The Full Frame, a Sony Podcast
The Full Frame, a Sony Podcast, is a podcast dedicated to exploring the art of storytelling through imaging.
Hosted by Sony Digital Imaging Advocate Clyde Vaughan, episodes will take a deep-dive into the creative journeys of photographers, videographers, content creators and imagemakers, unpacking their motivations, inspirations, challenges and passion for storytelling through their camera. The show also explores developments in digital imaging technology, emerging trends, industry news and more with insider guests from the Sony team.
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The Full Frame, a Sony Podcast
Tech Talk: Our Resolutions & Predictions for 2026
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The Full Frame Podcast returns for a new season! In this week's episode, Clyde and Sean discuss new year resolutions for photography and put forward their 2026 predictions for the camera industry and creator community. They also chat about the ways Sony supports professional photographers at major sporting events, including the Australian Open and the Winter Olympics.
Join us every Tuesday for the latest conversations, plus follow us at @SonyAlpha.ANZ where you can submit your questions and give your feedback.
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So a lot of people set kind of like uh resolutions for 2026.
SPEAKER_01:Are you a l are you a resolutions guy? I try to be.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Predictions for 2026. That's interesting. I'm excited.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, have a look in our crystal ball. One of my favorites. Um, and I mean this will be isn't gonna be new to a lot of people, but um have you ever heard of like the one camera, one lens, one year? Not the full year.
SPEAKER_02:I've seen people talk about you know doing a trip or something with one camera, one lens, but doing it for a full year. Hello and welcome back. Season two of the full frame podcast, back in the studio.
SPEAKER_01:We're back, baby.
SPEAKER_02:A little bit of a break, but here we are.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 26. Let's go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_01:A lot of we we had obviously we had the A7 Mark V episode right at the end of last year. Um, and that's been cool to see, you know, all the you know, all the dust has settled on that now. A lot of the reviews have come out, um, and it's all kind of selling nicely. So we're we're happy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and some there was some stuff that wasn't on the spec sheet as well that I think we talked about, but um obviously like a lot of people using the camera for reviews, and then at the uh Alpha 7 5 launch event that we did, people found out very quickly, like you know, the the kind of uh clean second ISO at uh 8,000. So having two ISOs at 800 and uh 8,000 in uh S log 3, that's really, really good. Kind of brings it really in almost in line with uh with an S3 or one of the lower resolution sensors, which is really cool. Really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's gonna be huge for video and stills. I think um definitely, yeah, people who have been considering uh a second option alongside an FX3 or something like that, um, yeah, it's gonna get a lot of attention there as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think it's it's it's very telling as well seeing a lot of the advocates and ambassadors pick one up because you know if you've already got an Alpha One Mark II, but then a lot of them are picking up seven Mark Vives.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. And especially if you're not in a position to be running two Alpha One Mark IIs, which that's a lot. That is a lot. Um, a seven Mark V makes a very, very good um second kit second body for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so we jump in on um a little bit about sort of the new year.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so a lot of people set kind of like uh resolutions for 2026. And I thought it was Are you are you a resolutions guy? I try to be. Okay. Don't worry, it's not fitness related. No, yeah. Um generally uh trying to do it, you know, it'd be some kind of like personal growth thing. So you know, spend more time with friends and family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Put my phone down.
SPEAKER_02:Put my phone down, maybe once stuff like that. But we thought we'd talk a little bit about uh photography. Yeah, photography or like a challenge to set yourself for the new year.
SPEAKER_01:One of my favorites, um, and I mean this will be isn't gonna be new to a lot of people, but um have you ever heard of like the one camera, one lens, one year? Not the full year.
SPEAKER_02:I've seen people talk about you know doing a trip or something with one camera, one lens, but doing it for a full year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, I mean, I think you know, it is an opportunity to kind of uh you know go deep on something, um, which is something that you know it can be hard to do, especially I think for people once you've been in the hobby for a while, you know, you start accumulating, you know, bodies and lenses, and I'll use this for this and that for that, and oh, that's my this kind of photography thing. You know, I'll take the I always take the 85 for a portrait shoot or whatever. Um, you know, bringing yourself back down um and going, all right, this year I'm gonna be the 35 mil guy. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or I'm the 35 mil guy every yeah. But but I get the I think a lot of creativity, you know, actually stems from limitation rather than almost being too open-ended. If someone said, do this, but you can do it any way that you possibly want, right? That makes it almost more difficult to decide than if you know you have a limiting factor.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think especially for people who are not professionals, I you know, this isn't I'm not I'm not advocating that as a professional photographer you go like actually, like we're doing this this portrait shoot at 24 mil, um, because that's not necessarily going to work. You know, you don't always have that flex that freedom as a pro. But for people who, you know, just approaching this as a um as a hobby, um, you know, it's great to then challenge yourself and and and it can become, you know, stead, right? Like you get used to being a new groove, you know what you do. Um, you know, limiting yourself back down to, you know, maybe an older camera or maybe um or a fixed lens.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, fixed lens. We're talking about this a little bit later, but the the fixed lens craze. And people people love that limitation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, and it does, you know, in the end, there are no hard rules in photography. You know, of course, we have all the rules of thumb, you know, portraits look great at 85, um, landscapes look good wide, all this sort of stuff. But that doesn't mean you can't shoot a wide portrait, doesn't mean you can't shoot a long landscape. And of course, you know, long landscape is very, very popular these days.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, one of my favorite landscape photographers, uh Michael Shane Blum, he shoots a lot on a 100-400. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, it they can be incredible. And you know, it it also I think shooting, I mean, I'm getting off track here, but like shooting landscapes on long, you know, like often you're in a situation where the wide isn't great, right? Like in the end, shooting landscapes wide, you have to go to the right spot because the landscape has to be spectacular corner to corner. Where we are, yeah, that's right. Um, but you know, like I mean, I did the drive to Canberra this break, and there's a lot of places where, you know, with a long lens, you know, you come down along um Lake Burley Griffin. Oh, sorry, not Lake Burley Griffin, what's the one? Lake George's? Yeah, Lake George. Yeah, yeah. Um, you're looking across, there's the windmills. I mean, you could get some amazing super telly shots there um that would make great landscapes. Yeah. Um, and just from the highway, you know, you don't have to go out of your way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I I think I like that. Try using a different lens, but also um limiting yourself in a way. Yeah, one lens, one camera, one year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's your 300 mil, A6,000 2026. Let's go.
SPEAKER_02:What a combo. I have seen some people doing that on like Instagram, you know. Yeah. Even picking up an old A6,000 and shooting with that and being like, this is what you can still achieve. Yeah, if you're applying of good craft and you know, good skills and a lot of patience. Um, but yeah, like even uh even a body that was released, I can't even count how long ago that was.
