mark_l

Crop, curve adjustment, level adjustment, borders.<div></div>

www.camerafilters.com. Look under conversion rings. I've had great service from them on several occasions.

Hi Ryan,

 

I think your two strongest photos are the bride looking away at the window, and the groom looking straight on (black and white). Those are really nice, good work!

 

I agree with the others in that your b/w conversions look different, and a sense of consistency and continuity in your photos would work better. The photoshop manipulations that are more overt tend to draw attention away from your subject matter and more to what you are doing with the photos. I'm not sure if you did manipulations on first dance, but those work better than the other one with the blurred colors. The b/w conversion on the kid with the glass looks "off" for some reason, too little shadow detail, and the grain or something about it looks kinda strange. Hope these comments help!

Hi Jennifer,

 

I did the following modifications to your photo in photoshop. Contrast layer - decrease contrast. Duplicate layer, desaturate, set it to soft light and adjust opacity. Adjust hue/saturation to bend towards greenish cast. Duplicate and run gaussian blur, set that layer to softlight, and low opacity. Run grain filter, adjust opacity. A bit more tweaking with the above, and I came up with this. Hope it helps.<div></div>

I don't remember the details exactly, but it was about 2 yards to the foamcore as a reflector to the subject, and the flash was setup about in the middle, facing the reflector. Hope this helps!

I encourage you to visit your doctor. From my own experiences, when I used a CRT and was working on projects upwards of 8-10 hours a day, I began having bad headaches, and eye strain. This was not alleviated with increasing the refresh, changing the ambient light, etc. I ended up switching to an LCD monitor, and it was like night and day. No more headaches, no more eyestrain. Refresh is 60hz, but like the poster above said, its a nonissue.

Hi Gary,

 

I posted a few comments with photos in this thread: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Az3a . I used it on a lightstand with a hotshoe swivel adapter. To diffuse the light output, I tried using an umbrella, scrims, and also bouncing the flash. It is relatively portable, but the design of it (which allows two flat panels to be placed together on one hotshoe mount, also means that shooting with one makes it off balance a bit.

 

I'm not sure it is *that* much more effective than a regular flash unit for the kind of photos I do, so I ended up giving it to a friend, and buying a regular flash with adjustable power (Sunpak 433D). From what I recall, I didn't like how the light looked on direct use, I always preferred to bounce it. In which case, there didn't seem to be much advantage to it over a regular flash.

I agree with the lighting comment. I think the lighting can work, and find the middle photo interesting. Here's a rendition with a small amount of postprocessing. These photos don't really qualify as fashion photography, but they work pretty well as portrait photography.<div></div>

I no longer have the flat panel, I gave it away to a friend who is into macrophotography. I think this shot is head on, I honestly can't remember exactly, but hopefully it'll give you an idea of whether this is what you are looking for.<div></div>

There have been several questions regarding these units, and I

thought some personal notes might be helpful. I had purchased a

Sunpak FP-38 (GN 38) a while ago. It was my first use of a flash

unit, and I thought it would be a better choice than a normal flash

unit like the Sunpak 383. Looking back, I would have gone for the

383. Pros: It provides a nice even lighting for some close range

uses. Cons is that when placed in a swivel unit for umbrella bounce,

it is unwieldy (the unit is always off center). It is pretty fast in

the recycle when using NIMH batteries vs normal alkalines, but I

still ended up getting blank frames from shooting too fast (my

error). It worked well when bounced against ceilings/walls -

providing a really nice, almost natural light in terms of even

distribution except the shadows were still harsh. The biggest

drawback was the fact that it had no ability to adjust power. The

only workaround was to place diffusing material or other similar

items to decrease the output. Unless you are planning to do

macrophotography, or small item photos where you want a close-range,

relatively broad sized light source, I would opt for something else.<div></div>

Hi Gary,

 

I have the Amvona Heavy Duty Background system off of ebay. It included three stands, and the crossbar. In retrospect, I should have saved up a bit more to get two good stands rather than a cheap system. The stands themselves are okay, not great, not horrible but the locks don't lock tight, and when I tried using it on an outdoors shoot with a small breeze, the whole apparatus fell down. The savage system looks about the same, good or bad. If you only want to shoot inside, then it should be okay, but for outdoors use...save up and invest in something more sturdy. Especially if you are going to be using it all the time. Also, if you are shooting indoors, look at Centruy stands or C-stands...the tripod type takes up a lot of corner space due to the design. Hope this helps!

