aron

With the cost of mounting tape(since I cannot squeeze my images through the front of the mat without damaging them as Art Leather recommends), I am sure it will just be better to have a pro do them. I may be confused, but when I talked to Art Leather, they said they were getting out of assembly. I think now that maybe they meant that they were no longer printing(Montage albums). I will contact them, but I am assuming that I will have to send them a story board, and I hate their software. Anyway, I love their albums so it makes up for it.

I did a search but didn't see what I was looking for. I am looking

for a company that can assemble my traditional Art Leather Futura

albums(or other suggestions). I do not like doing this myself. Are

there any companies that let you design & print these style albums

all online? and then send you the finished book. I am set on my

coffe table & flushmounts, but would like an assembly source for my

more classic designs.

I have had good experience with their(cornerstone) customer service. Had a problem with a book and they are replacing it no questions asked and made suggestions based on my needs to resolve. I am currently waiting on my first proof albums or I would give specifics. I use cornerstone & art leather. The only thing I didn't like about Art Leather is the Prelude Proof albums. I tried everything to get the images in, but couldn't do it. It was like a vacuum air tight seal that wouldn't be bothered with my petty pictures. I have had success with every other proof album I tried, but I have several of these on my shelf that are basically collecting dust. Every few months I take them out and try to insert images just to see how mad I can make myself.

MARY, question,. I looked at these albums and they looked amazing, but what turned me off was that the selection was a little confusing and they mentioned that the image had to be trimmed to the exact size of the cut out. What is the mounting process? I ask becasue there are some pretty non standard size cutouts. Would I need to just trim these(my images) down?

Thanks to all. Sounds like the Sony is a lock.

I am interested in buying a digital to do nothing but infrared

shots. It will have to be able to accept filters. From all I have

read, my 20D's will require a very long exposure time and since I

would like to use these to give my bride/grooms one or two of these

very interesting shots from each wedding, I do not want them to try

to hold still for 15 or 20 seconds. Just wouldn't be sharp enough

and would be a little uncomfortable for them. I am ok with point &

shoots since the majority of shots will be made with my 20D's and

these will be more of a nice album shot. Any ideas?

I use it. It has been absolutley great for bounce. I have had some wierd results when pointing directly at my subjets, but other than the size, it really is a good piece of equipment.

I use it. I think its great. But you already know that. I think they both can print across the gutter.

Good points about depth of field. I do not focus and then rotate the plain. If I am shooting vertical, I compose vertical to focus.

My 70-200l F/4 & my 17-40l f/4 are both soft in comparison to my cheap 18-55 kit lens. A fluke maybe, but those lenses also produce better contrast & color so they are still very effective after some sharpening. As for focus points, I focus recompose so I have never used anything but center. On the Canon survey they actually ask if numerous foucs points was a determing factor for buying the camera and I just laugh. I just need one. I realize that when on a tripod, it is helpful to have many, but the truth is once I compose a shot when tripod mounted, even with nine focus points, usually none of them line up with where I have to focus so I have to focus recompose anyway so I don't have much use for them.

Oh goodness no, I never use Walmart.. I'm even scared that my name has appeared in the same sentance. I was just saying that if I found a lab that uses Crystal Archive paper, my customers may associate that with Walmart, where as Kodak Endura is commonly understood as a professional paper. I think EJ said though that there are labs using better grades of Crystal archive. I actually use MPIX periodically and I think they are going to now get all my business. I e mailed them today and I think the solution to the large prints is to order them on a matboard. This will take away the headache of worrying about damaging the prints. Thanks,

EJ, do you know of a good lab. I am seriously looking and have been contacting them today.

"Hmmm. From the sound of this thread, it seems we need to unionize and get tough with the low-ballers. Anyone shooting a wedding for $150 might get tangled up in his tripod legs and have a nasty fall... ;-)"

 

That is hilarious... Where's Jimmy Hoffa?

Most depreciation is pretty standard. Tell them that you purchase photo equipment and they will advise you to depriciate cameras etc. Careful to depreciate only what you have to because in many states once you declare equimenet, it then becomes taxable under your business property tax(at least in SC).

