the show since its been quite a while since she’s been on and I know she has been doing some exciting stuff. Between her acting and her Elley Knows Rocks channel which recently had one of her videos go viral and rack up tens of thousands of views! She has had some other exciting stuff happen in her life recently but I will save that for her to share with you when she comes back on the show, hopefully soon.

Tina and I will be making another trip back to the Northeast soon for a couple weeks to spend time with our kids and grandkids as well as see both our moms. Both of our moms are widows so it’s rough on them and Tina’s mom is in a rest home in Elmira, NY, which is sad and she misses her mom a lot especially with us living 8 hours away. But Tina recently spoke with her sister Mel and it sounds like her and her husband Mike might be getting tired of traveling all the time. When they retired a couple of years ago they sold their house and bought a camper and started spending their summers in New York State and their winters in the south in Georgia and Florida. They are considering moving to this are which will be nice if they do as then Tina will have one of her older sisters in the area to spend time with and since Mike loves to fish and boat, they’ll be close to the massive Mayo Lake which is only a couple of miles from our house.

This weekend I think I am going to tackle trying to install a weather-proof, high output bluetooth speaker/FM radio on the handle bars of my 2004 Kawasaki Vulcan 800 Classic so I don’t need to keep buying helmets with built in bluetooth speakers or wear my AirPod Pros when riding which is a pain when putting my helmet on and off. I found a nice speaker unit on Vine a few months back and was originally going to take it and my bike to the local dealership to have it installed but after watching a Youtube video on how to get to the bike’s battery I think I am going to try doing the work myself and save some money. I am hoping it goes smoothly, but if I run into any issues, hopefully I can get my neighbor Matt to help me out since he works on his own bike regularly.

While we are up north I am planning to enlist the aid of my son Alex to get the last two sets of LED lights installed in my new Corolla so that I have the fog lights and red LEDs to replace the factory reflectors on the back bottom corners of the car. His friend Derek has a nice garage he inherited from his late father that we can use to do the work, which is a million times better than laying in my gravel driveway here at home with my bad back. Alex has been fairly busy since we were up over the Fourth of July as he just bought his first rental property and has been sprucing it up for his first tenant and he’s really excited about it. He is hoping to buy several more properties and get to the point where he can quit his job and be is own boss.

Ok, let’s take a look at some news stories for this week and wrap up today’s episode.

Tamron CEO Resigns Over Money Issues

https://petapixel.com/2023/08/22/tamron-ceo-resigns-amid-investigation-into-funds-used-for-personal-gain/

Photoshop’s Generative Fill Used to Restore Old Photos

https://petapixel.com/2023/08/22/people-are-using-photoshops-generative-fill-to-restore-old-photos/

Remember I now have my own discount code for all Platypod branded products at http://www.platypod.com using my code LD20 you can save 20% off on ALL individual Platypod branded products EXCLUDING Bundles, which are already discounted and Square Jellyfish or Lume Cube branded items.

I also now have my own affiliate link for Think Tank Photo, use the link to guy any of their gear, get a free gift and free shipping!!!

https://www.thinktankphoto.com/?rfsn=7232819.5f5392&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=7232819.5f5392

Also be sure to join the Liam Photography Podcast Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/liamphotographypodcast/ You can reach the show by call or text @ 470-294-8191 to leave a comment or request a topic or guest for the show. Additionally you can email the show @ liam@liamphotographypodcast.com and find the show notes at http://www.liamphotographypodcast.com.

You can find my work @ https://www.liamphotography.net and follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @liamphotoatl. If you like abandoned buildings and history, you can find my project @ http://www.forgottenpiecesofgeorgia.com. and http://www.forgottenpiecesofpennsylvania.com.

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