"... if your brain is willing to start with a clean slate."

The above quote is from a recent blog entry by my favourite blogger, Kirk Tuck. It refers to the key to creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, renewal. This leads me to the issue on the appropriate gear that will function as an extension of one's brain and creativity.

The wedding studio I am sub-contracted to demands that I shoot full-frame, with dual card slots. A few days ago, I got a great offer on my  full-frame, dual-card-slot Sony a99, that I couldn't refuse, so I sold it. Now I have to shoot with a Sony a7II, full frame but with a single card slot. Besides getting used to the ergonomics of this camera, the a7II is better in most respects, it being a newer technology. I must admit that the a99 is a wonderful camera and never gave me any cause to worry. Fortunately, I will still be shooting for the studio. In the coming months, I will be diffusing my work with the soon-to-be-released cropped sensor Sony a6300 (better tracking, faster autofocus) to convince the studio that a cropped sensor will be at least just as good as full-frame. Heck, an adroit shooter should be able to shoot a wedding competently with any camera with great optics.

Such is the inertia in this industry.

Currently, for my personal wedding and event shoots, I use the even smaller 1-inch sensor Sony RX10 for grabbing candids (a full-frame will still handle the bulk of the shots). In decent light, I capture more spontaneous candids this way. The a6300 will be even better.

the Art in videography

There are a-thousand-and-one ways to edit a video, simply by playing around with one of the following: grading, audio, and choice of clips. Play around with more than 1 and the potential finished choices explodes exponentially.
I came across this quote from Kirk Tuck's blog, which nicely sums up a dilemma when it comes to video and video editing. His words were meant for Stills photography but it is even more pertinent for videography:

"We spend time finding our subjects. We spend time figuring out what the composition should be, how to deal with the light, how and when to shoot. How to process. How to display or share. It's easy to let the process create its own roadmap for you. The nature of art is to fight against the comfort zone enough to make the images work. 

Sometimes we fail and sometimes we succeed and sometimes there is middle ground. That's the nature of doing a process that's always open to interpretation."