ruben leal

Also received the email. While PN don't have access to my credit card info, I thought it was kind of a first call, with an expected follow up with instructions to add the paying information, or the need to add such information when logging in after the cut-off time.

I guess my basic internet survival instinct prevented me from clicking the links in the email, and reading it in an iPhone quite early in the morning didn't help. Interesting to see how many say they hadn't visit PN in years, and the email waked them up... just to close accounts. I guess my feeling of the way PN is declining is shared by many. Thanks all for your insight!

After 16 years, I am finally being forced out of PN. 15 years ago I learned a lot here, inviting as many fellow photographers to join PN as I could. 10 years ago I did my best to share with newer members what I learned before. 5 years ago I struggled to keep up with the community, as many of my favorite members started to disappear from the forums. Lately I have found that my favorite forums lack the activity of the old days, and I'm no longer visiting PN several times a day... actually I don't even remember to visit more than every now and then. Today I received an email asking to pay if I want to keep accessing this leftover of what PN used to be (actually they didn't even bother to spell it that way, the email just says I'm being "upgraded" next month). I recognize I received a lot, and did the best I could to give back to others, but my current economy just can't justify to pay for what PN is now for me; maybe 10 years ago I could be happy to, but not today. Sorry PN, I will try to remember you as THE photography site of 15 years ago, another site of yesterday that couldn't keep up with the evolution of the internet.

Hey Sheryl, seems like there are already some comments regarding your question, but I think we should also address what you don't ask: How do you plan a 24-105mm lens replace your current 24-70mm and 17-40mm lenses? If you bring a 24-105mm lens, you would add reach to what you can do with the 24-70, while losing speed at the same time, but I can't think of the 24-105mm as a replacement of the 17-40mm lens, specially if you are planning to use it with a 7D or 7D Mk II. While I really like to use my 24-105mm f/4L with my 7D, I wouldn't plan to use it alone as a travel kit, where a wide angle will probably be needed.

<p>I suggest to reading this article from Bob Atkins on the subject:<br> <br />http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/manual_focus_EOS.html</p>

Sarah, besides the great advise already offered, I would suggest that you try the focal length on real portrait circumstances. While renting would be a good option for this, an easier way to test is using a zoom. Even a cheap zoom will give you enough information regarding the benefits of one focal length angainst another focal length, specially if you set you zoom to a focal length and don't change it during a test session. You must remember that this test is only for focal length, as other characteristics of the image, such as depth of field, bokeh quality, etc, won't be matched when using a zoom lens.

Sarah, as you already have the 55-250mm, why don't you simply test the focal lengths your are asking about? The difference will be the depth of field and bokeh related to the apertures available on the prime lenses versus your kit zoom lens. Once you see how close or how far you can/need-to be from your subject, then you only need to imagine the blur difference (and you could even recreate that with your 50mm prime lens, but that would be more cumbersome as some kind of precise cropping would be needed).

I have never used neither a Satechi product, nor the 6D, so consider that when reading this. If I would debug this erratic behavior, I would discard all additional possibilities, then there are a few things I can think of: - The camera must be in single shoot mode (that means not setting the camera in timer mode), - For testing purposes, make sure the camera is not set to Mirror Lock Up (MLU), otherwise it will need to receive two presses of the shutter button when MLU is activated, which may be an advanced procedure when using an external shutter release, - Also for testing, turn off the autofocus. While one advantage of a wireless shutter release is the ability of appearing in self taken images, odds are that your subject won't be at the selected focus point. This is my main recommendation in your case, but the two previous ones should be also discarded to make sure this one is the culprit. Once everything else is ruled out, setting the autofocus without a clear subject in a focus point is something to master... Good luck!