SPEAKER_01:A6000 go. Oh yeah, I don't know it off the top of my head, but it was a while back.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but just doing something doing something fun with your photography.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I I think I mean people, you know, you get you could you could easily get the impression listening to people like us, yeah, that um cameras that it came out before 2020 don't exist. Um just because, you know, we talk about the new stuff, right? But yeah, old cameras still work.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I remember when I when I used to like work in a camera store selling cameras, and if someone wanted the, you know, they they're reading a lot of things online about the latest and greatest, and I'm like, that's awesome if you if you really want that and need it. Um but when someone says, Oh, you know, I'm doing landscape, I only shoot manual focus, right? I and things like that, you're like, oh, well, you could probably pick up, you know, a slightly older body and be just as happy. Right. And then you can invest all of that into traveling to better locations, maybe a bit of better glass and get a nicer lens for your camera. You know, invest that into something that's actually going to improve your photography, not always just getting the shiny new thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, look, if it takes a charge and uh it turns on, then like you can probably take a good landscape with it. Yeah. Um yeah, all right. Well, um, any other any other New Year's resolutions?
SPEAKER_02:Maybe just to try and shoot uh something outside of your genre.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's always a healthy experiment. I think that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I think for me, I mean, I think every year it's always like get out and shoot more. Um, you know, I think I think that's that's the the the the key ingredient to great photography is like get get out and shoot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um so I I think I've said this on the podcast before, but um some people, you know, invest in dry cabinets to look after their gear, and you know, probably a really good consideration. Yeah. But I use my camera four times a week. Never never has time to get it. It's not even worth unpacking the bag at that point and putting it back away. So yeah, I think uh, you know, it's like any any craft. It's the more you do it, the the more zoned in you'll get.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02:And again, again, with shooting with a fixed focal length, it's like your eye becomes really good at interpreting scenes and understanding exactly what the image will look like before you've even picked up the camera.
SPEAKER_01:And where you need to be as well, right? Yeah. Uh because especially as you if you're locking yourself into a wider focal length, you need to start thinking about well, where where am I positioned in this scene? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um I think that'd be really interesting. And I think I'm gonna try and keep an eye on it at workshops now when we're running like scene events, is look at what photographers position themselves before they pick up the camera. So, you know, if someone's if I'm shooting you right now and I pick up the camera and go, oh no, I need to I need to be closer. It'd be interesting to see the people that move and then pick up the camera because that would kind of indicate that they're they're already interpreting the scene through that focal length. Yeah. That would be a cool experiment.
SPEAKER_01:It's something that you see uh, you know, when you see people who work in photojournalism, that sort of stuff, um, you know, they're always, because they have to get coverage, um, you know, they're always thinking about like moving through the scene. And for them, it's less about um working a subject, but maybe more about like working the story. You know, for them, they're thinking about um I'm getting like this story needs establishing. It needs like I need to like get all the characters, I need to see the action. Um but yeah, I mean, people who you know, when they start out in photography, often you're trying to shoot a subject and you're worried about I want the subject to look good, maybe I'm thinking a little bit about light, you know, uh, but but then you know, there are so many things to to consider. Um and I think watching people who, you know, like photojournalists, like people who um wedding photographers is another great example of people who are great to watch.
SPEAKER_02:They know exactly when to pick up the camera.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. And and they don't start shooting because they're they've gone like, oh, I should take a picture. Like they have an end result in mind. They're like, I need to get this shot, you know, because that's part of what I need to deliver.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and they're already kind of walking and maneuvering to be in the position for when that moment happens.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yeah, yeah. Which is, you know, I mean, that's just experience. But I think as a as an amateur, you can definitely look at that and go, um, you know, look take a lot out of that that idea of like shooting for the end result. Yeah. Like have have a have a sense of like what you want to capture before you walk out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I talk about that a lot in the scene workshops as well, about like shooting for a gallery. Like if you know that you're giving a gallery, not a singular image to a client, you can really be a bit more creative, but then also you you know what your end result is and you know what it needs to feel and look like. So then you just kind of have to wiggle your way around to make that possible.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Uh shall we talk a little bit about the the year to come?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 2026. 2026.
SPEAKER_01:Um so I thought since we're we're kind of doing the new year thing, maybe we'll do some predictions.
SPEAKER_02:Predictions for 2026. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I'm excited. Yeah, have a look in our crystal ball. Um the the full frame podcast crystal ball is actually in the shop, but we can probably just have a guess.
SPEAKER_02:We can have a guess. Yeah. Um I've got a little list of questions. There's no idea. It's a 2D crystal ball.
SPEAKER_01:Um okay, so maybe starting with like industry stuff, like what's going on in the industry. Um, one thing that like we hear a lot of is uh obviously you know, phones have leaned hard into computational photography. Yeah. Um, you know, because they you know they have small sensors, they have relatively basic lenses, um, but they have a stack of processing power. So like they are very focused on computational photography.
SPEAKER_02:And that that's usually a workaround though, because of the limitations of those small sensors.
SPEAKER_01:Also, this is my question is do you think that any of the major players in in cameras are going to release in 2026 a camera that is more focused toward computational photography?
SPEAKER_02:This is a this I feel like we could almost unpack this for the whole episode, but I will say that because of the nature of photography and people generally that because that become interested in it, you know, they're interested in the technical side or they like the creative um expression. I think people like having the control. Yeah. Um, I mean, I've thought about using AI colouring and AI editing, but I've steered away from it because I actually like having the control. So I think, you know, it's it's some people might sit on either side of the fence here, but I think personally I like having control over a raw image. I want to process it, I want it to look how I want it to look. Yeah. And I think even if computational photography is occurring inside the camera or in editing later, I think some of those decisions are being stripped away.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean I I tend to agree more on the sense that um it's about like what is the sp the the the the point of difference that a dedicated imaging device, like a camera camera, brings to the table, you know. Because obviously smartphones have got processing power, you know, absolutely hands down, right? They're they're they're we we're carrying a little carrying around little supercomputers in our pockets.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, more powerful than the computers that took the rocket to the moon. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um so you know, trying to compete with that is well, it's tough, it's an uphill fight. Yeah, um, and software is where phones are great, right? Um, so you know, as a camera maker, do you want to step into the ring and go like, I'm gonna try and do software better than Apple, better than Samsung, you know, in as they do it in the in the city.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because then you're going up against a a software giant. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Whereas like and there's a lot more money sloshing around in phones than in cameras. Yes. Um whereas you know, the the the point of strength that cameras have is it's the hardware, it's the lenses, it's the it's the sensors.
SPEAKER_02:That's and it's I like the tactile thing. I mean that I mean some whole other brands have built their personality around, you know, that tactile experience. Yeah. And that's something that I don't think a phone or computational will ever be able to mimic.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, and you won't get that that level of uh control as well. Yeah. Um which is I think a big part of it, um, a part of what cameras do well. Um I mean, what if what if one of the you know it came from the other direction, right? Instead of instead of Sony or Canon or Nikon or whatever making uh a phone. A phone, what if a phone, I mean, phone manufacturer made uh a more camera-y phone. I guess that's not really a what if, is it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's already a direction. I mean, uh iPhone, what are we up to now? 17? Like uh they're able to shoot Pro Res Raw with log. Right. You know, it's getting it's getting close.