another canonet example<div></div>

Hi Olivier,

 

To answer your questions, I do use it at a higher dilution and a shorter time. For my workflow, if I used Dilution B, it'd be way too short of a time period to get the results I wanted. Hence the higher dilution to give me a little more leeway in pouring out the developer. I pour in the fixer directly afterwards, no in between rinse. Alot of my methods are based on a desire to minimize my hassles. Technique wise, its definitely not textbook, but it works really well for me. For EI FP4+, I rate it at 100-125, and use an incident meter. For Tri-X, I do the same dilution, and develop for about 4 minutes 30 seconds. PlusX I develop in the same tank with FP4+ with no ill effects. Printed or scanned...great results! Hope this helps!

Hi Olivier,

 

I had similar results with Plus-X, Tri-X, FP4+ when using Dilution B, which I think was too strong of a developer at that concentration. When I switched to Dilution E and reduced my development times at room temp water to 5 minutes and 30 seconds, no wash, fix, and rinse, I ended up with really nice results. (Dilution E: 235ml H20, 5ml HC110 from the concentrate for each roll of 35mm). I agitate for the first 15 seconds and let it stand for the rest of the time. You might want to give it another try!<div></div>

I'm going to go somewhat against the mainstream opinion. CRT's do have a better color/tone rendition per price point vs. TFT's. However, I was getting constant headaches, and blurry vision from using CRT's when doing post-processing over the long term. Once I switched to a TFT monitor, it was like night and day. Headaches gone even with 15 hour+ projects, the images are clearer looking, and when viewed directly, color shifts are for all intents and purposes negligible. The results I get translate well onto actual photographs printed by Ofoto/Shutterfly, and when in doubt, I sometimes will recheck it on a CRT to see what the colors look like. But I doubt I'll ever work on a CRT monitor again, the footprint/ergonomics/heat issues are stacked too much in favor of TFT's. Hope this helps!

Hi Tom,

 

I just recently began shooting medium format using a couple Yashicas. It took some time getting used to, but coming from shooting manual Canons in 35mm, the transition wasn't too hard...mostly a Left/Right reversal issue. A thing that helped was using the flip down magnifying glass after composing to check focus. Granted, it still is a bit hit and miss in the evening, but for most times of the day, it works fine. I would suggest that you take time to be methodical in your shooting so that you don't skip frames or cock the shutter too early (mistakes I have made too).

 

I'm not sure if you're trying to shoot street photos or whatnot, but take some time and work out a routine. Look at a potential shot, wind (which will also cock the shutter), compose using the whole waist level finder, focus accurately using the flip down magnifier, and then shoot. Wait til the next potential shot and repeat.

 

Everytime I get the notion that I need a 'better' camera, I look at my photos and see if its really my composition/lighting/technique that is really at issue. Hope this helps!

Hi Wee-Ming,

 

Congratulations on your sister's wedding! From my experiences, alot can be done with two lenses (and I'm not even using zooms). If I had to pick two focal lengths to capture a wedding, it'd be 35mm and 100mm. If I had to pick only one, it'd easily be the 50/1.4 for sheer versatility and low light capabilities. My own setup includes two Canon FD cameras, 28/2.8, 35/2, 50/1.4 and 100/2.8.

 

It depends on the kind of look that you favor in approaching candid or reportage type photos. I tend not to favor the 24 or wider focal length looks, since I want my photos to look more or less "normal". So my advice for you would be to figure out which look you want to go for, and which equipment gets you there the best.

 

For my style of shooting, and the emphasis on available light that I look for, I'd take the 10D, 16-35/2.8, 70-200IS, and the M6 with 50/2 with black and white film (XP2 at 200 is phenomenal). The 16-35 on a 10D will cover the "wide to normal", the 70-200 will allow you to get in tight. Since you only have two lenses, you won't have to do too many switches since you can project which will fit best for any given moment. The M6 50/2 just because its not electronic, is quiet, and I personally love black and white film. Plus its small and light. Overall, I think this gives you a a pretty small but effective and versatile package. The most important thing though is to have fun and enjoy the wedding...it will come through in your photos. Best wishes!<div></div>

In response to Belle's post, borrowing eyes works really well at times, but for this photo, when I tried to rip and flip eyes from the sister or mother, it looked strange when pasting it into the center figure. If you notice, both of the peripheral people are at angles, and when you paste in their eyes into the girl, the direction of her gaze is off.

