george_prescott

<p>Howard,<br> Yes, I've disabled all the auto functions on the monitor. I have been having some other problems in general with calibrating- this is just the last iteration over the past few days. The calibration before this created color issues that affected all the pictures equally- IE and Photo Viewer. I did not open Photoshop that time. Now everything looks great EXCEPT Photo Viewer. The only change this time was that I went into the Colormunki advanced settings and saw it was set to a CCFL monitor so I changed to LED. <br> I'm not at home now, but the brightness is at 120 and I think the whitepoint is D65, which I left at the colormunk default.</p> <p>George</p>

<p>I just re-calibrated my monitor and now images viewed in Windows Photo Viewer are very dark, but still look quite OK in Photoshop. I am looking at images produced prior to calibration. Before, when viewed in Photo Viewer and in Photoshop they were very similar. They still look OK in Photoshop. All other applications seem relatively similar to where they were before (IE, etc). Thumbnails in windows looks OK too. I'm really puzzled, I've never had this happen before. I'm running Windows 7, using an NEC EA244 WMI monitor, and a colormunki calibrator. Although obviously I am not editing in Windows Photo Viewer this is still a little unsettling. Any thoughts?</p> <p>Thanks</p> <p>George</p>

<p>Hi Sarah,<br> I think the advice to improve the workflow really hit it on the head. I know you responded that you were working with an older laptop, so I have a couple of comments/suggestions.<br> First, is the laptop really that slow? Do those annoying pauses between when you click the mouse and wait for something to happen add up to the better part of an hour? If they really do, why not get a used desktop for a couple of hundred dollars? I had an old desktop that I literally threw away 5 years ago (it would now be 10 years old), it was so worthless, but only because it was getting slow on batch processing, not because it took too long to process individual photos - and these were raw files from a Canon 7D.<br> Secondly, what exactly are you doing in your post-processing? Are you adding special effects or correcting for exposure, fill light, etc? Are you "worrying" the pictures to death? I've been in that boat myself, and basically found there is a diminishing return on the amount of time spent on a picture. Also, is there a way to create the effect you are looking for when you take the picture versus adding it later? Are you working on a lot of the pictures or just the ones they will ultimately purchase? I usually do a basic batch conversion for preview and then spend more time on the ones they select for purchase.<br> Finally, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (the customer). Maybe some of what you are doing would not be appreciated. Some of the things that we take for granted as photographers are what really distinguish us. For example, I have had many people comment on how much they like the shallow depth of field and background blur (not that they used those terms!) that they never see anymore with their I-phone pictures. </p> <p>Just my two cents worth, hope it helps.</p> <p>Good Luck!</p> <p>George</p> <p> </p>

Ok, I did not know that! Then what you say makes sense. So, for example if I am taking a full length photo of someone standing and I want the image centered in the frame I would NOT want to focus on their face and recompose, right?

<p>Bob,</p> <p>I agree with your conclusions, but I think I must respectfully disagree with your trig. The distance from point C to the lens can't physically change that much when pivoting the camera except maybe by the distance the ends of the lens move. I attached a diagram to show what I am talking about. The original camera position is represented by the solid lines to L, C, and R; the new position the dashed lines to L1, C1, and R1. If I understand you correctly, the new distance to C is what was previously the distance to L, but if you rotate the camera essentially around the axis of the centerline of the lens as I did in the diagram, the distance to C is essentially unchanged. Of course, in real life the camera may be rotated more around the sensor plane, which could swing the lens around a little. But in your example that distance changes by about 9 inches, which seems like too much. <br> George<br> </p><div></div>

<p>Bob,</p> <p>Thanks for the reply. It was actually a 85 mm. I repeated the test today, but outside with a tape measure. This time the 7D had no problems. It looks like maybe it backfocuses around .25-.5 inches, but that may be because the depth of field extends further back than forward. Really hard to tell. <br> Actually, one of the reasons I initiated this study was also to look at the effects of recomposing after focusing. Lately I have been reading a lot that the point you focus on will go slightly out of focus after recomposing due to changing the distance from the sensor plane to the focus point due to the camera angle change. Since I was getting good results this morning, I also tested for this and saw no difference in sharpness on my original point with and without recomposing. Looking at the math, if you tilt your camera 10 degrees (which is a lot), on a full frame camera using the entire 35 mm length of the frame, the maximum change in distance is only 6 mm (tan 10 degrees = x/35 solving, x=6). The center of the frame would only change by half of that, or 3 mm. 6 mm is not enough to affect focus quality, at least on portrait shooting, which is what this advice was aimed at.</p> <p>George</p>

<p>Trouble attaching the example...</p><div></div>

<p>I've owned my 7D for about 5 years and generally love it, but I've noticed that on the few times I've shot at very large apertures the focus sometimes is off. I attributed this to user error, but finally today I decided to rigorously test the autofocus. Attached are two examples, using a tripod, cable release and a Canon 80mm 1.8 wide open. The center focus point was used with no repositioning of the camera. Focus setting was on One Shot. The intended focus point is the "8" on the remote control. I tried the same thing on my venerable 20D and it focused perfectly every time. If the results were consistent I could try to adjust the microfocus (although I have never tried this) but sometimes it is OK, sometimes not, so I think this would not help. Time to send it in to Canon?</p> <p>George</p> <p> </p>

<p>Thanks for the replies. The comment Craig made of the light being a point source is exactly my concern. I will do some investigation on the Paul Buff light modifiers, but if they do not soften the light much in my situation are they worth the investment? Also, with half the girls on a 15 foot high balcony and me shooting at street level, can I really get my lights up high enough? . </p> <p>I will get a chance to shoot some test shots earlier in the evening of the building to check basic light levels, if not the direction of the lighting. I saw pictures from previous years and it looks like the photographer just used an on-flash camera with a lot of light drop-off on the balcony, so I should be able to improve on that.</p>

<p>I have been asked to take pictures for a sorority bid night. This will include indoor shots of each bid class for the last 4 years of approximately 50 girls each, and one group shot outdoors of all 200 girls. The outdoor shot will be at night with the girls posed on some winding steps at the entrance of the sorority house and also on the second story balcony (it is a traditional sorority house that looks like a large mansion). I will be using a 7D crop camera with probably a 17-40 L, and I have 2 Alien Bee 1600 and 1 Alien Bee 800, with wireless and portable power.</p> <p>In this situation, for the outdoor shots are light modifiers (ie umbrellas) a waste of time? I am not sure how far back I will need to place my lights. I am thinking about just going to an empty field at night and triggering the lights, and evaluating the light spread and output with a flash meter. But if I have to back the lights up a lot, will umbrellas make a difference? Thanks for any input or advice.</p> <p>George</p> <p> </p>

<p>John,<br> Your suggestion worked! Thanks very much for your help!</p> <p>George</p>

<p>Well, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the software and tried to apply the applicable updates but I keep getting an error message stating that it is unable to download them and try again later. Although they do appear to be downloading. </p>

<p>Thanks to all for the replies so far. It seems strange that the download from Adobe would immediately require updating, but I am being told that there are updates available. However, when I try to run them I keep getting an error. I'll keep working on it.</p>

<p>I've already clicked on "Lens Element" icon before taking the screenshot in the second picture. Note that the header name changed from "Basic" in screenshot 1 to "Lens Corrections" in screenshot 2.</p>

<p>On the second screenshot this is completely different than what I had before. Previously there was some sort of checkbox for enabling automatic lens correction, and it was automatically populated with the lens I used. I don't recall ever having to do any kind of setup when I originally purchased the software, it was just there.</p> <p>George</p>