SPEAKER_01:They push pretty hard, don't they?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think I'm fine with computational um photography or videography happening inside the product, as long as the output is I think limited. So in the sense that I would be happy for a phone to process an image to increase dynamic range, but I would still want to be able to grade that footage. I would still want control. Whereas if it's doing computational photography to to make the image look better, it's taking away that creative freedom. But you know, if the camera can only shoot, you know, 15 stops, and then it but then it can, you know, record at a lower ISO and a high ISO and then combine the image to get you know 17 stops, or that's theoretical. I don't think a phone's capable of that. But but um I can imagine that would be enticing. I mean, um we've seen it on some cameras. There's some um uh I don't even know what to call them, like industry cameras that can shoot dual gain at the same time and then um and then process the image as one singular uh output. So that already exists, and that's something that you know who doesn't want more dynamic random.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, okay, all right. So your bet is we don't see uh uh true camera with com more computational photography this year.
SPEAKER_02:It will have I think we will, but it will have limitations. Okay. Not limitation in a bad way, but it'll be to either increase uh speed or it'll be to uh increase dynamic range. But I don't anticipate it being, oh, you can edit your photos in the camera HDR.
SPEAKER_01:No like extra bock air from from computational I hope not. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because uh that's the beauty of um understanding lenses and you know choosing the lenses that you want to shoot with. That's part of the beauty of of enjoying the tactile part of the craft.
SPEAKER_01:All right, well, great segue actually into my second question. Um so one thing that we've seen in the way that people talk about lenses and think about lenses, you know, I'd say for the last, I mean, maybe since the 80s, really, like the the push has been toward um cleaner, sharper, all that stuff, right? Um, you know, smooth bock a beautiful background blur. Um, but there has been this kind of counter shift away from that toward lenses with more character. Um and I think you know, this has definitely been uh an avenue for the smaller lens makers to do something that interests people without having to compete with the majors on what is actually incredibly hard to do, which is that clean clinical chasing optical perfection. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, I guess the question is um, are we gonna see maybe um any of the majors think about adding some character-first lenses uh into their main their lineup?
SPEAKER_02:That would make me very happy, chappy. Specifically, we've said this before, but anamorphic for e mount. Um there are some third-party options and some with AF now, but I would love to see a Sony made anamorphic for Emount. Yeah, okay. That would really uh I think would spice up the industry a little bit because you know, so many of the cinema line products now support anamorphic D-Squeeze in camera. Yeah. Um, and there's already some limitations with some of the third parties where the autofocus does work, but not when you have the D-Squeeze applied in camera and all these like fiddly workarounds. So I'd be excited to see a native anamorphic. Yeah. I think I think people understand the visual language of it a bit better now. Um so there's a more interest in it. But yeah, the the idea of some more like character-driven lenses. I mean, I had a 24 to 70 GM for uh GM2 for a while, and then I swapped to the 28 to 70 F2 GM, and the F2 is just as sharp, but at the right angle, it gets like a rainbow flare when you shoot without the lens hood on. And I love it, I think it's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So like things like that where you understand the character a bit more.
SPEAKER_01:We've already seen that even in even in the Sony native lens range. You know, you think about the 85mm GM F1.4 Mark I versus the Mark II. Yeah. Um, you know, I remember talking to um uh to Julia Trotty, and she was saying that she really enjoyed the the flair on the the the original, the original F1.4. And you know, the F1.2, like it's a better lens in a lot of ways. Yeah. But the flares like a little different, and you know, in the end, like it's a question of taste, right? Like if you're attached to the way that one lens behaves, yeah, um that's that's just what you want, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think I talked about this uh a little bit at a few workshops recently, but there's more emphasis on putting the camera in the scene as opposed to here's the scene unfolding and I've captured it. Now I I like the look and feel of the camera almost being in the scene, and that comes from you know, uh chromatic aberration or you know, particles in front of the lens, uh foreground out of focus elements, um, you know, crooked horizons and it's like a fingerprint. Yeah, it's it's like a digital fingerprint of the camera was in the scene. Right. And I think that also comes from you know, character from the lens itself.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Um my bet personally for I think 2026, I think for the most part we're not gonna see a big push from majors into this sort of stuff. I think in the end, it doesn't play to the strengths of of the majors, you know. Um what people want on the whole is you know the performance. They want peace of mind. Yeah, that's that's the strength of um you know the manufacturer of of a major manufacturer. That's right, exactly. Like the OEM stuff is like um OEM, original equipment manufacturer, like the the coming you buy a Sony camera, you buy a Sony lens, you know that it's gonna work great, it's gonna have the highest performance. Um, there's a kind of security to that. Um and you'd be crazy to step away from that. Um you know, I think those kind of novelty lenses mostly um they're best when they're you know, maybe a little bit cheaper, so that you can kind of take a bit of a punt on them and yeah, hey, if like it's not the highest performing lens, if I don't use it that much, well, you know, I didn't I didn't break the bank on it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, or you're using it for like a a specialty purpose, like I don't even yeah, like ultra ultra wide. Uh like a nine millimeter or something that's all manual focus or a tilt shift or something like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There have been a couple of examples of this kind. I mean, look, Sony's done this, right? I mean you You wanna you wanna go back, like the 100 mil STF, right? Yeah. Well it was one of the first lenses, one one of the first G Master lenses that we put out after I think we had like the 24 to 70 and the 85 mil and the 70 to 200, and then it might have been the 100 mil.
SPEAKER_02:Before the 1635.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was early. That's crazy. It was really early. Um, and obviously I think it was somebody's somebody's baby, you know. Yeah, um, but it was, you know, this was like a uh hundred mil lens with uh what we call an appetizing um lens element where the the aperture is shaded. So instead of being like a clear circle with the the aperture blades around the edges, you have uh like neutral density filter, but it's dark at the edges and then it's light in the middle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so what it means is like Which is why the it's uh it's an F2.8 in terms of depth of field, but it's a T5.6 in terms of actual light.
SPEAKER_01:It might have been T4.5. No, it might have been six. Anyway, whatever it is, yes, you're right, exactly. So it it it cut down the light coming in, which obviously is kind of tough um in the first place, but also it meant that instead of getting like clean circles as your bokeh, instead they'd be kind of faded on the edges. So they look like an orb, like a 3D orb, like a Gaussian blur, almost like in Photoshop, um, which is nice. Like it it made the background blur on it look super smooth and creamy. Um but you know, I think it was one of those things where like it's very niche. It's super niche, and and I just think maybe the market wasn't quite ready for it. Um but um I I think it actually sold quite well in Japan.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um I think they have more of a m like more of a cultural concept of that over there. Um, but yeah, I don't think that one was a I mean I it it sold, but I don't think it was a one of our our our winners.
