guy ronkar

Basically, all the more expensive "pro" lineups will have consistent color temperature across the entire power range, vs for example alienbees which won't. Of course, this is not meant to degrade alienbees in any way, it's up to you to decide if that's important to you or not.

That's why Mark correctly pointed out that you need larger umbrellas/softboxes to achieve the same look then, which means increasing the relative size of the lightsource, and thus getting softer light.

I think there are two separate topics:

 

<ul> <li><b>Triggering the strobes when taking a reading with your meter.</b> <br>Your Sekonic has a standard PC connection, plus the optional wireless trigger module. A PC cord that fits Elinchrome's proprietary connector on the flash should be provided with your flash, and works perfectly for triggering just 1 flash while taking a reading. The other flashes (if you use any) can be triggered by their built-in optical slave. <br><br> The wireless optical trigger module for the Sekonic is manufactured by Pocket Wizard, and is used to trigger Pocket Wizard receivers ONLY, so it will not work with Elinchrome's Skyport receivers.

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<li><b>Triggering your strobes when taking a picture</b>

<br>You can trigger your flashes either by an on-camera flash via the built-in optical slave triggers (be carefull to set the on-camera flash to manual, otherwise you'll have a pre-flash and your Elinchromes will fire too soon). This option is the least recommended, as the on-camera flash will affect your lighting.<br>Otherwise, you can trigger via the provided PC cable connected to your camera (not possible on the 300D), or wirelessly via a radio trigger of some sort, or an infrared trigger and the built-in optical slave.<br><br>Elinchrome has an infrared trigger in their product range which works quite well indoors, outdoors there may be problems in bright sunlight. The infrared trigger is quite affordable and really good.

<br><br>There are a number of radio triggers, including (top of the list, but very pricey) Pocket Wizards, Elinchrome Skyport (new, almost as good as PW's, but more affordable and with more limited range), eBay radio triggers (cheap but unreliable). <br><br>Bowens seems to have radio triggers in their lineup too, but I've got no experience with these.

<br></ul>

<p>The way I usually work is to use the provided PC cable connected to the meter to trigger while taking a reading, and to use either the Elinchrome infrared trigger (before I had the Skyports), or the Elinchrome Skyport trigger and receivers (I do use them exclusively now) to trigger the flashes while taking a picture. <br><br>Hope this helps.

You did not say what kind of triggering method you use. Could it be you are trying to trigger them via the built in optical trigger (cell)? <p>Even though with Elinchrom they work very well inside, usually infrared triggers are way to weak to be of use outside, you can try by simply using the (should be supplied) PC cord, it should give much better results.<p>If you're serious about using your strbes outside, you should look into wireless triggers, like Pocket Wizards, Bowens, etc. Of course, they are a very good investment even if you do only inside studio stuff, no more cable and infrared hassles.

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John is right, you should have no problem. The really only way you could have clogging is if the printer was switched on a long time. <p>Even then, you can use the supplied Epson utility, which does a pretty good job of cleaning your printheads (you do lose some ink though)

The title should be "Andrew", and not "Rodney"<p>Mental note: never do 2 things at the same time....

Of course you're right, D65 is not the same as 6500K. My apologies for that....

<P>

Of course, the rest of my comment still aplies, and is pretty much the same thing you're saying :-)

The industry standard always was and still is D50 (5000K) with Gamma 1.8. But, the general agreement is to calibrate to D65 (6500K) with gamma 2.2 for PC. This is due to the fact that most consumer monitors have a lot of difficulty to obtain sufficient brightness levels to display a clean white when calibrated for D50 with 1.8, especially older ones. You can try it, if your screen displays a somewhat dingy yellow white, you should calibrate to D65 with 2.2. With consumer monitors, you always get the best results by staying as close as possible to the standard color temp (6500), as calibration diminishes most values in the color look-up table of your graphics card, and you end up with not enough "power" to display real whites.<p>This can explain the pink cast (although it is usually rather a yellow one). Your prints will never -exactly- match your screen, due to backlighting vs reflective lighting, Color gamut differences, and of course metamerism, which is the fact that prints look different under different sources of light

BTW, for starters it is always easyer to shoot moving horses in a normal trot (do you call it like that), walk and gallop (??) are much more difficult. You have to look out for the right moment (or just shoot away and hope you get something useful). With a bit of experience, you get the eye for the right moment.<div></div>

