bjcarlton

As some others have suggested, work up a portfolio of clothed models first. Use your friends. Learn lighting and posing. With that portfolio in hand, you now have some credibility when you approach someone for doing nudes. In fact, people you've photographed clothed now have a reason to trust you, and might be willing in some later session to pose nude themselves, assuming you haven't come across as creepy while photographing them. One suggestion I've seen elsewhere is that, in addition to the above, you collect some nude images of the sort you would like to take, and show them to the potential models, with the explanation that you are learning nude photography, and want to replicate these images. That, too, can be reassuring. I would also suggest that you cultivate a female friend willing to act as your assistant. Tell your prospective model that that's how you'll be working. That way, she'll know that it's not going to be a one-on-one, just-trust-me situation. The fact you are working with an assistant is a strong statement that your interest is photography, not messing around. And if you really want to impress potential models that you're serious about the nude as an art form, photograph some men, too. (A worthwhile challenge for a straight photographer, and a way for you to test your true motives.)

<p>I found Colormunki very helpful in getting my printed output to match my monitor. One result of using it was that I, like one of the other commenters, dimmed my screen quite a bit.</p>

<p>I think he was joking, Jeff.</p>

<p>That shadow looks too wide to be from the pop-up, which is very close to the lens axis. Could it be a reflection from the window glass? I realize that the shadow still appears when the main light is turned away from the subject, but what if it's turned off entirely? In other words, could it be getting reflected by the window glass even though turned away from the subject?</p>

<p>Had the same thing happen to my 24-105 F/4L. That said, I had it repaired and was back in business. Wasn't cheap, but it wasn't worth getting a new lens over either.</p>

<p>I have both a 70-200 f/4 L non-IS, and a 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II. I got the f/4 about 10 years ago to cover running events, and have taken tens of thousands of images with it. I'm very happy with the results. I got the f/2.8 just a few months ago. I've used each on crop sensor and on full frame bodies. I can't discern a difference in viewfinder brightness, at least in actual use (I haven't done any formal experimenting). I can't discern a difference in image quality in any of the shooting I've done with the two lenses. I like the bokeh on each. I don't notice any particular difference in focusing, and, as I said, I've used the f/4 extensively for shooting runners, occasionally in dim light. For really dim light shooting, I really like the f/2.8 IS. It works as advertised. But the lens weighs a ton. I would not want to carry it around very long. If you have no need for IS, I say go for the f/4. (OTOH, if you really want to impress other photographers, go for the f/2.8. I get lots of comments from people when I use it.)</p>

<p>Actually, she is obligated to you. She promised you publicity if you'd shoot her for free. You detrimentally relied on that promise (i.e., you provided the service), and now she's reneged.<br>

That said, the stakes are so small here that it's probably best just to forget it.</p>

<p>Well, parse it out. "The use of the copyrights . . . will not be sold to or granted to [anyone] other than Company and Vendor." In plain English, no one but the Company and the Vendor can "use" the copyright. If a third party's sale of prints is a "use" of the copyright, then you're out of luck. The question for your lawyer to answer is what constitutes a "use." </p>

<p>Though perhaps a bit of a long shot, some local prosecution agencies have consumer protection units that can be of help, particularly if she has engaged in a pattern of such behavior. Years ago I managed to extract a print (from a triathlon) I'd ordered from a photographer that way; he'd blown me off for months. I found out where he was based, and called the local city attorney's office's consumer protection unit. Turns out he had been doing this to a lot of people, so I was able to just sit back and let the public prosecutor do the rest of the work.</p>

<p>What happens if you stop down and shoot, say, the sky?</p>

<p>Wow! Fascinating stuff. So what appear to be neat formations of droplets really are neat formations of droplets? That might explain why there's such a variation in their length (though I suppose there's no reason to assume that all the reflected droplets would be moving the same velocity away from the impact point.</p>

<p>Digital vs. film – not gonna go there! :)<br>

Thanks for all the responses. I was kind of thinking something along the lines of Cory's answer, but only have a degree in literature (with a few math and science courses thrown in to combat ignorance). Oscillating droplets makes sense. This is particularly suggested by the fact that the "dots" aren't uniform. Some, as has been pointed out, are little dashes. Some are dot-pairs. Some of the dashed ones are dashed at an angle to the overall line of dashes (sort of like cars in angled parking). Though each trail consists of evenly spaced dots (or dashes), the trails consist of different numbers of dots/dashes, and the spacing suggests that some are "flashing" at a different rate than others. All of that would, I suppose, be consistent with waves propagating around various-sized droplets in various ways as they flew away.</p>

<p>The only light source in this image is the sun, which, last I checked, was a very continuous light source. I did not use any sort of strobe. The subject is in a shower, and the shower head is out of the frame, to the upper right. Exposure speed was 1/100 sec. You can see the water drops coming from the shower head; they are the large, continuous streaks heading toward the skin. You can also see drops bouncing off the skin – but here's the big mystery: why are they dotted? They look for all the world like single drops that have been lit stroboscopically as they traverse a path, and yet that can't be. (I was there, for one thing, and you would expect the drops coming from the shower head to be similarly dotted.) And if they do represent a path, then they appear to be going substantially faster than the drops coming from the shower head. Can it be that these are actually lines of drops flying neatly through the air? That suggests an orderliness I find completely unexpected. I am completely baffled. Any physicists or engineers out there who can explain what's going on?<p>

<p>Doubling the number of pixels gives you 1.41 times the number of pixels horizontally, and 1.41 vertically, as stated above. If resolution is defined as the number of lines per millimeter that can be distinguished, does 1.41 times the number of pixels along a given axis resolve twice as many lines per millimeter? (Assuming of course, a perfect lens.) Just asking -- the math for that calculation is beyond me.</p>

<p>Probably hard to find now, but the Pentax 6x7 used to have a waist level finder as an option. That would make for a kit that was a lot lighter than the Mamiya.</p>

Isn't 100x100=10,000? Not that it particularly matters. Just seems nice to get the math right.

