jasonsmith

Thanks Guys - I will try Fit Image - I didnt even know it was there......cheers

Thanks - my problem is where you have a bunch of images some of which are portrait and some are landscape. If I enter a width for the landscape images, the action wont work on portrait images. Am trying to design an action that will work on all images.

I want to create an action to resize and save for web a series of images. Some

are landscape and some are portrait orientation. Could anyone offer advice on

how to create an action to do this. It would obviously involve changing the

image size with some type of 'relative' option - although cant find it in the

image size menu....

Colleen

 

It looks great - always love your work. You could possibly slow it down a little - but it certainly does not warrant the critical slant some have taken.

 

Some seem obsessed with the 'technical stuff' - and seem to forget that the main objective is to capture the emotion of the day, something you do extremely well.

 

Well done......

John

 

As Ellis mentioned - Shoot in RAW and adjust later. I use a Whibal sometimes. This is placed in the the shot. Later in Camera Raw I click on the gray surface of the Whibal to set white balance. Or when shooting weddings I often just click on a shadow on the Wedding dress to set white balance.

Mitch - what brand, model is the battery you are referring too?

This was shot on Manual with about 1 stop under exposure on the background. Flash TTL at -1 through a Lightsphere.<div></div>

Would anyone be able to offer advice on whether a Starblitz Lite 1000 Ring

Flash would work with a D200. It would have to fire from the D200s PC Socket.

From a Google search the trigger voltage of the Starblitz seems to be around

2.9V.

 

I was looking to try using a Ring Flash for portraiture.

Thanks Andrew - Is "ActionsPallette" the name of the file I should search for. I put that into the windows file search and didnt locate any files.

Havent tried that. The "All Auto" version seems to underexpose to salvage highlights and boost the midtones with "Brightness" - I find the whites often dont get white enough using this.

I shoot weddings with a Nikon D200 in RAW mode.

 

When I process the images Adobe Bridge applies its own settings for Exposure,

Shadows, Brightness and Contrast which often change the image from what I saw

on the LCD screen at the time of capture. I know this can be turned off but

cant find the menu item to do this.

 

For those that shoot RAW - have you set up your camera and/or your RAW

processing program (Bridge, Capture 1 etc) so that what you saw in the cameras

LCD Screen is pretty close to what you end up with - minimising the amount of

processing.

 

I guess I am looking for advice on a workflow that will minimise me having to

make changes in exposure, contrast etc. I use the syncronise feature -

although with 6-700 images it still takes valuable time.

I have been recently experiencing a lot of blue screen crashes with the error

cited as "Bad_Pool_Caller" (windows XP)

 

Now when I start Photoshop all of my saved actions are missing. I am having

trouble remembering exactly how I created some of them. Is there a particular

area / folder that I would be able to locate and reinstate the actions I had

previously.

 

I have tried the Photoshop CS2 Actions folder but it just seems to contain the

generic Actions.

Sorry Walter - I was comparing purchasing a D200 from Hong Kong vs purchasing from B&H Photo in the states. In either case the Camera would probably need to be sent overseas for repair.

The Ebay seller Digital REV which I am looking at promises a Local Australian Agent to handle Warranty matters. I have emailed them and am waiting for a reply as to exactly what this means. It would seem likely that the Camera would still have to go back to Hong Kong - although in reality that would probably be quicker and less expensive than going back to the US.

 

The other option for me down here would be to purchase a D200 from B&H as even with postage it's still a few hundred dollars cheaper than any Australian retailer. B&H generally offer two prices - one for an International (outside US) and a slightly more expensive US product. Although in Australia for warranty purposes they both may be the same.

 

The Camera Stores here in Sydney often put a $5-600 AUD markup on the D200 ($1000 AUD more than Ebay price) so you can see why I am looking at other options.

I have seen a number of D200s listed in Hong Kong on Ebay for considerably

less than prices anywhere else. The one I am looking at is about $AUD 400

cheaper than B&H Photo including shipping.

 

Would this be a so called "gray market" camera - what are the implications of

this?

I have a D200 and SB800. I have played around with using the SB800 of camera

before. This weekend I had two weddings and decided to try some shots with the

SB800 of camera on a compact lightstand. I was using the pop up flash to

trigger the SB800.

 

When it worked - the result was much nicer than on camera flash. The trouble

was - every time I changed position it took a number of misfires and moving

the flash around before it synced with the D200. Also - the flash will normaly

only work to the left of the camera due to the positioning of the IR Sensor.

 

There is also a fair lag between shots.

 

The B&G were find and saw the funny side of it.

 

All in all - I think I will be investing in some more pocket wizards which

will fire from anywhere all day everyday.

I got this from a tutorial on Photoshop TV a while back but ony had cause to

use it last week. It's a way of doing a rough colour correction on the run

without going into Levels etc.

 

Duplicate Layer - then Filter/blur/average.

 

You should end up with a solid screen colour - then Image/Adjustments/Invert

(or Ctrl-I).

 

Then change the mode of your duplicate layer to Overlay and lower the opacity

to suit.

 

You can set this up in an Action for multiple files.

Thank you Nadine for all of the advice - that's really given me some ideas on how to set it all up. Much appreciated.

Nadine - do you have a picture of your lighting bag - am interested to see how it all integrates.

Thanks Nadine - I am about to buy a Pro Roller 1 which I like because it has the straps for tripods / light stands. I was hoping to fit most of my gear including Tripod, Compact Light Stands, Unbrellas in the Pro Roller and the stuff I need with me in a small shoulder bag. I have found that having things such as reflectors, tripods etc back in the car means I dont use them as much. Hopefully this will work...

Garry

 

I am looking for more of a portable kit right now - particularly for wedding work.

 

Bob

 

Thank you for sending the cords. They havent arrived yet but should hopefuly soon. Do you shoot through the white umbrella or bounce.

I am wedding photographer and after reading the strobist forum I am keen to

start using some off camera flash. I shelled out for a pocket wizard kit and

some compact Bogfen lightstands. Now I need to purchase a couple of Umbrellas.

I am looking at the Westcott 43" collapsable ones for compactness. I am not

sure whether to get white, silver, one of each or somethign different

altogether.

 

I will be using Nikon SB800 flash units to fire in to the Umbrellas. From what

I have read silver will produce a harsh light with specular highlights, whilst

white will give a softer light at the expense of significant light loss.

 

Any ideas or opinion would be appreciated.

Has anyone purchased this DVD set by Dean Collins.

 

It's highly recomended on the Strobist site. I thought I would seek some

opinions here before shelling out the US$ 125.00. Being at bottom of the globe

once I add postage and convert to Australian Dollars it starts to get

expensive so just wanted to double check.

Why not just shoot against a blank wall and drop a background in later on. If your background is all the same colour the majic wand tool generally does a pretty good job of selecting. You can tidy it up in Quick Mask mode, add a gradient in the background, select a circle marquee (feather 100 or so) and use levels to create the spotlight effect on the background. IMO a background like this looks better than the muslin. You can apply various filters on the background layer to change the effect.<div></div>

Derek,

 

I often try and bounce off the wall, or a combination of wall/ceiling to give the light more of a directional feel. If you have a light source coming from one direction.