gdw

<p>If you have to ask the question, you are not likely to be happy with PSP. Just close the box and go your way. Although it is an extremely good imaging software, I have been using it since version 3 many years ago, I have never found anything that I needed to do that PSP would not do. Also love Nik and their UPoint Technology--but you wouldn't be happy with that either.</p>

<p>Steve, when talking about bouncing flash over your shoulder they are talking about "bouncing flash" and that implies pointing the flash toward an object. It is assumed that you understand the term "bounce" and not try it if there is no object availabe to reflect the light from the flash back to the subject. This is an excellent technique in small rooms, point the flash at the intersection of the wall and the ceiling or into a corner with the ceiling and two walls to bounce back the light.</p>

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<p>This may have been suggested: when you write image files to a CD and then back to a hard drive they are transfered back as Read Only. On a PC you can go into properties and remove the Read Only lock--It sound like you may have tried this on the Mac (I have no Mac experience).<br>

There are a lot of things that I would try before trying to recover files from a media card that had been written too since the files were originally written. You have the files on a CD so there has got to be a better way. It's not like you have truly lost the files--just frustrated getting them where they need to be. <br>

I would make a suggestion that you transfer the files to a jump drive to even back to a media card, just a file transfer rather than going throuh a software probram and then download them to the Mac to eleminate the Read Only designation created by CDs.</p>

<p>Very strange that this would be happening on two units you recently had Nikon service and not on your friends unit. You don't mention how long it was between shots. Have you checked the standby setting on your flashes. Borrow your friends flash and run through the menus matching your setting on the two units to the friends unit and try again. If you still have the problem it seems you should be talking to Nikon rather than Pnet.</p>

<p>Do not remove the lens hood (unless you use flash and the hood casts a shadow). Do not use any filters over the lens.<br>

You have three choices. Not knowing exactly how much light will be available it would be difficult to say which is the best choice.<br>

First, shoot by available light, fluorescent only. Set the camera to fluorescent white balance. If you camera has more than one fluorescent setting, many do, shoot some test shots under the lights before the ceremony and check the LCD to see which setting looks most natural. Do shoot RAW so that you can tweak the white balance in post. If the lights are high overhead you most likely will get raccoon eyes and other bad shadows which would be better filled with flash, but DON’T. This is probably the easiest solution but possibly far from elegant. <br>

Two, you can use basically available light with the flash for fill or supplement. If you do that you will want your white balance set to fluorescent and you MUST have an GREEN filter on your FLASH. If you use straight flash without the green filter you will end up with photographs that will be impossible to white balance even if you shoot RAW. The green filter is available from most well stocked camera stores or from Adorama or B&H. This will probably be the best solution but again it depends on the amount of light you have available in the building.<br>

Three, you can attempt to overpower the fluorescent with the flash--highly unlikely except for people that are fairly close. In this case you would want the white balance set to flash and use no filters on the flash. You will still have a very off color background if you pick up any available light at all and you most likely will. Areas that are not well exposed by the flash will also be off color and impossible to correct in post.</p>

<p><br />Angela, be absolutely certain that you have your Nikon set to Single Focus Mode not Continuous Focus Mode. In Continuous Focus the camera will continue to refocus as you recompose your photograph even is you are half pressing the shutter release or even holding down the AFON. In Single Focus Mode, in the menus, you can set the AFON button to lock the focus as long as the button is held down but it still won't solve the Continuous Focus problem. BTW, I have a 50mm f/1.4 which presents absolutely no focusing problems when used on Single Focus Mode without using liveview, guess it's an aberration.<br>

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<p>The arugment that shooting RAW in color results in better black and white in post processing doesn't hold water. In RAW you are shooting is color regardless of where you have the camera set. In the camera the monochrome setting ONLY affects the jpg which you see on the LCD screen. If you open the NEF in any software that doesn't read the Nikon propriatary file it is going to be in color not black and white. Open in NX it will appear on the screen in monochrome because NX reads the files. The NEF file can be changed to color at any point.<br>

When I know that I wish to go to black and white, I DO change the camera settings because I want to see the image on the LCD in black and white. That in no way inhibits the ability to do what ever you wish to do in post.<br>

If you shoot only JPG you are stuck with wherever the camera is set. </p>

<p>I agree with Shun that shooting RAW has advantages--when you have the time to do the extra processing. In a business operation time is money and they obviously have a jpeg workflow. It is not only a storage problem that should be considered, there is possibly a matter of additional software as well as increased processing time, when properly exposing will solve the problem without distrubing the workflow. Changing to RAW in no way will correct the stated problem. Until they correct exposure the problem will be there regardless of the file format. It's a buy a sledge, drive a tack, bust a finger solution.</p>

