joe_garrick

<p>Buy the boat for where you're going, not what you're shooting. If you're in lake country and have a lot of portages to tackle, take a canoe. If you don't have portages, take whatever you prefer to paddle. For access to gear, I think a canoe is more convenient, but as you can see from the other postings many people have found ways to make kayaks work well.</p>

<p>This thread is a little old, but I thought I'd add my thoughts anyway.<br>

<br />The OP is, in essence, correct. You don't need fast glass for landscapes. All of the reasons for getting fast glass are, of course, perfectly valid, but IMO are irrelevant. <br>

If you want to get the biggest bang for your buck in improving your landscapes, take your camera and your kit lens (whatever it is) with you, and put every other dollar you have available into the highest quality and lightest tripod you can get your hands on. Remember that it's worthless if you don't carry it, so if packing a heavy tripod on the trail is too much, then skip adding lenses entirely and spend the extra money on carbon-fiber legs that may break the bank, but not your back. </p>

RE: <I>Supply of replacement parts will sure become short in a few years time.</I>

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That's also true of a whole lot of used equipment other than Bronica. Is anyone still making replacement parts for the Canon FD gear I use? As long as the item you need wasn't rare to begin with, finding parts or complete replacements shouldn't be that hard.

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Of course, if you really want to be sure that you'll always have ready replacement parts and want to shoot 6x6, buy Hasselblad, but be prepared to pay the customary premium prices.

<i>particularly bad for outdoor sports or anywhere there is bright light...</i>

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On the other hand, it won't make any difference if you're shooting in low-light and the flash is providing all of the illumination.

<i>she is also not too keen on waistlevel finders...</i>

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If she hasn't used one extensively, she may simply not have gotten past the adjustment period. It takes a while to get used to them, but I found using a waist level finder to be just as good as an eye level finder and better in some respects.

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Anyway, if she can get past that hurdle, I'd seriously consider an old Rollei twin lens.

How well protected do you want to be? For maximum protection, get a Haliburton aluminum case - virtually indestructible, but instantly recognizable as expensive photo gear and so your stuff will be stolen the first time you set it down out of arms reach. For hard cases, I'm personally a fan of second-hand shop hard-sided luggage - just customize the inside for your stuff and you're set, with the added benefits of not only looking like a well traveled veteran, but also not looking like expensive gear.

 

For soft cases, I've been mighty pleased over the years with my Tamrac bag - plenty of room and nothing has ever been damaged or gotten wet, despite the bag going on several wilderness trips in bad weather. I've used it pretty hard and it's held up well - over more than a decade I haven't worn out at a corner, torn a zipper, or broken a clip of any kind.

<I>Reminds me of how I used to tune a triumph motorcycle 30 years ago...</i>

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God help the Triumph rider who didn't smoke! :-)

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In response to the question about whether this was an ongoing maintenance item or not, although I'm not familiar with this meter, it's been my experience that anything that gets dirty or corroded once will do so repeatedly. I'd plan on cleaning it on a regular basis, and checking it against a known good meter frequently.

<i>a Leica (maybe two)</i>

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I'd have to sell my house to get two Leicas. At least you didn't suggest two 'blads - I'd have to sell my neighbor's house too. I like the Bronica idea though, and I can afford one of those (maybe two).

<I>Think of the distances as f-stops...</i>

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Or multiply or divided by 1.414 (the square root of 2) if your distance doesn't land neatly on an f-stop.

<i>I should shoot in an airplane hanger...</i>

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This is true. You have plenty of length and adequate but not ample width, but the height is going to be extremely limiting. For all but very short adults or children, it's going to be all but impossible to keep the ceiling out of the shot without having the subject within a hair's breadth of the background. This isn't the end of the world, but you'll be limited to seated adults.

Using any T- or A-series camera in manual mode is a three step process.

 

1) Sell the camera.

2) Buy an F-1.

3) Shoot using match needle metering.

 

Sorry, not very helpful, but I couldn't resist. :-)

<I>photo.sig is rampant with tasteless porn ... impossible for me to recommend</i>

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Yes, and go say so in the feedback forum and watch the feeding frenzy from the "fine art" photo fans. I wouldn't mind if they would just get the "art" off the start page so I could load the site up at the office while I'm eating lunch, or look at it at home before my kids all go to bed.

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Anyway, back to the question at hand. Personally, I don't seriously trust a hand held camera at ANY shutter speed. The simple physics of the situation is that even at 1/1000 the camera can move in your hands, but can't move on a solid tripod unless there's a wind or something else to move it. My rule is that unless I'm shooting action of some sort, I put the camera on a tripod. If I'm shooting something that's moving, I use the fastest practical shutter speed (in other words, I favor a fast shutter over wide DOF).

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I'll now turn the forum over to all of the steady-handed types that can shoot their Leica's hand-held at a half second after drinking a large espresso.

<I>I've been making a living shooting available light portraits in England.</i>

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I'm guessing you have studio space or some other indoor location available with lots of glass. Even in Minnesota, there aren't many people hardy enough to attempt to do outdoor portraits in the winter. For five months each year, average temps are below freezing, and for over three months the normal daily high temps are below freezing. The climate in Boston is warmer, but there's still a long stretch of winter when it's really too cold to work outside. I have no idea what the climate is like where you are, but I consider anything below the upper 40s (Fahrenheit) too cold to get reliably good results outdoors, and that's only practical when working with people who are adjusted to winter weather. I find 50-F comfortable with a light coat or sweater, but some people in the southern U.S. consider such a temp intolerably cold.

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I'm not knocking the idea of available light portraiture - in fact I prefer the look of available light myself - but you have to have an indoor location to work here in the winter, and that means either strobes or windows. Unless you already have decent windows available, strobes are cheaper, and we haven't even taken up the issue of early winter sunsets.