SPEAKER_02:No, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um and you've even seen it from other manufacturers. I can't there's a couple with a I want to say Canon had the one where you could um adjust the appetizing. It was it was um not appetizing, it was um the spherical aber spherical correction. You could make it over corrected or undercorrected. Yeah. Um and just change, you know, the quality of the background blur. Um but I don't get the sense that that lens really did great either. I don't hear a lot of people talk about it.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I mean there's a couple of PL mount adapters that have um like a detuner in them. It's a it's an extra piece of glass where you can tune the image to be like slightly out, yeah. Where it's like weirdly sharp, yeah, like uh it's in focus, but then uh it looks soft because it's been detuned. And I know that's uh popular with a few DPs. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like an undercorrected look, is the like unsharpened, yeah. Okay, all right. So we are saying, well, I'm saying, my bet, is we're not gonna see out of it, not gonna see a lot of uh a lot more of these kind of like vibey lenses out of the majors. Not from the majors, yeah. I think it's gonna stay, it's gonna stay in that kind of um third-party space. Yeah. Um okay, this is good. This is one that I'm really interested in. Um C2PA and content authenticity. This is the stuff we've seen it coming to a lot of our cameras, and I've talked about it a couple times on the podcast already. The this is the um digital certificate on your images that shows okay, this is really created by a camera. This is a photo of a real person in a real place. Um, and you know, obviously, with the way that we're seeing a lot more um AI deep fakes. Yeah. Um, you know, it's pretty important stuff. It's kind of becoming more and more relevant. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um I mean, even in the last maybe three months, I remember like seeing AI content on, you know, Instagram or TikTok. And it would be, you know, you could very clearly tell just by, you know, uh kind of like artifacting in the corners or like uh, you know, wrong number of fingers or toes, like things like that. But now, like occasionally you'll see something and it takes you, you know, you have to watch it maybe twice, and you're like, wow, maybe that is AI. Yeah. So like, and that's getting scary uh from from a certain standpoint, but also the sheer amount of content is escalating rapidly. It's crazy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh so I mean, you know, the question is, you know, is this gonna be the year where C2PA and content authenticity kind of hits mainstream? Because it's been out there, yeah. It exists, you can do it, but we haven't really seen I I don't think I've ever I've seen a news article with a C2PA tagged piece of content in it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um that I know of. Yeah. Um so even if it exists, people aren't like trying to um, you know, the the the major publishers out there aren't really trying to push it yet. Not yet. But do you think is this the year where we see it kind of hit?
SPEAKER_02:Probably jumping jumping the gun early is probably a good thing. Um if publishers and uh media started, you know, doing it preemptively, that's probably better than waiting for something to happen and then reacting to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I look, I want to see it. I'm I'm I I feel like on a certain level I'm I'm um skeptical because I think probably a lot of um a lot of the big players in the online space are kind of happy for you know AI content to to just be the the bully in the playground. Um but you know, I want to be optimistic and I want to say, yeah, this is gonna be the year because the appetite is out there to see stuff which you know is real. Yeah. Um and I I do think that if, you know, especially if C2PA can have good confidence in it. And I think it is, it's a there's no such thing as a perfect um, you know, cryptography or whatever, but it's pretty good. It's pretty good. And I think um, you know, I would feel better seeing news articles that that have that stamp on it.
SPEAKER_02:You know, at least I have a sense of like somebody's tried to show that this is real, and to put like they they're actually putting effort into proving that this is legitimate.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think it's it's also part of the broader discussion of just AI in general. Oh yeah. Um, because we're seeing uh stock footage sites disappear. We're seeing uh a lot of um kind of like stock asset websites now kind of removing or like reducing the amount of real photography and investing really heavily into um AI generation tools. Yeah. Um yeah, it's just I think it's a uh it's funny because like I sit on the opposite side where amongst a lot of creatives, we're all rejecting it. We're going, no, actually, we don't want to see that kind of stuff. We don't, we don't, we don't need it necessarily for our workflows. And there's a lot of money floating around in that industry, and it seems that most consumers are not super stoked about it. Like I think uh Coca-Cola did a Christmas ad. Yeah, that was not well received. It it flopped really hard. Yeah. Because people were like, Well, why am I watching this if it's not real?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's so interesting because the first time they did it, it had so much novelty value. You know, it was the first time that someone had gone, let's just take some of this AI stuff and see what we can put together. Yeah. And so the first one, it was sort of like weird and creepy, sure, but also amazing. And everyone was like, wow, okay, like that's crazy. And then only two years later, it's like, I've I've been swimming in AI slop for two years. And suddenly, like, it's not cool that you did this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think brands, especially that I mean, this is good to talk about because you know, they will people listening to this are in the creative industry or at least interested. And it's it's it's good that uh brands are now leaning back into that doco style where they want to show how they produced yes the content that they're then releasing, even if it's a high-end campaign, but they want to say, hey, like real people worked on this and this is what it looked like. Yeah, because we we actually value that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Authenticity is um uh yeah, it's it's it's everything. Yeah. Okay, so one thing that I'm interested in, um, and like this is tricky for us to talk about as a you know, a Sony podcast, but I think it's interesting. Um, you know, the L Mount Alliance has been kind of around the periphery for a long time. Um, you know, obviously you've got Panasonic in there, um, you've also got um I think Sigma were in there. Um you know, do you think that they are gonna um you know come into the market, you know, be able to m stake a bigger claim in the market in 2026 than they have done? Because so far I think they've struggled to really carve out a big niche. You know, you've still got the three major players, um, and then you know, probably Fuji behind that, and then El Mount might be like a distant fifth.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh I think so. It's interesting because what you see in the real world is vastly different than what you see online. Yeah. So I know that uh some of the third party, it was not third party, but some of the other manufacturers like the L that manufacture for L Matt Alliance, uh, they're really pushing a lot of YouTubers. So they're saying, you know, trying to get uh YouTubers across to their full frame lineup. And it's really interesting because a lot of them are because they're you know, toting 6K, uh RAW, OpenGate, talking about that kind of stuff. And it looks like every YouTuber has just swapped to whatever brand it is. But then when you actually like see the real world and you talk to uh people that are just shooting day in, day out, whether that's you know working DPs all the way down to you know hobbyists, you see the major players a lot more often.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you know, it is I think especially when we saw you know some of the new Panasonic bodies, you know, they had really strong spec. And I, you know, I remember um you know, obviously when we when a new camera comes out, we look at all right, where's this gonna sit competitively? You know, how's this gonna sit in the market? You know, um, and their most recent set of bodies were very strong, you know, there's there's certainly um nothing wrong with them on a spec sheet. Um, but then you know, we we haven't probably seen the market react in in the way that maybe you'd expect looking at a at a piece of paper, looking at the chatter on the internet.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think it also comes down to lens lineup. So um even though there's like an alliance across those lens and body manufacturers and they're all sharing the common mount, I think it is interesting that the the offerings are still quite limited.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Where you know, uh a manufacturer like one of the major players, but specifically Sony, went really hard on lenses in the early days. And I remember when I started working at Sony and I was doing my first, you know, day two briefing, and you were you were giving me the full rundown on every sensor that Sony makes. But it was really interesting because I remember you saying that, you know, uh how high the percentage of investment into lens was versus bodies. Because when people think of Sony, they think, oh, A7. Yeah. But it is interesting how much uh of that RD is actually into lens manufacturing. Huge. Huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it really shows because I would rather have access to a much bigger array of lenses than have the best body because bodies can become outdated in, you know, it could be even as little as four years, whereas a lens can last a lifetime.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and people buy into a system, you know, they don't they don't just buy a body. Um so maybe, yeah, maybe that maybe that is a major part of um what's been holding back um the El Man Alliance. I I still think you know they make some incredibly interesting gear. Um, and it, you know, it'd be good to see, you know, obviously uh kind of healthy competition is good for everyone. Yeah. Um so it'd be good to see them um, you know, continue to to um make an impression. Yeah. Uh maybe not too much of an impression.