<p>Tim, you more or less suggested that the photographer is doing this on a one shot basis. Notice below the bride with flowers he makes this statement, "So part of my slow-shutter speed technique, is to make sure I take a series of shots." I think that means that he is bracketing and by series, I assume he means a fair number of brackets.</p>

<p>Better yet, why don't they learn how to properly expose with fill flash outdoors and that will solve the blown out kids faces problem without creating a storage problem. How is going to change file formats going to solve an exposure ineptitude problem?</p>

<p>A minus one (-1) for Light Science and Magic. A plus one (+1) for Bruce Baunbarn The Art of Photography. a Minus two (-2) for Ansel Adams anything. And a plus two (+2) for David duChemn anything, preferably Within the Frame.</p>

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<p>On the white shirt use the White Point Tool and adjust luminosity as needed. White Point, Black Point and Gray Point tools do an amazingly good job of correcting white balance. But correcting white balance will not change reflected colors such as you mention on the reflections from the grass. That is not a white balance problem. That is a reflected color problem and will have to be handled separately.<br /> To bracket f/stops without changing exposure put the camera in Program Mode and rotate rear control wheel. That is what Program is, locked EV. But it will only be consistent if you meter the same area and the light remains consistent for each shot.<br /> Shooting into the sun and the meter is reading the bright background it is not -1 but more likely +2 EV correction. When you are metering white, light or bright objects you need to INCREASE exposure, not decrease exposure unless you want silhouettes. What was your "whacked out exposure", underexposure or was it flare? If you were metering the bright background the image should have been underexposured. If your image was washed out bright then it was flare and not controllable by exposure. If the metering point is on the shadow side of your subject then you would need to increase exposure since the shadow side would be darker than middle gray. Last question, no idea.</p>

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<p>Answer to number 1, absolutely not. Answer to number 2, it's called pilot error.</p>

<p>You point a reflected light meter toward white and use that exposure the white will be middle gray in your photograph, the middle gray will be dark gray and the shadows will be blocked.</p>

<p>You point a reflected light meter towrd black and use that exposure the black will be middle gray in your photograph, the middle gray will be light gray and the highlights will be blown.</p>

<p>You point the reflected light meter toward middle gray and use that exposure the middle gray will be middle gray in your photograph, the white will be white and the black will be black.</p>

<p>You are highly unlikely to ever have a perfectly centered histogram. There is no "correct" shape for a histogram.</p>

<p>The ONLY way a light meter will give you correct exposure is to: 1 point it at middle gray; 2 point it at an area that reflects the same amount of light as middle gray; 3 point it at an area the contains equal amounts of white and black that averages out to be middle gray; 4 apply a manual exposure compensation to make up for the lightness or darkness of the area that you are reading--the pilot part. The light meter doesn't know any of this. That is the reason that if you want correct exposure the photographer has to know all of this. That's what the histogram and the blinking blown highlight tool is for.</p>

<p>Until you learn how to use it keep the histogram as far to the right as possible without it begining to climb up the right side of the box. In post processing you can darken an image without losing quality. You almost always pick up noise and lose quailty if you have to lighten an image.</p>

<p>And when you don't have anything else to do waste all the time you want on 12% gray nonsense--it is absolutely meaningless in the real world. It's primary purpose is for technogeeks to band about to convience themselves that they are so terribly smart. Really has nothing to do with photography.</p>

<p>Yes, there is likely a reason. Only lenses that have motors built into the lens will autofocus on the D40. I am not familiar with the Tokina but I suspect it does not have the built in focusing motor. Search the Nikon forum--well discussed.</p>

<p>Jesse, I pretty much agree with the previous posts. To me it seems to begin with over exposure which is possibly enhanced in post by reducing contrast and brightening the image. That has its uses. Not sure I would want to use it for a body of work. I love a comment in a book I recently<br />read, “there is no Unsuck filter in Photoshop.” It seems that many use unconventional techniques to supposedly gussy up terribly dull photographs under the delusion of it being “art.”</p>

<p>If it is soft focus you are seeking it is much better done in camera than in post and there are many ways to do it.</p>

<p>One of the easiest is to purchase an inexpensive pair of black women’s nylons, cut out a square and stretch it tightly over the front of your lens. Use a rubber band to hold it on. A ninety-nine cent pair of stocking will last a lifetime.</p>