While the additional data in the RAW file may be meaningless for LR users, DPP uses it as its departing point for processing. That's one of the strengths of DPP, and one that saves me a lot of post-processing time. Regarding trusting a committee of Japanese engineers to convert in camera, that's what most photojournalists do, so all their award winning photos are converted trusting them, and that may mean we don't always need to spend hours manually converting every single image. My own workflow varies by the use of the photo: if I'm doing fine art landscape photography, then I will use a few days to tweak a single photo; if I'm doing a wedding photo book, I will review every single image, manually processing a lot of them; but if I'm selling prints at an event, I will shoot JPEG to have the photos printed within minutes of being taken. This means I understand the advantages of both formats, and won't try to use one when the other one is the right tool for the job at hand.

As James said, that's a hot shoe. This is the place where you can attach an external flash to be used instead of the internal flash of the camera. Reasons to use an external flash vary from preventing the internal flash to quickly consume the camera's batteries, to having more control and reach. All EOS cameras are compatible with Canon's EX series of flashes (or "Speedlites", as Canon calls them). The Rebel G is an E-TTL camera, which means it uses a small "pre-flash" to measure the amount of flash intensity needed from the external flash unit, followed by the actual flash fired at the time the film is exposed (many people won't distinguish the separate flashes, but it is said people may close their eyes after the pre-flash, appearing with their eyes closed in the actual photo). To obtain the proper exposure using the E-TTL capabilities of the Rebel G camera body, Canon EX flash units should be used (if my memory doesn't fails, common flashes used with this camera may had been the 220EX, 380EX and 420EX; but it is compatible with older and newer EX flash units, these are just some models from around the same period of the camera, and in a price range accordingly to the expected user of this camera at the time). It is worth mentioning that the hot shoe is compatible with flash units from other manufacturers, either companies using the dedicated E-TTL protocol (such as Metz), but also with most standard flashes. By "standard" I mean manual or automatic flashes that don't rely on feedback from the camera to control the amount of light they produce. These standard flash units may be set manually (they can have a chart with instructions to set the power based on the distance of the subject and the f-stop of the lens), or automatically (using a sensor within the flash to measure the light, but also needing the user to manually set some parameters in both the flash and the camera). While these standard flashes can offer good results, it may be more cumbersome for a beginner to obtain these good results. Finally, and very important, you must consider that some modern cameras may be damaged when used with some older flash units, as the voltage used to trigger the flash can be too high for the electronic circuitry used in cameras designed to be used with dedicated flashes.

If your Rebel G came with the standard kit lens, you may have the EF 35-80mm f/4.0-5.6 III. This lens has a 52mm filter thread, then it uses a 52mm lens cap. Unfortunately for you, Canon changed their lens' cap design some years ago, so you may want to look for an used lens cap in second hand stores or auction sites to retain the vintage feel you are looking for. Otherwise, the Canon E-52 II is the current lens cap for lenses with 52mm filter threads. If lens caps adhere to other Canon naming conventions, your original lens cap should be the E-52, but I'm not sure about this name. Regarding other "Rebel G lenses", the only original lens for this camera was the kit lens, as I don't believe Canon manufactured other lenses to be sold with the camera. Nevertheless all EOS cameras are compatible with all EF series lenses, so you may want to look for other EF lenses from the same era. Being a Rebel camera, I would suggest to refrain from using high end lenses, such as the L series, not because they won't work or there wasn't photographers using L lenses with Rebel cameras, but because they may not feel vintage, so any old EF lens with a silver ring on it should feel vintage enough to be used in your Rebel G.