Several hundred exposures per day would be commonplace at a high volume portrait shop.

<I>the images end up saying more about the photographer than the child.</i>

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I couldn't have said that better myself.

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Anyway, just shoot a lot of photos, study them with a critical eye, then shoot more. Edit them after you shoot them. You can always decide that a shot you took isn't a keeper, but you can't decide that one you didn't shoot is a keeper. Film is cheap. One day you'll wake up and your six month old baby will be six years old.

Yves Jalbert is correct about equipment. Unfortunately, so is Richard Cochran. IMO, you're going to have a very difficult time making a full time living doing natural light portraits exclusively. I wouldn't want to make my living at the mercy of the weather here in Minnesota where none but the most intrepid individuals would consider outdoor portraits in the winter. In Boston, where your bio indicates you're located, I don't think it would work much better than here in Minnesota.

 

Perhaps there are people around who have managed to be able to earn a living working exclusively with natural light in a climate that has real weather, but I'd guess that they're rare. This means you're going to have to learn to work with strobes eventually.

 

Having said all that, I think the most important thing to remember is that good portraiture has very little to do with photographic technique and a very great deal to do with relating to your subjects. Anyone with average intelligence can be taught technique. Add artistic talent and a person can take fine art photos, but still be a poor portrait photographer. Great portraiture is about revealing the personality of the subject. It's an ability that, in my experience, very few photographers posses.

Just to clarify, I meant that the original three examples posted by Fazal Majid aren't portraits. The others that follow aren't obviously intended to sell something, and so by my definition could be considered as portraits.

It's trendy. Next year this will look out of date because everyone will be shooting up instead of down, or using low key lighting instead of high key, or using earth tones instead of bright pastels, or using some other gimmick.

 

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs or arguing semantics here, but I also wouldn't call most of the examples portraits. They're commercial photos - the people in them are props used to sell something. Portraits are about revealing the personality of the subject. These are decent photos, but I don't think they're intended as portraits.

I agree completely on the voice. I actually failed to recognize my own recorded voice on one occasion.

 

There's a strange dynamic at work when people look at their own photos. Few people will admit to enjoying having their photo taken, nearly everyone enjoys seeing them, but almost no one will admit their own photo is good, even if it is.

My short formula is two bodies with wide angle, fast standard, and medium tele (in the 100-135mm range) lenses. To that add a small flash and a TRIPOD.

 

Yes, they're cumbersome, and heavy, and generally a huge PITA, but I've never regretted taking mine anywhere.

 

On the other hand, I also carried all that and more 35mm junk (at least a couple of other lenses and a cornucopia of miscellaneous widgets) plus a Speed Graphic with sheet film holders, changing bag, etc., on a backpacking trip in the San Juan mountains in SW Colorado, so I could be just plain crazy. I'll let you be the judge.

Perhaps I'm wrong, or just naturally contrary, but I'll swim against the tide here and say that I happen to like having the face in shadow. It seems to make the shot more restful. I think that's why the modified versions with the lightened face just don't look right. It's a somewhat sleepy (or at least very relaxed) expression that looks natural in shadow, but strangely wrong when lit.

 

I think we all see shots of faces and instinctively want the face to be more or less the brightest part of the shot, but it doesn't absolutely have to be that way.

<I>... lack of shutter speed selections.</i>

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Apparently I do have this camera confused with something else. I don't recall ever personally seeing a Canon SLR without manual shutter speed controls, even if they were hopelessly cumbersome to work with in manual mode.

I don't think there's any way to avoid the high cost of flash meters. The Minolta models have generally gotten better and more user friendly over time, but also more expensive. Even a decent used meter is going to set you back a couple of hundred. If you can cough up the cash, you might want to consider the Sekonic (sorry, I can't find the exact model number at the moment) model that includes a 1 degree spot meter along with a normal reflected light meter and incident flash meter. They're expensive (close to $400 for a good used model), but you do cover multiple needs with a single instrument if you have a use for a spot meter anyway.

 

As for the available space, you can get away with having the subject closer to the background if you can find a way to get the lights closer to the subject. It's all about ratios, not fixed distances. Gobos will also help as someone noted if you can work them into the setup. However you do it, the idea is to keep the light from reaching the background and so you can either block it directly or let it fall off on its own.

 

Sorry, but I'm completely unfamiliar with the EOS line. I stopped looking at cameras when they started making the bodies from plastic.

Most reasonable and rational people understand that if a post appears twice it was a mistake on the part of the poster. Those that don't, IMO, should be quietly ignored due to lack of a life and the inability to detect a duplicate post within the first second or two of reading it.

I'm not sure how you're metering this, but apparently it's not with an incident flash meter. Are you getting overexposed faces?

 

In any case, turn off TTL metering if that's what you're using and run the camera and lights on manual. If you don't have a flash meter, run a test roll to find out what aperatures you're going to need at a fixed set of flash to subject distances at full flash power. You can calculate most changes to this once you have an idea of the "standard" settings.

 

In the long run, you're really not going to be able to do this work effectively without owning a flash meter, unless you're willing to work with a short list of tested lighting arrangements or are willing to shoot enough test rolls to learn what aperatures you'll need in nearly every scenario.

 

You'll need about a three stop falloff from subject to background to get the deep black you're looking for. Putting your subject about 20% further from the background than from the lights should do the job if the lights are generally in front of the subject. At normal flash sync speeds (around 1/60 or more) the shutter speed isn't really relevant unless you have an awful lot of ambient light in the room. The flash provides all the light and is brief enough in duration to freeze movement.