<p>Purchase an inexpensive clear glass or UV filter to fit your camera and smear a thin layer of Vasoline or similar clear oily product over the filter. Pick up one use from the slock counter at your nearest camera store—scratches don’t matter. You can cover the entire filter or leave a clear area in the center so there is a lot of control with this method. This is the classic method for people that didn’t own or couldn’t afford specially constructed soft focus lenses.</p>

<p>Purchase, somewhat ridiculously expensive, soft focus filters from various manufactures like Tiffen, Hoya, etc.</p>

<p>Cut a square from a clear plastic bag and stretch it over your lens. I sometimes use a clear plastic bag to make a lenshood that extends into a tube in front of the lens to shoot through. Get some interesting ghost effects where the light glares off of the uneven surface of the tube. You can also push your finger against the edge of the tube to distort the shape of the opening.</p>

<p>Shoot through anything that will distort your image, even the bottom of a drinking glass.</p>

<p>If there is a Lensbaby available for your camera they have a number of excellent soft focus methods.</p>

<p>Create a pinhole camera from a spare body cap for your camera.</p>

<p>I am not particularly impressed with the samples you posted. They look like overexposed, slightly flared images that the photographer “enhanced” by increasing the flared effect in post. They lack any drama and as best I can tell don't make much of a personal statement regarding the individual images. There is nothing at all wrong with that and if it expresses the photographer’s vision it is as viable as any other technique. Just because it does not express my personal vision doesn’t mean that it is bad. There are, in my opinion, better methods for getting the soft focus effect. One of the secrets, IMO, is to use the soft focus methods on higher contrast lighting.</p>

<p>Sometimes screwing up your image can create interesting effects and break the calendar photo formulated mentality that seems to pervade photography at the moment. This works particularly well when you want to move your photographs more to the surreal and sure as heck beats the “apply a PS filter just like the previous 3,286 photographs you looked at” mentality. However you do it, have fun.</p>

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<p>Lynn, a very simple way that has not been mentioned is White Point and Black Point tools. If you have something in your photograph that you know for sure is white, put your White Point tool on the brightest portion of the white area. Same goes for black, put the Black Point on the darkest area. If your software has a Gray Point and you have an area that you know for sure is neutral gray, or as mentioned, a gray card, you can use that instead. I do not use PS but I feel certain that these three tools are available and you will be surprised how well they can work even in very difficult situations. In my software I can adjust the luminosity on the White and Black points which I frequently do, especially on the white because I like darker images.</p>

<p>Hal, there is a series that I have greatly enjoyed, the DVDs from Photovision. Initially they are expensive but if you keep an eye on their site and watch, they do run specials. In the past I have got the previous years complete DVD set for as little as about $40. I have subscribed for three or four years and always look forward to receiving the DVD. Once you get started the renewal subscriptions are considerably less. Google or Bing Photovision 2011.</p>

<p>Joseph, What a boatload of guesses. The differences in the two meter reading are exactly what I would have expected in the situation your describe. No aberations, no trees and no gray cards--both readings appears to be absolutely correct for the respective systems. Now is that a shocker? it sounds as though you are using the incident meter correctly with the cell pointed in the direction of the camera and the reflected meter pointed toward the main subject; therefore the explanation is fairly simple—the majority of the metered area was considerably whiter/brighter than middle gray. </p>

<p>The reflected meter was trying to make the average of the metered area middle gray and if the metered area is brighter than middle gray then you have to make a manual compensation for that difference by increasing the exposure suggested by the reflected meter. You do that by opening up the aperture depending upon the difference in brightness from 1 to 2 stops (from f/32 to f/8 in this case—two stops) or by increasing the length of the exposure (which would have been from 1/500 to 1/125.)</p>

<p>Light meters, either type, are really pretty dumb—they only know one thing, middle gray. The reflected meter is however smart enough to make the assumption that you are smart enough to make any required manual corrections between the reflectance of the metered area and niddle gray. That is why in many of the answers above it is stated that incident meters are more accurate. That is an absolute fallacy. Both are equally accurate—it is the photographer that is using them that is not knowledgeable enough to make correct use of the reflected meter. For people that do not know how to use a reflected meter, they will find the incident meter easier to use.</p>

<p>Either meter will only tell you one thing—the exposure necessary to make whatever is metered middle gray. The incident meter does that by measuring the light falling on the subject with no consideration of the light reflective quality of the subject. The reflected meter tells you how to expose for middle gray based on the light reflective quality of the subject. Were you to use the reflective meter to properly meter off of a gray card or an area of your subject that actually reflects the same amount of light as middle gray, the two light meters will give you very similar if not identical readings.</p>

