jake_holt

"There are 2 very fine, and faint lines of what appears to be missing pixels... The

first line is about 1/4 of the way down the screen, and the other line is about 3/4 of

the way down the screen. Is this the sign of wear and tear on a used monitor? Or is

there any way to get rid of these lines by using the geometry settings?"

This is due to support wires inside the monitor - my Apple monitor had the same

issue and tech support send me a bulletin with the facts.

How dare you say I made all that up, right off the top of my head, in a stream-of-

consciousness rant! Really, I don't need to get help - I'm also a Professional

Psychologist!

Yes, Mark, I have to admit I was incorrect. I actually got a job with ESPN magazine,

not SI. It's a simple mistake. It's just that, I 've never shot or watched sports before, so

I wasn't really familiar with the difference. And I'm not actually a photographer for

National Geographic, I was actually hired as Photo Editor. Sorry about the mix up! And

about the website, it's made for monitors made more recently than 1995, or by that I

mean larger than 800x600. If you view it on 800x600, the galleries will not be their

full size, and in some browsers they will cover up my name and some links. Yes, I

know this, and I deem it acceptable, as my clientele isn't generally using 10 year old

computers. Hopefully I will get a new and improved, all access site up soon, but for

now, I gotta deal with a few compromises. Oh yes - thanks, Curtis!

Actually, I'm both lame and a masochist - I learned to use my 20D completely in 5

minutes and have won countless awards in the 3 weeks since I've had it, plus I just

landed jobs at Sports Illustrated and National Geographic. Trust me, a wedding is

important and stressful, but it's not the presidential inauguration or a moon landing.

Go to the wedding, take pictures of human beings and don't freak out. If you've never

taken pictures of humans before, ok, you may have a problem. Be honest with

yourself - if you are not confident in your abilities and if you are not VERY familiar

with RAW processing, your D100 and flash (particularly fill-flash and bounce

technique), bow out. If you are confident and have work to show that you have a

grasp of photography, it is not the hardest thing in the world to shoot a wedding.

<a href="http://www.jakeholtphotography.com">jakeholtphotography.com</a>

6 - 4GB cards? On my 20D, 1GB gives me abot 120 shots in RAW, so that equals out

to 24GB x 120 = 2880 shots! And you wil get more on the D100 due to the smaller

file size. Umm, that would be enough if the wedding lasted for 2 days. Be sure to

have extra batteries!

In regards to the wedding - don't get too freaked out! Ok, if you don't know your

equipment very well, and don't completely understand RAW processing, run away, but

the fact that you have a great flash and nice, fast lenses gives me the opinion that you

have at least half a clue about what you are doing. I was in the same situation a few

years ago - it was fun, but stressful. It gave me my start in the business, and some of

the shots were so good that I still have a few in my portfolio. Just let them know what

you can and can't do and be honest. If they have seen your stuff before and they like

it, well then, just shoot like you always shoot. Ask them what they like about what

you've done in the past, and go with it. Long shutter speeds? B&W? Shallow DOF?

Incorporate some of your style in a mix with nice, properly exposed "standard" shots

and they will probably be happy. Have you ever gone around taking pics at a party?

Just do the same thing, while keeping in mind what is happening next and what a

good angle/spot will be. Talk to the coordinator. The one at my first wedding was

very helpful and understanding.

Some tips - my big first time mistakes - 1 - using too wide of an angle for some

formals and distorting facial features, duh, but I was flustered. 2 - don't get flustered!

Be confident, it will show in your work. 3 - The SB800 (or in my case, 550EX) is not

more powerful than the sun - another duh! - but I was, again, flustered. Sundown

wedding is a tough one. Anyway, good luck! Just do what you always do, with lots of

backup equipment.

<a href="http://www.jakeholtphotography.com">jakeholtphotography.com</a>

ummm, ok, or just take a look at the thread right above this in the Canon EOS forum.

I guess I should look at all the posts in the morning.

Check out this post: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/

showthread.php?t=49908

It's long, about 14 pages. In short, the grips are faulty, because 1- the little post that

goes up into the battery compartment of the 20D to tell the camera that the battery

compartment is closed is too short and 2- the screw mount is too far off center,

allowing the flex that allows the short post to disconnect and turn off the camera.

Canon's warranty fixes don't work, and they don't know exactly how to fix it, because

it needs a complete redesign. All of the grips have problems if you try hard enough to

disconnect them, such as using a big flash in the hot shoe and a big heavy lens while

using only the grip to support the camera, or, as you said, using a bracket. How often

I would actually use the camera in that fashion without supporting the lens is

questionable, but it's still disappointing that Canon's development process didn't

catch this problem. There is one good "homemade" method of fixing this issue

(extending the post with some rubber or felt) in the message that I linked you to, but

when I did it I got a low battery indicator with 2 fully charged batteries, so the fix

created another problem. Anyway, it seems as if Canon can't fix it, so I recommend

either returning it to your dealer (is that Precision you mention as your local "arrogant

dealer?" I live in Austin too - and yes that description fits quite well. I actually work

right across the street at your friendly local giant overpriced conglomerate) or just

living with it without putting too much pressure on the grip. I'm actually going to try

using some double sided 3M strips between the camera and the grip to really secure

them, hopefully that will work. Apparently Canon tried to rush out the 20D and all of

its accessories without enough QC - at least your 20D wasn't broken right out of the

box like mine was! Good Luck!