<p>One thing I have not seen suggested here is that you get yourself a Stroboframe or something equivalent. These devices don't require any more skill to use than a regular hot-shoe mounted flash, and will produce much nicer images. You don't get red-eye, and shadows drop down behind the subjects. This is particularly useful when shooting in portrait orientation when someone is standing in front of a wall, which otherwise tends to result in really hellacious shadows to one side of the subject. This device alone will make your images look substantially better than those of the casual snapshooters in attendance, and while you could of course do better with softboxes on light stands and radio-controlled speedlights like a real pro, that's not where you are at the moment.</p>

I have both cameras. I really like the autofocus on the 5, particularly for its customizability. I'd say it's at least a stop better than the 7 for

low light work. I've been happy with ISO 12800 on the 5, and would characterize the noise at that level as similar to Tri-x. If I could have

only one of the two cameras, I'd pick the 5 for sure.

When this happened to me, it was user error. You have to make sure that the cylinder is rotated so that the film door/light trap is fully

open. Otherwise you will get beautiful scratches down the entire length of your film. In the loader I used to use, there was no interlock, so

you just have to remember to do this step.

<blockquote>

<p><em>What about hipsters with antique, or antique looking rangefinders, or lomo cameras? I've seen some pretty hot girls who were carrying, and were more interested in, Diana's then FF digital. Where's your big camera now? :-)</em><br>

Your logic is unassailable. I stand corrected! (And Rockwell is even worse than I thought.)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>David Stephens didn't really answer Robin's argument, which was that if bigger is always better, then why not always use bigger – in other words, why wasn't he using a medium format back, or at the very least a D800? His response was something of a non-sequitur, which was that he occasionally made 48-inch prints, and why not always use a camera that has that capacity? But Robin's logic is correct. Why stop at 48 inches? Why not 90? Then your 48-inch-capable camera falls short. And on and on. So that gets to the real point of the discussion, and, I suppose, the much-despised Rockwell's point: there is really no such thing as an absolute "good." The only meaningful concept is that of "good enough," and "good enough" is determined by the intended use. Is a Formula One car good? That depends on whether you're planning on racing or on going to the grocery store. Or perhaps to use a better analogy, that depends on whether you're driving on a race course or on the public highways. Getting back to cameras, David's intended use is 48-inch prints, so for him, to be "good (enough)" a camera must be able to do that. For someone who is never going to go beyond 8x10, a much less capable camera is absolutely as good.</p>

<p>There is, of course, the cropping argument: you need huge capacity so that you can make big prints out of little parts of your image. But that's just the same argument on a different scale. To make a 48-inch print from 1/n of your image, you need a camera with n times the sensor area of David's hypothesized camera. And so on and on again. So if you're going to make 8x10s from extreme crops, you'll need David's camera. But if David is going to make 48-inch prints out of the same severe crops, he's going to need a much larger camera than he is currently satisfied with.</p>

<p>Of course the final argument (and one that applies to cars, too) is that a bigger, badder camera is better at attracting women. With that I agree, and have to point out that that is something Rockwell completely fails to take into account. Thus his reviews are worthless.</p>

Years ago, some friends of mine got married. Their wedding coverage was by a videographer. He gave them the tape at the end of the

reception, and they took it home and then went out to dinner. While they were out, their house got burglarized, and, you guessed it, the

tape was stolen. Nonetheless, they were happily married for over 20 years, until she died. I'm sure the loss of the video hurt, but they

really did have their memories of the event, just not the images. I know this hurts terribly now, and you should, as you have been, explore

all the possible ways of recovering the images, but if that doesn't work, you should be prepared to move on with your new life. Believe it

or not, the details of your wedding, so crucial to you now, will become less important over time as you spend more and more time being

actually married. I'm sure my friends would have liked to have their video, but in the end it didn't matter much.

Actually, when you think about it, Ansel Adams did use HDR after a fashion. He would measure the brightness range of a scene and

adjust his development accordingly. High contrast scenes got shorter development; low contrast scenes got more development. And, of

course, he certainly dodged and burned in the darkroom, though he tried to expose and process his film so as to minimize the need for

what we would call post. Adams was a big fan of the latest technology – he consulted for Polaroid, and even took a lot of color images,

though not terribly successfully. He probably would have made use of HDR where his other techniques would have been insufficient to

make the final print he wanted. (And Adams wasn't above heavy manipulation – look at the nearly black sky in most versions of Moonrise

Over Hernandez, and consider that that's way beyond what even a red filter would normally get you.)

<p>(1) Before you tried the center-point focus, what were your focus settings? I can imagine that if you had it on fully automatic focus and were trying to catch a bird against the sky, you might have a hard time, because the camera might never "see" the bird to focus on. But if you are aiming at a scene with detail in it, and the light is reasonable, the camera should at least lock on something (I'm thinking of your brick building example).<br>

But, if you had inadvertently selected an off-center focus point, then even the building-against-sky photo wouldn't work, because the camera might be trying to focus on the sky. So I get back to my starting question.<br>

(2) I would remain concerned about the error messages, even if the lens works on center-point focus.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>However, I don't think when people think of mirrorless that's what they are thinking of.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Quite so. My only personal experience with mirrorless cameras was when my 5D classic converted itself into one during a photo shoot a couple years back. I found it very unsatisfactory, and have stuck to DSLRs ever since.</p>