SPEAKER_02:But um on terms of the actual, I remember when this was probably like just pre-miraless, but it was all the camera and lens manufacturers were fighting for a pie that was shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And they're all fighting for the largest piece of that ever shrinking pie. Yes. But not that I've seen the figures recently, but it does feel like the industry has rebounded somewhat with like the you know, the creator economy, yeah, um, things like that. And it seems like there's a lot more investment into you know imaging in general. So it what what's good for us is good for everyone else as well.
SPEAKER_01:Can be, yeah, for sure. Um okay, I'm gonna move on um just to talking a little bit about um short form video, because I think that's uh been an interesting trend. You know, we've seen um more and more obviously, you know, in terms of what's being published online, um you've got you know Instagram, you've got YouTube, you've got a lot of players that are pushing, um, and and obviously TikTok is the is the elephant in the room. Yeah. Um, you know, they're all pushing short form video. I think everyone's consuming short form video, whether they like it or not. Um, it doesn't matter what platform you're on, it's there. Um so you know, then in terms of the way that the camera market's responded to that, you know, we've seen more of our, you know, Sony's making the ZV cameras. Um, you know, a lot of the other manufacturers have got their own offerings in that space.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, are we gonna continue to see um that that I will add that to my prediction then?
SPEAKER_02:We will see a camera with a vertically orientated sensor this year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I think we will. Do you think that's gonna come with its own like a new form factor, or do you think it's just gonna be um standard form factor, but the sensor's sideways?
SPEAKER_02:Standard form factor. Yeah. Because I think when you talk to people of if in terms of how they actually want to hold a camera, it's still more natural to hold like this than to hold like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think we will see a uh a camera with a uh vertic vertical, vertically orientated sensor. And so all a mount would have to do is rotate, you know, yeah, 90 degrees. Makes sense. Um and then, but then when you could still use your existing glass, because obviously no brand would want to tank uh tank half their uh lens lineup.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:But um, I think it'd be really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I I I think um or the square sensor. Oh yeah, the square sensor is is of course an interesting one as well. I I mean, yeah. It is it I mean it's interesting because this comes into the discussion about OpenGate as well, right? Yeah. Um, you know, a lot of people who um want to get the flexibility um or at least a lot of talk about getting the flexibility.
SPEAKER_02:I'd just say, to be honest, like the difference is like 200 pixels, just shoot slightly wider. That's my opinion. But yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I know, you know, when I talk to people who who are actually shooting, you know, they just go like, well, like I want to frame my vertical stuff a little bit differently anyway. Um and and in the end, I'm either gonna have to do it in camera. Like I either have to do it, get the shot in camera, or I just have to like mess around more in post, and I I just as soon get the shot.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, and then it's it's I know it's right, I've done it, I've seen it all.
SPEAKER_02:Um I just preview with a monitor with the uh you can do it on most of the cameras now. You can put a nine by sixteen uh aspect ratio. Yeah, and you just shoot with that in mind, and that's my workaround.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um okay, yeah, interesting. Yeah. I think who would bring it? Who would who would bring the vertical format camera?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I don't think it'll be full frame. I think it'll be demo demoed in APSC, and it will be like a ZV style camera from I don't know if it'd be us, but might be someone. Um and I I think we will see it this year. Yeah, okay. I'm thinking like uh compact, like small form, even a even one-inch sensor. Yeah, but a trial run, being like, what do people think?
SPEAKER_01:Interesting, interesting, interesting. Okay, all right. Um so something that we've seen happening across I mean, we've seen it across like in cars already in a big way, is this idea of a subscription model for hardware. Um and um this isn't something that we've done in a big way in cameras. This has only ever happened in um we have we did like a little bit with the the um custom grid lines um for some of the models in in the in the alpha range, but where you really see it is in cinema line. So yeah, um for a long time, you know, Venice has had a license system where Yeah, like a paid raw upgrade. Yeah, uh or for like different resolutions and and outputs um and and um aspect ratios. So, you know, the the default is gonna give you um, you know, obviously, like I mean it's a Venice, it's still gonna be incredibly high quality, but if you want to get like the the complete open gate, that sort of stuff, then there is a license um fee. And and this is actually like super common in industrial stuff. Um but we haven't seen it as much in the consumer market, and obviously, like there is a lot of um, you know, people have some feelings about it. And yeah, definitely. You know, I think I think it's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_02:Someone who sold their soul to Adobe.
SPEAKER_01:Um so do you think that we're gonna continue to see more pushing on this um uh this subscription model sort of thing in cameras, or do you think, you know, maybe it it's a little too hot and it's it that's gonna be something that manufacturers back off, back off of?
SPEAKER_02:I think there in terms of firmware, I'd I mean, personally, it'd be great if everything was free. I understand that some upgrades might warrant extra cost because of the sheer amount of effort that goes into developing or building that firmware. Yeah. Um in terms of cinema line stuff, you're right, it's like common practice for you know license upgrades. Um but as something that's so hardware driven, I mean, I'd hope we don't see it. Yeah. Um, but a lot of brands and a lot of uh software is all switching to some form of subscription because you know the return for the investment on the company is massive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's not even that it's um a profit-making, I mean, obviously, like it makes a difference. Um, but it you know, the reason why companies do it in the first place is it it happens more more, it's more more important or more more popular as the market gets smaller. You know, and that's why you see it in stuff like Venice and why you see it in industrial applications, because um, you know, every single model that you make has this big fixed RD cost attached to it. Yeah. And then you have to like uh offset that across the number of models that you sell, right? If you if you make a one-off, the RD cost is insane, right? Um but if you can make it once and sell uh a million of it, then uh suddenly that RD cost gets defrayed across a million units and it doesn't matter as much. Um and so you know what the what this licensing concept lets you do is spend the RD once to make the top model, and then you can still sell different models. You can you know increase the number of units by selling the top model and then having your license model, which is the same hardware but with different licensing. Um and so in a small, you know, really small industry where like your total number of units that you're ever gonna sell is small, um, it makes more sense. Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's more important to be able to you know do that and spread it to a larger market. Yeah. Um you know, and I think cameras right now are still in that point where like the numbers are big enough where it's not really a big issue. And and I I do think that probably you know a lot of manufacturers have have heard the feedback on that licensing stuff. And you know, I mean, I think the the frames thing, you know, I think for Sony it was it was um probably not received in the way that it was intended. Yeah, you know, it was intended to be something that was niche just for um you know uh camera places, uh sorry, for like you know, like chemist places where you they're they're shooting um passport photos or whatever, and they need to have like this specific frames and they set it up and it's part of a business and it made sense. It was like, okay, well, if you're paying, you know, however much for a license to do that, um it you know, in the course of running your business, it's nothing. Yeah. Um and it it makes sense, it's good value. Um, but then of course, you know, everyone was like, well, I'd like to have custom grid lines and and yeah, you know, it it was it was um it it was taken poorly by the market in some ways. So, you know, I suspect that we won't see much more pushing in that direction in the short term. But long term, if if you know, if we see cameras continue to become more and more specialist, um, and I you know, I think it's stabilizing. I think actually like we we maybe are like at the point where the market now is the market we'll more or less have for the foreseeable future.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But if it keeps on narrowing, I think camera manufacturers are gonna start to make less different kinds of hardware and they are gonna have to start looking at at maybe licensing.