 

I agree that the photo by itself can stand alone and need not retouching, but if it was a must have/must retouch situation, it is possible to have it come off pretty natural. Its a good thing to practice retouching such as painting in new eyes, gives you a different skill set I think. In any case, nice photo:)

Here's my little 5 minute retouch...still kinda sloppy, but you can get the idea. It was a bit difficult because the file is so small, there aren't many pixels to play with. Essentially, I went to 400% zoom, and shifted her eyeline by painting in new pupils and whites, using the eyedropper to sample color for the "whites" (since they are really shades of pink/brown) from her sister's eyes. I then lasso'd her right eye, and shifted it one pixel over (for this file size) and extended her eyebrow. This helped balance her face out a bit. Add a bit of burning in areas, and there you have it. Plus color adjustments/leveling/contrast. The key is not to make both eyes look the same, but have a slight variation in gaze/size/color. Hope that helps.<div></div>

Hi Richard,

 

I'm not discounting the Leica "pop" as I have seen several photos other photographers have done that seem to show that same 3d effect, and perhaps Leica has a tendency to show that better. However, more importantly I think the lighting of your subject, and toning/presentation of a photo can either enhance/decrease how much of that effect will show. In a previous posting, I asked a similar question, and the answer from several photographers was that the lighting is the most important factor, and my experiences (with my Canon FD cameras/lenses) have led me to agree.

 

As an example, I adjusted the levels on your Canon shot, added a similar border as your Leica shots (but in white), and toned the photo. I think it adds more dimensionality to the photo. What are your thoughts?<div></div>

Hi Greg,

 

I started out with an AE1, bought an AE1 program, and then bought the F1N with the AE prism because I thought I needed a "pro" body. I quickly sold the F1N within a week. It is a solid camera, with a faster shutter speed and better build but the drawbacks are significantly heavier weight, louder shutter sound, and increased bulk. I have no regrets about using an AE1/AE1 program, and 100 dollars for an AE1 program, in good condition with no shutter squeak is a good price. I have shot landscapes, portraits, weddings with just my AE1 and AE1 program and have not found it lacking, except for a faster shutter speed. I compensate for that by using an 8X ND filter to bring the light levels down, but since I switched to using Reala 100 speed film, and FP4+ 125, its been less of a problem. Hope that helps!

I fill up with 235ml of distilled water (room temp, varies with seasons), and 5 ml of HC110 concentrate. I stir and pour it in. Agitate via inversion for first 15 seconds, and then let it sit for 5 minutes. Pour it out, pour in fixer for 5 minutes. Wash and rinse with Photo-flo. Works well for me, clean nice negatives.

Hi Scott,

 

I had the exact same experience with FP4 and HC110B. What I eventually ended up doing was to use my old HC110(e) dilution that I had been using with Plus-X, and used a 5 minute interval, inversion agitation for 10-15 seconds and then I just let it sit there. Water temperature is important, but honestly...I don't really measure it. Its probably not the absolutely correct way, but I just leave my water at room temp, and adjusted my times down accordingly.

 

I got really good results, less dense negatives, prints and scans beautifully. You can see some of the FP4+ shots in the "Nicole in Window Light" folder in my directory. Some are Xp2 Super which is a C41 b/w film with very nice skin tones. Hope this helps!

Hi,

<p>

I'm just beginning to look into the use of artificial lighting to

gain more control in making photos. What sparked this was a post

regarding my most recent work, wherein I asked opinions regarding

available light for portraiture. (<a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=401113">Link</a>)

<p>

One of the things I'm looking for is a way to balance out the dark

side/shaded side of available light photos. I have had a fair amount

of success using bounce boards from foam core, but sometimes I get

hit with too much of a contrast difference.

<p>

My question is will the Sunpak 383 on a low power setting with a

stoffen diffuser bounced down off the floor/up against ceiling,

reversed to bounce off a bounce board be what I'm looking for to kick

a little light back, or is the newer flat panel flashes such as

Sunpaks FP-38/Interfit eFlash with a GN of 38 be the better choice.

Which will provide me with the most readily useable soft lighting?

Thanks for any advice!

Thanks for all the helpful and thoughtful answers. My setup for these shots were a bank of windows facing north and west, with two large bounce cards (foam core) positioned facing the windows. That's pretty much it, no studio setup or anything. Hope your shoot goes well!