keith_van_hulle1

Are you sure, Jim? My 500 Super works fine on my Elan7 but results suck (except full manual) on my 30D. I thought only the DG's worked properly on Canon digitals with any level of automation.

Well, based on some of the reasoning above, then it's perfectly OK to charge your own church for time and expenses when they ask people to come in and do room or outside painting or yard cleanup. For some small or poorer churches that don't have a lot of their own resources, based on this, you'd charge them for bringing your lawnmower along with a separate charge for the gas on a Saturday spring cleanup get-together? Or charge for your time when you help serve meals to the homeless? Charging for bringing Rice Krispie treats to Sunday School? Or any of the myriad other activities that a church's congregation would normally be involved in? What makes photography so special?

 

Maybe the OP should just tell the pastor to get someone who'll do it for free so the church doesn't have to spend more money? I'm thinking that's what most conscientuous church members would do - think of the church before one's self.

I would suggest a bunch of NPH for the daytime and inside. You will lose something with the B&W at the shows considering the colors. Maybe some NPZ with the 50? I would only take the 3, the 50, the 24-105 and a single 430. This is based on what you have and a trip-a-year experience and avergaing ~3 rolls/day. And you'll feel the weight by day 3. I always take an Olympus Epic for the shirtpocket when I've had enough "photography". And a mini/tabletop tripod for the backpocket. You can do some amazing 1 sec+ exposures with it at night.

Has nothing to do with the camera. FAT16 only supports partition sizes <2GB. And FAT16 is a somewhat inefficient scheme anyway. Regardless of what you see, FAT16 part's >2GB are not supported by Windows. You may be able to take pictures but you've been warned.

Not to muddy the waters but I would suggest looking at a Tamron 17-50/2.8. Since it's faster, it'd basically make up for the loss of IS and the aperture is constant thru the zoom range. You've got something a little wider for getting close to the child and IQ should be close enough to the Canons. You lose the long end but IMO, for child shooting, it'd be worth it.

You really need to define what you consider ultra-compact. The LX2 is not necessarily that. Are you talking size, weight or both? These weren't part of your original criteria.

Panasonics are not necesssarily known for having low noise in general. A Canon A630/640 or S80, maybe?

I'd point out that several of the problems deal with the 3rd-party application s/w and not the OS but that would probably fall on deaf ears.

Traditional - Arboretum. Edgier - West End. Odd - Ft Worth Stockyards, Ft Worth Water Gardens. Lake Texoma should have some Bluebell fields if you want to be really Texan. Depends on the when.

At the risk of getting flamed, my advice would be to search the archives since this subject has been covered several times in the past.

<i>"Why do you want to hack your own digicam? "</i>

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If you have to ask why, you'll never understand. Does there have to be a reason or purpose?

You might want to check the archives. I could swear I remember a post about this last year and, in Oz, for weddings, the client owns the copyright. I remember because I thought it so odd. But I could be having a brain fart too.

<i>I probably spent $100,000 to get that image </i>

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Must be one hell of an image to cost that much for you to shoot it.

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<i>So why the hell do they expect it for free? </i>

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Because that's how extremely small, non-profit groups function in order to survive in today's economy. Unless you've never been in band or had a child there, you have no idea of the dynamics involved.

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<i>a request for my work for free is just a huge insult</i>

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Wow, that's a new one. Why find it insulting?

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<i>I can barely eat on my earnings as a photographer </i>

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This shouldn't be suprising, most photographers DON'T make a living at it. Maybe you need to look at other careers.

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<i>which by the way, they have already downloaded illegally</i>

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You sound surprised; if they're doing it, why not others? Why don't you take steps to protect your IP?

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<i>so how can people still expect a free photograph</i>

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You need to get out more. That's basically life in the real world for anyone who doesn't spend time here on PN. To them, it's JUST A PICTURE, not a world-class work of art.

1 - Yes, the side pockets are detachable.

2 - Yes, you should be able to use any shoulder strap

3 - No, the belt is sticthed in and folds in behind the back padding, otherwise the compression strapping wouldn't work

4 - Not sure

 

I would suggest the OffRoad, the Trails are kinda small. My OffRoad is one of my favorite small bags. The cool thing is you can tighten the belt and shoulder strap to the point you can slow jog and maintain a stable/secure load.

First of all, where are you shooting from? The boards or the stands? Where in relation to the rink? Penalty box, midline, corners, behind the goal? What area of the country? I ask that as some areas of the country, in general, are better lit than others. What level of skater? Speed makes a difference; more experience=faster motion.

 

Manual is fine. On average, 800ISO @f4 and 125/250 should get you just slightly underexposed shots (except for the northeast, my daughter has skated at rinks in every part of the country so I have a feel for average lighting). Some places suck (north- and upper mid-west) and you just put the camera way. Others are a dream (Calif, the south, and lower midwest). Yes, you can get by with a f4 lens, just need to be a little careful. If you go much faster on the shutter, you really risk underexpsoure and the resultant grainy shots.