I'm no expert on your specific type of photography, but a full frame ("Fx" in Nikon's language) camera, at 200mm with f/4.5 gives you some 9.5 inches of depth of field at 20 feet from your subject (a typical headshot), which translates to some 3 inches in front of the subject's face... This is more than plenty for a stationary subject, but may be way too little for a performing artist, depending on the type of music they play, specially when you consider that you must include your own movement in this depth of field if your camera is not in a tripod. Again, 1/500s is a good shutter speed for a stationary subject, but may not be enough to freeze a moving subject. As in the last case, you must also account for your own movement (as humans use our ears to balance ourselves, prolongated exposure to loud levels of music may affect your ability to stand still) which is magnified by a long 200mm lens. You didn't mention if your photos lack sharpness due to depth of field issues, or if these are movement related, but seems like you already narrowed the issue to an autofocus problem. This seems logical, as an ISO 5000, 1/500s, f/4.5 exposure is for quite a dark situation. One option to solve autofocus problems in dark places is to use the near-infrared focus assist pattern found in many external flashes. While the term "near-infrared" could make you think of an unobtrusive solution, the reality is that this actually means a read beam projected into your subjects face, which may distract the performer (and some places could even ban you for using such a tool), but this may not be that evident if the lighting of the show is constantly changing (as it appears to be the case, based on your comment regarding the lights on the artist's faces whitewashing your photos). If you try this option, don't forget to configure your flash to not fire, as you only want to use the AF assist pattern (and only from an external unit projecting a defined pattern, which is distinct from an assist light from a camera body). Finally, I would recommend you to do several tests at different times during a performance, finding a stationary object, at about the same distance and illumination of the artist. That way you can confirm if the issue is related to the moving subject, the depth of field, the focusing, how tired are you, etc. While I stated that I'm no expert on this type of photography, I should clarify that I used to do the photography for an arena, where I had to photograph up to some 5 concerts per week, but conditions are quite distinct to doing the same in a smaller club, first because of the size of the venue, but also because of the access to the scenario: while I was supposed to have full access, I was usually asked to work from a press area, where people attending the event couldn't interfere, and most artists would only allow photography during the first couple of songs, so I wasn't exposed to most of the factors that could negatively impact your work.

One way to check your camera's metering is to take a photo of a gray card, and compare the histogram of this photo, in your RAW converter, against a file containing only medium gray. To do so, you should have an evenly illuminated gray card (actually any neutral tone of gray, from black to white will work, as long as it covers the entire frame), and make a photo in P, Av or Tv mode, without applying any compensation. Turning off the autofocus will make things easier, as autofocus may prevent you from taking a photo of a plain surface, and even forcing the image go out of focus may help to obtain a smoother result. Here's an old blog entry with some images of three cards, a gray one, a white one, and a black one, either with the camera setting the exposure automatically, with manual exposure set to the EV indicated by an incident exposimeter, and also using different compensations (while the text is in Spanish, I believe the images alone should give you enough information to let you try it on your own): http://rubenleal.com/ETTL/ By the way, the gray card in my test had a focusing assist pattern, which affects the reflected metering, as it adds white content which shouldn't be there, and that's the reason why I now recommend using a plain gray card with the autofocus turned off.

<p>Just to be on the same channel, the 7D only uses CF cards, while the 7D Mk II uses SD cards. Is your problem with a CF card in a 7D, or is it related to a SD card in a 7D Mk II?<br> Unfortunately I don't know how to remove a stuck SD card (my cameras use CF cards), but a CF card that went in just some 15% shouldn't cause any damage, and a little extra pulling force should help.</p> <p>Good luck!</p>

<p>As it was already explained here (and discussed many times in this forum), that is the main difference between Canon's DPP and Adobe's LR: DPP applies the same parameters set in the camera when opening a photo, while LR applies your default parameters.<br> If you change your parameters in the camera for each photo, and you don't need a software to help you manage your photo library, then DPP may be a good option for you (some people even says it's the best RAW converter for certain images, as no one knows the Canon sensors better than Canon); but the truth is that LR offers many advantages, from it's file management, to it's detailed workflow, besides being the industry standard (which means you can learn to use it by asking photographers using other camera brands, which doesn't applies to DPP). There are many other RAW converters, and each one has its own advantages (some people even use a different one for distinct images), but you may begin learning with DPP or LR until you master it, and that one may become your favorit RAW processor, or you may find that your approach to RAW development is different than your software's, and begin looking for a new option.</p>