<a href="http://www.jakeholtphotography.com">jakeholtphotography.com</a>

Oh yes, if you do decide to do it yourself, spend TONS of time looking at as many

other wedding photographer's sites as possible, bookmarking them, making notes

about what you like, hate, etc. Try going on the Knot.com and look at as many sites

as you can tolerate, to really narrow down your ideas. Good luck.

I very recently went through the same process. My final decision was to do it myself,

against many people's recommendations. Why? Well, I feel that as photographers, it is

part of what we do to have an eye for aesthetics and composition. And while I know

that isn't all that a website is about, it is a very big part. Personally, I felt reasonably

qualified - I was an art and design major for two years before switching to

philosophy, so I figured all that money and time spent should pay off somewhere.

Here's what I've done so far, the first site I've ever done:

http://www.jakeholtphotography.com/index.htm

Ok, so it's still incomplete, and I'm aware some may really dislike it, but it's pretty

much just what I wanted, and I'm pretty satisfied so far. (no info yet on what

prospective clients think) I knew basically what I wanted, and had sketched it out, so I

figured, hey, why pay someone to do what I can probably figure out. That was the

toughest part. I used Dreamweaver, and I consider myself reasonably computer

literate, but it was a much more difficult program to learn than say, Photoshop. You

will probably need to buy a book, which I did and still had to do lots of trial and error

learning. Dreamweaver is not very intuitive, and I quickly learned that just because I

wanted something to be a certain way didn't mean the program would let me do it.

I'm sure that actually learning HTML would make it much less stressful, but I consider

that a goal that I will slowly progress to over time.

The main benefits of designing your own site, (other than saving tons of cash) in my

opinion, are

#1 - the fact that you can add, remove or change parts of the site(or the entire site)

when you see fit

#2 - you can truly design your site just how you want to reflect your personality/

philosophy/style

#3 - a real sense of accomplishment (if it works!)

Seriously, if you believe that you have an eye for design and composition, don't mind

spending tons of time in front of your computer, and feel that you know what you

want from your site, then go for it. You can learn how to do it, even if it takes a bit.

Then, you've developed yet another talent!

Just go handle the Rebel XT - unless you have hands the size of a five year old, it's

probably going to feel too small. I work at a camera shop, and when it came in last

week we were all excited until we held it - disappointment all around. Wayyyy

uncomfortable, the grip is tiny, the viewfinder is unbelievably tiny, way worse than

the D70. I'm a Canon guy in general, but I would take the D70 in a second over the

Rebel XT, regardless of the extra pixels. I'd actually rather have a 6 meg Rebel than

the XT, just because of the smallness. And I do not have big hands, either. Plus, I

think the D70 kit, with a much better lens, still has a $200 rebate. Just my 2 cents.

A few years back, I nuked a roll of color film in a dark bag with no canister, for, I

think, a couple of minutes. Sadly, absolutely nothing happened. This was post-

exposure.

In response to the part of the question, "Colours were all out of whack, image was

washed out, etc..." the problem is, as Beau said, that you need to convert to sRGB

before using save for web. I had this same problem, and it was solved by using this

method. In some cases, the end result was even over-saturated. I'll post 2 examples,

one processed through Save For Web without switching to sRGB, and one processed

after switching to sRGB. Hope it helps.<div></div>

Okay, I tried to post a photo and wasn't able too. For an example, go to my portfolio

and look at the wedding photo of the bride dancing with her father and streaks of

yellow light in the background.

It scans to make the output equal 300 ppi. For example, if you order a 10x15, the

Frontier creates a 4500x3000 file to be printed. The quality will be lower, by that I

mean more noise/grain, if the operator has the setting called "hyper sharp" turned

on. The photo below was made on a Frontier scanning at 300X4500, hyper sharp off.

Could you post an example of one of the poor prints you've had made?

I was just testing out this combo at the camera store which I work at a couple of days

ago. While these are boring pics, (I was mostly testing the FEC on the 580 EX) maybe

they can help a bit.<div></div>

Where was it printed? Frontiers use a sharpening algorithm that exaggerates grain in

underexposed film, makes it look like digital noise. It can be turned off, but it will still

look strange due to the fact that it is a digital scan. I work on a Frontier, and in

general, underexposed frames are pretty much lost causes. Try to find a place that

still uses an optical printer.

On a Frontier, a high-res scan (4500x3000) can be made, if the tech knows how. The film

has to be scanned and exported at 10x15 print size, and then, in the digital menu, "CD

from digital" needs to be selected instead of "CD from film." The resulting files will still be

compresssed into jpeg format, but the quality is sufficient, in my experience, to print at

least up to a 10x15. If "CD from film" is selected, the Frontier will compress the files down

to 1800 x 1200, even if they are scanned at 10x15. As far as price goes, that all depends

on who you go to. Ritz camera, for example, doesn't even officially offer the service, as it

is wayyy too time consuming.