SPEAKER_02:There's a uh camera called the Pixie, like P-I-X-I-I, and it's it runs on like Windows 64. Um, and there's uh I think they only make two models currently. Yeah. Um, because that's the big thing. You have to make a different sensor for a dis different application. Like we've spoken about this, you know, high-res for high res you know, for these genres and the A93 for sport, and you know, they all have different applications, but this is a camera that you you purchase one of two sensors and then you choose the software that you want based on what you can afford. You know, if you want the highest readout speeds and you want the the largest resolution, you buy the top model. Yeah. But then if you want that model, but you don't need all the bells and whistles and you just need you don't need burst mode, you don't need video, you can buy a lower, cheaper version of that software. Yeah. So then you and then you just load that software onto the body. So you manufacturing costs would plummet because you manufacture two bodies and then people purchase the uh well, they purchase the firmware that they want. Yeah, yeah, that works with that body.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's um it's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Um we had the yeah, I remember when we had the camera apps, um yeah, there's Is many, many, many moons ago. But um they I mean look, they were never the most popular thing, but we you know they and we then they went away. But we did get feedback, you know, we still get feedback to this day, you know, people kind of miss certain things that those apps provided. Yeah. So like the Smooth Reflections app is the probably the one we get the most feedback about. Really? Um people just kind of liked that um ability to have and Smooth Reflections was an app where it would do a series, it was using the electronic shutter, and it would use us do a series of exposures and just integrate them onto a single image. So it'd be like um, you know, the kind of thing you would do uh to get either like stacking for Astro, although it wasn't really designed for Astro, but more it was to get um, you know, moving water, and then you know, as the as you got more and more exposures um with the water in different positions, it would all just average out and you get this smooth kind of um washout look like you do with very long exposures.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like doing a 120-second bulb or something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was sort of like a hardware solution to not having an ND, you know, because it let you shoot at uh faster shutter speed, but then because you'd integrate over many exposures. Yeah, okay. It it I mean, that's cool. It was cool, it was cool, it was a cool app. Um so yeah, I mean, in that sense, I think um well that's almost computational. It is absolutely going back to the start. Um so it's not like we've never dipped a toe into that, into that, those waters. Um, but I do think it's a big challenge to find the right balance, you know, because you know, when you when you put it like that, right, it sounds like a nice thing, like, oh cool, like you could add in this cool feature, um, but the flip side of that conversation is always why isn't it built in?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, um, and you know, what's what is the line between what's reasonable for the um to be built into the hardware and what should be done as a an add-on, you know, what what what could be a reasonable add-on cost, you know, like um and in the end, you know, probably there's no hard line, you know, some some manufacturer is gonna have to just come in and go, like, well, this is it, here's here's what we're offering. Yeah. Um, but it it does make for an uh an awkward conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Also, because of uh I only just sidetracked this as a side thought, but um the rising costs of storage, yeah, because of you know, data center data center center companies buying all of this, uh all these SSDs. Yes, um, like rising costs, because there's a few uh manufacturers out there that do internal storage in cameras, and that would vastly like inflate the cost of manufacturing that camera now.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting because um the you know it's not really what we've seen in the market so far. Yeah, not yet. In fact, in fact, over the last year, SD card and well just generally storage prices have come like way down.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and then they're just going straight back up again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, which is interesting. Because uh, you know, do manufacturers lean more into uh uh like card solutions, or do they start looking at internal storage? Because the feedback from the photography industry has been very positive on internal storage.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's nice to have. Um I mean, we used to do it with the handicam range, like we have lots of internal storage on those. Um we've never really touched it for still well for um interchangeable lens cameras, but yeah, yeah, it'd be an interesting direction. Um all right, last one, maybe last one. Um so people have been obviously like moving back to film for a while. Yeah. Um, you know, not in huge numbers, but a lot of people have been doing film as a maybe like an extra bit on their um photography. Um do you think that that's peaked, or are we gonna continue to see film grow?
SPEAKER_02:I think we'll continue to see film grow purely based on what film manufacturers are doing. Okay. Uh there's a I can't remember the exact stocks, but there's a few new Kodak ones that stopped being produced in the early 2000s and now they're back. Yeah. Um and there's a few, you know, other manufacturers that are kind of like messing with the recipe and trying to re-manufacture like ectochrome or uh color chrome and a few other um stocks. So it'd be really interesting if if if they're investing in that, then they must be anticipating that the market is growing. You you wouldn't um you wouldn't invest because that's a lot of manufacturing, like uh in terms of chemical uh manufacturing and then also processing. That's a big investment. So they're clearly seeing uh a shift with people shooting more film. Yep. And it's not necessarily just purely film shooters. I think there's a lot of digital photographers as well that are also embracing the film trend.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no doubt. Um I think it's cool. Yeah, no, I think it's really cool. My my feeling is you know, maybe we're getting to uh sort of a leveling off point. We have seen, you know, obviously a lot of growth, and I think um it's become a lot easier to be a film photographer because you know, more of the support infrastructure is there now. You know, if you want to get your um get your film uh developed, if you want to, you know, work with a printer um who's a little bit more um uh involved, you know, the market exists now for those people to be out there. You know, I think five years ago, you know, you'd be lucky if you could if if you could even find a place that would would print your film, um, you know, especially if you weren't in a really major city.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. If you if you live regionally, that would be quite difficult. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um and and now it feels like really healthy. Um and yeah, you're right, options for for film are definitely out there. Um, but at the same time, you know, it does feel like the um, you know, it's sort of a little bit like vinyl, where there's an appetite for it, but at the same time, the realities of using that, you know, that there are reasons why we went to digital, right? Um you know, for most working pros uh these days, the convenience factor, the speed, um, all that stuff that you get with digital is just part of the way people expect to do business these days.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and then now if you're shooting film for work, you're doing it as a very stylistic, intentional choice rather than a practical one.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. And and I think if the you know, the minute that um the aesthetic or the the interest starts to move away from um you know that that uh nostalgic filmic look, um, you know, it is gonna be harder to to justify doing that because it is a cost, you know, it costs you time, costs you energy to to do that.