OK, my current lab uses Kodak Endura paper and most prints I have

coated lustre. Questions/comments as follows:

 

1. Please suggest a good lab that does not make me jump through

hoops to set up an account and upload my images. Ease of use is key.

2. Are there different grades of Endura paper because: on the back

of my prints, there seems to be fine sanded circles etched in to the

paper and it seems a little more flimsy that the samples I received

from Pictage. Also, I received a print today for a flush-mount album

and I could see the image stamping through the front of the print.

Is Endura this thin? It is almost identical to that of Pictage, but

just want to make sure there are not different Endura levels.

3. My old lab used Kodak Royal which was thicker than Endura. Endura

prints just had a much better shine. It seems like if I just look at

my Endura prints larger than 8x10 the wrong way, they will get a

ding.

4. Is there another paper out there that is better than Endura

(Crystal archive just seems like Wal Mart to me- since that is what

Wal Mart uses)and I like that Endura is a professional paper. The

look is great, but I don't know why they call it Endura because the

paper is flimsy. Maybe it holds its color longer, but Royal was so

much stronger. I have old royal prints next to both my labs & the

Pictage samples.

 

Any lab suggestions(online sign up a must).

I still use as back up to my 20D, only limitations are low light focusing(key at weddings) not bad, but 20D is definately better. Only other limitiation is wake up time. If you do not use power save mode this will be a problem. All and all. I like my 10D very much and will keep it as a back up until it dies. I have never strained the buffer, or wanted to use higher than 1600 iso(noise is not a problem with noise ninja). You do have to work the exposure a little, but not any more than my 20D(exposure compensation is my friend), but it tought me a lot.

Thanks for the comments(auto white balance). I see one of you has used the cloudy setting. Has anyone tried shooting in Sunny to try to emulate daylight film. I end up with good results using color correction, but just trying to find a better solution to get it right the first time and save myself some work. I am shooting about 300 images a week with this body and color correcting all my outdoor shots gets a little time consuming. I seem to have trouble in anything other than perfect sunlight, or on camera (420)flash. Let me ask you this.. What color space are most of you shooting in?

Basic question. I have had 2 digital Rebels, 3 10D's and I have used

my 20D in about 7 weddings so far. What I have noticed about the 20D

is that the auto White balance is not even close. Being that I shoot

so many images, trying to constantly use custom white balance is

kind of out of the question for anything but the portraits. I am

finding it to be extremely yellow in most pictures(NON FLASH).

Anyone else getting this. I liked the white balance results I used

to get from day light film, but do not have a lot of test subjects

to use the daylight setting (or sunny) setting on my 20D. Anyone

getting good results doing this or will I just have to keep

correcting all my images with bullseye? Note that the white balance

on my 10D's was always pretty good.

Correction to my earlier post. 1200 dpi was for jpeg text. 600dpi was what they wanted for tiff text. Now 300 dpi was still good for images.

When I did my postcards, they recommended 1200 dpi for text so that is what I did. You will probably be fine with 300dpi for images.

I like the steptab, I will copy and paste that for later.

How are the higher quality lcd's with angle of view? It seems the lap top ones are of varying degrees of light or dark based on the angle at which you happen to view that image when edited.

I use a Spyder to calibrate, but my budget is not quite that high right now. Probably no more than $600. Will an Apple display work with PC?

Please read through and offer suggestions. I was using an LCD(only

the crappy one on my lap top) and due to its weaknessess, I chose to

purchase a CRT and love it. The problem with my lcd was no matter

how hard I tried to calibrate it, the brightness and contrast simply

were not even close. I thought I was over exposing images but was

actually under. The CRT works great, but I want a bigger(19")

monitor, but simply do not have the room for the huge depth of it.

 

Question: does anyone make a very or at least more thin version of a

CRT? Or are there LCD's that can more accurately represent correct

brightness, contrast, color & saturation?

 

Thanks,

Bill, I was riveted. I was actually waiting for the "you guys are stupid, you don't need all that gear, you can get perfect lighting in a huge church with on camera lighting and no background shadows while hand - holding at 1/30 iso 3200", but, you didn't say that so I was disappointed.