 

Shoot in the corners to about halfway to the midline on the boards if you can. Learn the routine and pre-focus on areas of the ice where they'll be and anticipate. Proper placement at the rink, relative to the skater is VERY important. At the ends (slightly offcenter) or the corners is optimal. Only in the middle if you have to, then you'll want to take pictues when the skater is at either end. If you try to take a pic from the middle as they skate by, it won't work, you don't have fast enough relfexes. As they get closer, their speed "seems" to be magnified (think doppler effect). Much easier to track farther away as the move perpendicular to you. Unless you're REALLY good at panning. The more advanced skaters move at a good clip. This is where you get bitten. If they're moving towards or away from you, and you're wide open (say you had a 2.8 lens), they'll be out of the DOF so fast it becomes frustrating. So stopping down a little will help (sometimes).

 

You will have to find ways around the AF speed, it's an issue. But it can be done. Probably need to practice some and expect only ~25% keeper rate.

 

Spins just require good timing as they subject has no forward motion. Only shoot (pre-focus) as the face comes around to you. Not when, press the shutter right befor they face you. The lag will make the difference. Jumps are another story. Lutz, Flip and Toe Loop jumps are easier than edge jumps (they plant the pick before the jump and this slows the skater down). You have to be ready for the plant. Axel, Loop, and Salchow are tougher as the skater doesn't slow as much.

 

I won't say go buy a DSLR and fast lens as you're a skating father. That means you have no money, especially when its time to buy new boots and blades. But if you can, life would be better.

I think Steve has the better solution. Doesn't the Epson only display the JPG requiring you shoot in RAW+JPG (I could be wrong). Besides, at their price (and the Jobos), you could buy a small laptop and have a lot more bang for the buck.

 

For just data xfer and storage, Wolverine units are highly recommended and a good deal. 60Gb for ~$150 or so.

Add the time and expense of securing all those weddings. Subtract the hit you'll take for income taxes. Even without the latter, I doubt yu'll find yourself making more than an actual $15/hour.

If you're just looking to offload cards, why not just something like a Wolverine standalone unit? 80gigs for ~$160 right now. No, it doesn't burn but you can't beat the price, size and capacity.

Load up NetMon, take a trace, and check out what's happening with the packets. The only way to know what is going on. Anything else is speculation, hearsay and assumptions. Not the best way to tshoot a comm problem. With a trace, you could at least identify what layer the problem is occurring on and proceed from there.

One of the newer Canon A- series with a flip screen might work. Your distortion misinformation has been corrected but <i>" thought about a DSLR, but without LIVE PREVIEW, it is useless to photograph artwork. "</i> probably needs to be addressed too.

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A Rebel would be a good choice with the right lens. What size artwork are you shooting? From how far away? My daughter used my 30D with a 50/1.8 for her portfolio submission to NFAA for scholarship consideration. You has easy control over your exposure variables, better focus control, choice of lens and can easily vary exposures and then choose the best from multiple shots, including RAW. Yes, many P&S's allow full control but the menus are a pain to do that.

They go by several names. Resellerratings.com gives them a .16 out of 10. Stay away from them like the plague. Stick with locals like Costco, Best Buy and CircuitCity or mailorder like B&H or Adorama. Anything else gives you a better than 50/50 chance of throwing your money away or costing you more in the long run.

You didn't ask how to "shoot a bloody sharp portrait." You asked about what is considered normal in comparing two shots from two different cameras with a myriad number of variables and can't undestand why the photos aren't exactly the same (that SEEMS to be your exptectation). The Nikon works better for you. Great. No prob. Yeah, they probably do have better flash algorithms if nothing else. But to make a blanket statement that one camera is obviously better than the other in all respects sounds very foolish to some of us.

At our site (one of the top 5 most visited web sites in the world), between logs and usability studies, it's a toss between 800x600 and 1024x768. Also, note that dial-up is still the most preferred manner of access in the world too. By a VERY large margin. Unless you only want to cater only to those with a big pipes, keep that in mind from a content perspective.

How are you evaluating what is a keeper? Based on averages, you're shooting 3 exposure every two minutes for 8 hours straight. If you have trouble finding the top 20% out of that, maybe you could chnage your standards or HOW you evalute them? When you say portfolio, I'm assuming you're meaning a proof book? Such a thing with ~800 shots isn't chump change either and that'd seem to be a place to cut costs. TOO many choices can overwhelm a couple also.

First, don't use flash. Secondly, try to at least come up with more equivalent lenses. Third, use a tripod. Fourth, use the same lighting conditions. Fifth, use the same exposure settings. Sixth, set all other camera settings as close as possible. Seventh, use RAW. Eighth, use a standard test pattern sheet for the subject.

 

When you've done all that, then post equivalent crops and we'll have a more accurate idea of what's what. Everything else is just piddling in the wind. Making a claim based on the OP info and one single pic doesn't seem a very common sense approach.