SPEAKER_02:I think we're definitely still very much in that trend though. I mean, like uh Dehancer, yes, um, Da Vinci, like everyone switching to these uh, you know, tools or plugins, because now, you know, oh we can we can emulate uh Kodak stock, we can we can we can we can we can emulate you know specific looks that we probably grew up as kids watching. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And I think uh especially with you know, probably uh the the the rise of AI is only gonna be fuel on the fire for this because um, you know, authenticity is feeling more and more like a scarce commodity. Yeah. And so, you know, having images that have this very physical process that are very grounded in the real world, um, yeah, the value of that is only gonna rise. Yeah, definitely. Umbe I do think we're gonna keep on seeing growth there. Hmm. Okay. All right. Uh that's all I got. That's my my predictions.
SPEAKER_02:That's your predictions.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's my predictions bit.
SPEAKER_02:Uh easy. All right. Well, we thought we'd just quickly talk about the Australian Open and the Olympics. By the time this episode comes out, I think the Olympics would have started. I think they'll be in in full swing. Yeah, in full swing. So that's the uh 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan. Milan. Yeah. So that's kind of like a not like a battleground, but uh for for lack of a better word, yes, um, all the brands are kind of vying for what is appeared market share.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, we um, you know, Sony is definitely very, you know, and we've been very public about being, you know, very focused on um, you know, getting getting share in in that space. Um and, you know, it is but like there's a large part of our business that is not a large part, there is a there's a team in our business that is very focused on supporting those events and and you know, providing pro support in not just the Olympics, but you know, in smaller events around the world as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what does that presence kind of look like? Just so for people that aren't really aware of what you know any of the manufacturers might be doing kind of in that space?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's super interesting. So the um any major uh sporting event will typically have a service depot. And what that generally looks like is at the event there'll be a um uh you know media area, um, which is where you know photographers, journalists, they can all go there to file their file their reports or file, you know, send their images off to their editor. Um so uh within that space, there'll be a small couple of rooms for the major equipment manufacturers to provide support to photographers who are shooting on their kit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and so uh, you know, typically it looks like a a a small room, probably not that different to the size of the room we're in right now. Um and there'll be uh kind of booth at the front where people can come and talk to um the technicians who are there, and then there'll usually be a little space out the back where the loan gear is kept and where service is done, that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and you know, we bring a lot of gear along for these things. So um, you know, we'll have all the super telephoto lenses, um, we'll have uh flashes, we'll have bodies, essentially all the accessories, you know, everything that anyone who might be shooting on the day might need. Um partly that's you know, so that professional photographers can maybe try something new that they're considering adding to their kit. Um but the most critical part is um, you know, somebody comes in and they've knocked their flash, something like I mean, I I was speaking to someone who's in our Australian Open service depot um earlier this morning, and they were saying, Yeah, yesterday somebody, you know, they whacked their flash on um on the wall and it broke the mount. Um, and so um they were able to bring that to our depot. We just swapped out the mount from one of our uh lone kits, uh lone kit flashes onto their one. They've got a functioning flash and we'll take care of the service um as it's needed. Yeah, happy days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just before the podcast, I was I remembered a Petapixel arc article from um a couple of years ago. It was the 2022 Olympics, the Winter Olympics, and uh photographer dropped their A1 and 24 to 70 GM. And it I can't remember whether it was moguls or ski jump, but this this alpha one dropped like 200 feet. You can still find the video, it's just like tumbling and tumbling and tumbling. Yeah, like 200 feet down the the mountainside, and the only thing that broke was the lens hood and the rear screen was like twisted. Uh-huh. Um, and yeah, the service team replaced the rear screen within like 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's look, I mean, that's that's what's needed at the at those events. But yeah, it was, it was awesome. Uh, I remember the video as well. And you you watch it were tumbling down, you're like scratch one camera, but apparently it was made of tougher stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, completely fine apart from the rear screen and just like a cracked lens hood, which is pretty impressive because that thing flew down that mountain. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You watch that video and it doesn't look good. Yeah. Um yeah. So yeah, we have um a lot of kit there, and we also have you know engineers um who are able to um provide service. Um and so at a small event like Australia, I mean, I call it a small event. Small small event. At least a localized event like Australian Open, we'll just have a single service depot. Um, so we have staff on the ground there from like eight until eight in the morning till like eleven at night, something like that. Um it's a long day for those guys. Um they typically run it in shifts. Um but then at the Olympics, because you have you know different sites, different venues, yeah. We'll often be running um, you know, maybe three uh service depots independently um at different at different venues. So um, yeah, they're they're a huge undertaking. And and we have, you know, depending on the location, we might have staff from global who come in to help execute, uh run the software for it, all that sort of stuff. Um uh but yeah, it it is a really big um undertaking for any manufacturer to do those. Yeah. Um and it can be a long negotiation as well. You know, I remember when we were um initially uh trying to get access for the Australian Open. Um you know, I think the organizers are very used to the old, you know, the old guard and who's always been there. Um and it did take a few years of of you know back and forth and knocking on the door and just um kind of getting getting familiar with the people who organize these events. Um so you know, change happens slowly. Um, but we're yeah, we we now uh are in a position where we can kind of do that uh on an annual basis, which is nice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What other major events?
SPEAKER_01:So we've done um the Motor Grand Prix in Australia, um, you know, Phillip Island. Um uh F1, I'm not sure that we do that at this stage, um, but it's definitely the kind of thing we'd look at.
SPEAKER_02:Dream 2026 prediction.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, we don't generally do, you know, if it's if it's um stuff like um, you know, just big football matches, that sort of stuff. We're not we're not there for that sort of thing. Um in particular.
SPEAKER_02:I remember seeing Sony doing a lot of work with World Athletics. That was like one of the big showcase kind of projects.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, big big global things, no doubt. Yeah. So um, you know, Commonwealth Games, Olympic Games, um, those are all places where we we support a service depot. Um, we actually, there's a there's a full sort of schedule of of events that we support. Um and yeah, it generally major major international tournaments, Tour de France, that sort of stuff. Yeah. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I remember I got a phone call from a gentleman a couple of years ago, um, and he was building an underwater housing for FX6, and I was like, oh well, what are you what are you using it for? And he was explaining that he needs uh to run time code in while the camera's in the water. And I was like already so confused. Um and I remember I just forwarded the email on to uh it probably was you actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, he needed time code into the housing and audio to run the time code in uh because that camera was going underwater at the Olympics to run on rails in line with the swimmers.