Rider....<div></div>

From a photographic point of view, you should view horse portraits just as that: portraits. This means shallow DOF, a nice catchlight in the eyes, avoid cluttered backgrounds, sharp focus eyes, etc.<p>Also, as horses tend to have a rather long nose, stay away from wide angle shots, or you might end up with that classical "Elk"-look :-)<p>Keep in mind that most horse people want a representation of their horse, not an interpretation, so ask before you do B&W (had to learn that one the hard way).<p><br>The best way to photograph riders is usually from your normal eye level. Try out different approaches, but never shoot from exactly in front. Try to always shoot at an angle, up to almost 90 degrees to the side. Most riders make their horse look in the direction in which they are turning, so try to be on the inside of their turn, not on the outside.<div></div>

This can have multiple causes:

<ul><li>In these shots, is only the sky affected, or do you have a general purple cast?

<li>Is you WB correctly set during RAW conversion? Obviously, bad WB gives your image a color cast

<li>Are there any clipped channels (mainly the red channel)? By experience, the 1DmkII like almost any DSLR tends to clip the red channel very easily if you are not careful with your exposure. This leads to a bad relation between the clipped levels and the non-clipped levels of red, thus produces a color cast

<li>What type of adjustments do you do during RAW conversion? Do you clip some of the highlights? (see above)

</ul>

<p>In PS, you can correct for this by selecting the affected color range, and changing the color (preferably with the channel mixer)

I think you might be asking the wrong question...<p>Looking at the tests mentionned above, you can see that there is not really a big difference in noise characteristics between the two, certainly there is no noticeable difference for A3 sized prints.<p>If noise is your only concern, you will be very well served with the 20D. I owned a 10D previously, before switching to the 1DmkII, and as far as noise is concerned, they're pretty much alike.<p>The 1DmkII has other big advantages over the 20D (AF, Speed, Buffer size, built quality, etc.), but that depends on the type of shooting you do.<p>Noise characteristics alone do not justify the $3000 difference....

Obviously I'm not Garry, but maybe I can answer the question :-)

<p>You will not overexpose in this case (mixing continous light and flash). By setting the aperture to the indicated f-stop, you expose for the flash. By setting the shutter speed, you expose for the continous light. The duration of the flash is so short that it won't make any difference what shutter speed you use, only the aperture is important. So by setting your aperture, you expose correctly for the flash, which is the most prominent light source. Setting the shutter speed doesn't make a difference for the total exposure, but it ensures that you can actually see the light from the continous light source in the final shot.

<p>Of course, I'm waiting for Garry to correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure no expert on these things)

<p>Hope this helps

<p>Guy

I suppose you did get good results before, so maybe it's not a problem with your color management, but with your printer. I had the same problem, getting a blue colorcast on all my prints.

<p>Have you tried declogging the nozzles? Clogged printheads can cause a colorcast, at least that was the problem with mine.

<p>Do you have the problem on all prints, or just this one? What settings do you use?

<p>Hope this helps....

<p>Guy

Rod, of course you can take pictures without ever looking at the histogram, and they will not necessarily be bad. Also the histogram doesn't tell you if the shot is good or not, not even if youre exposure is correct (there is no such thing as CORRECT exposure).

<p>BUT:<br>

1. It gives you a way of judging if the exposure is what you intended it to be. The LCD is only usable for judging composition, not for colors nor exposure.

<br>2. It gives you an indication if technically the shot is good, meaning you have not blown the highlights, and to a lesser extent, you still have shadow detail left. If you ever shot slide film, you know what I'm talking about. In digital, there is no worse than blown out highlights, just like for slide film.

<p>Of course, you can always bracket, but in your 45 years, how many shots have you thrown away because the exposure was simply off, you blew the highlights, whish you had bracketed, etc.? The histogram gives you a very valuable tool to know in advance if you have to retake the shot, or if it is technically acceptable. This simply cannot be judged by looking at the LCD alone. You then of course still have to judge if the exposure is really what you wanted, no histogram in the world can replace your brain.

<p>Regards,

<p>Guy

<p>I think your question about the 10D has been completely answered... :-)</p>

<p>If you want to learn about histograms, you can find a very good explanation at<br>

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml</p>

<p>Hope this helps...</p>

Guy