<p>One of the most highly touted texts on exposure is Ansel Adams Zone System. For those that think the incident meter is more accurate, maybe you can explain how to apply the Zone System using an incident meter. You can’t because the Zone System is based on the light reflective qualities of the subject. And yes, there were incident meters available during Ansels life time. Although I started out with a Weston III reflective meter, I believe it was in the late 1950’s when I purchased my first incident meter. The Norwood Director had been around since the 1940’s in the movie industry. Mine was purchased after Norwood sold to Brockway. I still carry a Sekonic L358 and I love it but it only get used in very rare situations because years ago I learned to use the reflective meter and the one in my carmera works just great because of that.</p>

<p>All parts are not listed on the Bogen page. Just send them an email and they will get back to you with availability, part number and price.</p>

<p>Just to brain storm: I do not know what they supply to industrial builders but is there some item or items that they could bring along as props. What I am suggesting is something large enough that they could each interact with the same object. If it is something that would normally be used by two people at the same time that might be even better.</p>

<p>A lot will depend upon what your client wants to portray. How serious, how lighthearted do they want the advertising approach. A start up I would think would want to display a lot of energy, maybe even the ability to do the impossible or to go the extra mile, do what the established firms are not doing to earn business. Find out where they want to shine and try to work toward that. </p>

<p>Unless the two men have a really intimate relationship and want to convey that I wouldn’t suggest having them touch but it would be good if there was an item that they each could touch that would tie them together. There’s nothing wrong with a bear hug or even the hand on shoulder bit but those are overtly friendly, family, college kid messages and I am sure that is not what your client is going for. Hey, I’m seventy and still a bear hugger but I would not do it in an advertising photograph. </p>

<p>A step ladder is great; one could be sitting on a rung and the other leaning against the ladder. Even if one just rested his foot on a lower rung and one reached out to hold an upright—anything they both could interact with the same object will make a link/connection between the two. You are simply trying to transition the distance between two objects. Which is the most dynamic of the pair? Is one outgoing, one quieter? Try to play to the personality in the choice of pose but also in the overall composition of the photograph. For example don’t put the energetic one sitting down and the quieter one standing. Be sure the pose fits the personality. Try to find something besides the straight on to the camera look and something less commercial than the typical three quarters view. These are young men and a young company so unless they want stodgy you need to pull out the creative juices. </p>

<p>A delivery vehicle or a company car with a logo. One could sit on a fender, the other prop his foot on the bumper. Open the door and have one stand behind the door visible through the window or over the top of the door and the other leaning against or holding the edge of the door. </p>

<p>Maybe if you can’t find an object large enough maybe having two props that relate to each other that each could interact with. The idea is to link them together as equals in the business. You want to do that without having them touch but your want to show a commonality between the two men. </p>

<p>If nothing else bring an office chair, one could sit one stand and lean against the chair. A chair or similar office prop adds a touch of incongruity in an outdoor setting. Incongruity is always a good attention grabber and that is what you want these photographs to do is to attract attention. Even the style of chair could set the tone for the company, so chose wisely if you go that route. </p>

<p>In lieu of a prop that will transition the distance between the two, what I am calling a link, the next best way to relate two objects is by overlap. If you sit two objects side by side then you have two objects. But if you move one object where it is slightly in front of or slightly behind the other object then the eye will see the two objects as a single unit and perceive a relationship between the objects. You can do that same thing in your double portrait. Even if you use a prop to make the link you could also use overlap to make that connection even stronger. Just make sure there is enough distance between the two that they do not appear to be touching. </p>

<p>Remember the rule, if there are two of anything make sure that they are on different levels. That not only applies to your two people but it also applies to each of their two hands. It would apply if you are using two props. </p>

<p>Remember horizontal lines are restful, maybe even dull and you are going to have to be very careful because this seems a situation where it would be very easy to come up with a strongly horizontal composition. Vertical lines have more tension but diagonal lines are by far the most dynamic, exciting. Anything you can do to create a diagonal composition will increase the excitement of the image, will give it more energy and make it more subconsciously attractive to both your clients and their clients. </p>

<p>As far as dress—something job appropriate. Are they front office types, then business suits. Are they hands on mixing it up with the line employees than something more casual, neat, coordinated, maybe even a company uniform or tee shirt.</p>

<p>Don’t worry about color temp of light worry about direction and shadows. You want form but you don’t want the eyes in shadow. I have no idea which direction you will be shooting. Do you have flash equipment to fill in shadows? </p>

<p>As far as head, medium or full—do all three. If they have several uses for the photographs give them some flexibility to work with. You got the set up, make use of it. </p>

<p>Just some thoughts.</p>