SPEAKER_01:That's uh that's a that's a happy question. Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
SPEAKER_02:Um you definitely get a lot of those kind of um like really technical support kind of questions, especially for people that are operating at you know at the level that they're shooting for those like world major events. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:And it's the kind of people who are whose job it is to find a solution. Yeah. So yeah. We actually had a really interesting one recently. The um the FR7. Um, this is not strictly related to the Pro Depots, but um, so the FR7 camera, which is our sort of um pan-tilt zoom full frame um body, um, it was being used on a production in Sydney, and um they kept on having this issue where um you know the cameras would freeze up. And we've had engineers from global fly in and spend like a full day just like getting into the guts of the network and digging into like, all right, what's going on? And um and they found it in the end of you know, it was this issue where they were using multiple controllers and they were like sending too many signals and it was like freezing the buffer essentially. And so they anyway, they've worked out a solution and they fix it up and um but yeah, it is that kind of stuff that has to be done for um professional.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you never know until you come across the problem.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yeah, like that's right.
SPEAKER_02:Especially when you're building a product, I can't imagine that you'd be testing it with three remote controllers in a network clouded kind of area, yeah. You know, it's something that you can't always anticipate.
SPEAKER_01:That's right, that's exactly right. And um, yeah, I think you know, when you're designing for for a um uh an amateur market or you know, not amateur, but like single shooter, yeah, the envelope of like what they might be trying to do with the camera is pretty consistent. Yeah. Um, but when you're dealing with uh big organizations, things get weird quick.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I remember uh Sony did an event for the Alpha 9 Mark II launch and you were rigging uh the old RXO action cam. And you I remember you rigged it so that you could have the RXOs mounted on top of a basketball hoop, like on the backboard. Yes. And they would shoot whenever you pressed the shutter on a 9 Mark II so you could shoot three three cameras simultaneously.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was good fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was a that was a Wi-Fi headache, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it was a night, yeah. The all the night all anything with net networking is always it's just it's a whole different area of expertise. Um, but it was we got it working and it was it was very cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I thought that was very cool.
SPEAKER_01:Um one thing I wanted to quickly touch on just from talking to um you know the guys who've been at AO and you know, I guess what's been kind of hot uh with the the pros this year. Um, you know, I asked like what have you noticed, what's been going around, and the one thing that comes up every time is the 50 to 150 yeah is the most popular lens for um for AO. That makes a lot of sense. It's been out all the time. Okay. Um, I think you know, it's been really interesting to see uh obviously that lens is going to be popular. Um, you know, just having that spec. Um you know when it was announced, I thought it would be kind of niche. At the price, it it seems kind of you know a bit niche, but then you know what we see time and again is people use it and they go, This is giving me something that I just can't get anywhere else. Um and yeah, we're seeing, you know, especially it's the mix of having that fast aperture, having the really useful lens uh focal length range, and also having extremely high autofocus performance. Yeah. Um, you know, having all that stuff all together in a single lens, um, it just makes for an absolute powerhouse. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm probably gonna sell my 50. I just got an 85 GM last year, but I'm probably gonna get rid of it. And and a 70 to 200 and then just 50-150 at yeah, it it's um it's an incredibly versatile piece of kit. Yeah, just even just the idea of what not wiping out, but replacing three lenses in your kit with one one lens. It's pretty enticing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you know, the look of the images that come out of it is just it's got a it's got a bit of magic about it as well. So um yeah, we get great feedback. And the other thing that What about 300? 300 is popular, a 400 is also popular. I think you know, you get a bit of a skewed, um skewed look when you're looking at um depots because people often borrow the stuff that they don't have yet, right? So which is the really, really, really big stuff. That's right. And I think a lot of the 300s, if people want it, it's kind of just in reach. Like it's it's at that top end of stuff that's like for a pro, you can justify it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, the 400 and the 600, you really got to have a rock solid reason to buy one of those uh because they do cost like double what the the 300 costs. Um, and so that means they often get loaned more often. Yeah, okay. Um, but they definitely all both all of those move. Uh I think there's a lot of very happy 300 owners out there. Yeah. Um, you know, it is just because it's you know, instead of being$10,000 instead of$20,000 Australian, it it's that much more achievable. The performance is very similar. Yeah. Um, and also it's just so nice and lightweight. Like it's yeah, it it's not significantly heavier than like a um you know 50 to 150 or a 7200. Yeah. Um, and of course, you you know the look you get out of it's incredible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the kind of uh spread of gear that is being used at the Australian Open.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or in the next week uh at the Olympics.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, the other thing that um you know is really interesting is because Sony is such a major player in video as well as stills, um, and we have our pro sport depot there, we wind up talking to a lot of videographers as well. Yeah. And the 50 to 150 is not only popular with stills guys, also a lot of FX9, uh, FX6 shooters um who are running that that lens. Yeah. Um, you know, I think it just has such a broad envelope um that it's it's kind of um becoming. I mean, it'll be a few years yet before it's really a standard, but it is becoming very popular for um that top end um capture, whether it's stills or video.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, very interesting. It was also cool to hear, you know, with with the temperatures we've had at the Australian Open, it's always a really high temperature event event. Yeah. Uh but we had like 45 degrees on the court um and really no issues uh around around heat for the most part. So that's really good. It's good to hear. Um, yeah, that's always uh always a major concern. Um, but no, good beh beh behavior on um thermal stuff and also uh good behavior on the the FTP transfer, which for those guys is really massive. I think you know, more casual shooters we won't care, but these guys are trying to submit on deadline, they want to get it to their editor fast as they can. Um, and one of the good things that we always hear with the Sony's, or rather never hear with the Sony's, is FTP ish. FTP setup straight. Yeah, it's straightforward, it's easy. Um, you know, where other manufacturers and they might have people like rocking up to the desk going, like, can you help me like get this stuff all sorted out? Yeah. We don't really get that because it's just straightforward.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I remember seeing some demos in the office where you can even just, you know, custom button and then it's just you just off it goes. You off it goes as you shoot it, which is really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we did a demo recently where we just did um, you know, people just shooting um this golf thing, and um, you know, people just shooting on the camera, and then um you just go into playback, you Protect an image and off it goes. Yeah. Um, and that's great. I mean, that's a beautiful workflow. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, so that was nice to set up and nice to see it all working.
SPEAKER_02:And that was with a seven five as well, right?
SPEAKER_01:That was with a seven Mach V. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, but it'll work with almost all of them. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's good. Pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, probably to wrap up, but uh I'm really excited by the kind of work that I'll get to see in the next couple of weeks coming out of the Olympics. Absolutely. I think it's a really good uh time to be following along with photography. You can one see what all the pros are using. Yeah. Um, and then two, like the the kind of work that comes out of big events like this is really, really inspiring.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's gonna be great. Um, it's always a highlight, the Olympics, whether it's winter or summer. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I'll definitely be watching closely.
SPEAKER_02:That's a wrap episode one of season two of the full frame podcast. Yeah. Looking forward to a big 2026. Yeah, ready to kick off the new year. Alrighty, ready. See you next time.
