oliver_sharp1

I don't always do so, but I have a simple release with a minimum of legalese in it and sometimes use it when I'm working with somebody I don't know. The release says, effectively, that both the model and the photographer are free to use the results for promotional purposes and neither will sell the images without consent from the other. It also says that the model freely consents to the images being taken. If you are just putting images in a portfolio, I don't think it's so critical to have a release (insert the usual disclaimer about not being a lawyer). However, if you want to put images on a public web site that are nudes or otherwise potentially controversial, or if you do pretty much any kind of shoot with somebody who is underage, I definitely think it's worth having the release. Mine has a spot for the parent/guardian to sign. In general, there are a number of potential pitfalls to working with underage models, and I very rarely do.

 

If you'd like a copy of my release, feel free to contact me - there isn't anything especially unique about it vs. the others on the web, except that it is more succinct. I don't like confronting people with an intimidating document full of language they aren't sure they understand.

I visited Istanbul a few years ago and had a wonderful trip. As far as tripods and mosques, the policy varies. The larger and more popular ones have an area roped off for onlookers, and I used a small tripod without anyone seeming to be bothered by it. I did leave it unextended, so I stayed close to the ground and didn't make any noise. As long as you are quiet and unobtrusive, I would expect that you would not be bothered - remember that these are working places of worship. However, tripods were forbidden in at least some of the smaller mosques. In the two that I know of, there was no separated area for visitors, so I'm guessing that may have something to do with it.

 

It's a great city for a photographer - if you do some scouting during the day, you can get some splendid shots early at sunrise or at dusk. Some ideas: cross the bridge and shoot the older part of the city from a good vantage point on the opposing hillside, and take the boat ride up the river late in the afternoon. That was a really excellent trip (and you can do a nice hike at the northernmost stop, up to an old ruin on the hillside with nice views.

 

Have a great trip!

Designing a backup system is as much a matter of psychology as it is of technology. If the user is diligent enough, many systems will work. But most people aren't, and so it is more important that your approach be minimal effort and/or automatic than that it be optimally secure. For me, if I have to do more than double-click on an icon, my frequency of backup goes from every few days to every several months. I have tested this hypothesis and can back it up with solid empirical data :-). The only media that is affordable today and that can sustain one-touch backup is another hard disk. I used to use DDS DAT drives, but they have been left way behind by the explosion in storage requirements. So you are stuck with spinning backup, which is not ideal, but disks are cheap enough that there is a pretty simple and quite safe approach.

 

My solution, then, is to buy two external drives that are exactly the same size as your internal storage. Put one on your machine, and set up an icon on your desktop that runs a script to incrementally update the files on the external drive (I use robocopy on XP, a free utility from MS). Double-click it now and then (this usually takes a minute or two to run for several dozen gigabytes, if you haven't made too many changes). Put the other drive on your machine at work. Every now and then, swap them. You now have instant access to your backup, it can be read normally on other machines with no special software, you can restore your world after a catastrophic failure with some reasonable amount of effort, you have one-touch backup, and you have a relatively recent off-site backup in case of something like a fire.

There have been some good responses on this thread as to why one might get an MFA and how it differs from straight vocational training. However, the original question was about the H1. I would strongly advise you not to purchase it .. yet. There is nothing wrong with the H1 - it's a lovely camera, for certain uses. But in my opinion, you shouldn't spend so much money on a system that will depreciate so quickly, until you know what you actually need. If you decide you want to specialize in architecture, it will be a poor choice. If you decide to focus on still life, ditto. You mentioned landscapes; it is by no means the optimal system for that, either. While of course you can use it in all three cases, in many situations you are likely to need movements and want to work with a view camera. So I wouldn't spend all my discretionary income on a system until you are as sure as you can possibly be that it is the very best choice for your particular area(s) of focus. It wouldn't matter so much if you were getting something relatively inexpensive or easy to turnover to another buyer for a modest round trip cost. In the present environment, you can get amazing deals on medium format gear that is used; it makes a lot more sense to me to get something like that rather than a brand new extremely expensive system. The pictures won't be any different - an old beater Hassy 501 or a used Mamiya RZ with decent glass will give you all the quality you could possibly need. You might enjoy using the H1 more, but I wouldn't make that your top priority yet.

 

I'd also wait until I got to school anyway, since they will often have loaner gear, special deals from manufacturers, etc and you can make a more informed decision then when you see what you need in practice rather than in theory.

 

Best of luck in any case.

I've found the 105/2 DC lens to be a really splendid lens, with excellent sharpness. That isn't actually my highest priority for a portrait lens, but with good makeup and lighting to control the way the skin looks, it's nice to have the resolution when you want it. The background blur is very smooth and the lens has solid construction and nice feel. The autofocus speed is ok, but you don't seem to be worried about that and it's certainly adequate if you aren't shooting something that is fast-moving.

 

One other idea: if you really like your existing lens, you can get a chip inserted into it that will allow your D70 to meter properly with it. The chip tells the camera what aperture the lens is (Nikon sells a few manual lenses like this, such as the 85 2.8 tilt/shift). That way you can keep using your favorite lens on both cameras.

I was a great fan of the T90, which was my only camera for years. When I switched to Nikon, I got the F100 as the closest analog I could find, and it was a great choice. I have an F3 as a backup manual camera and it's great, but to my way of thinking it is a lot more like an F1 than a T90. The T90 was a polycarbonate camera with built in winder that is wonderfully molded to the hand - a solid automatic camera. It had a great spot metering system for the manually inclined - the metering display was a really intelligent use of electronics. The F3 is a simple hockey puck built like a tank with a pretty primitive metering approach/display. Both are great cameras, but they have quite a different feel. The F4 is also a reasonable comparison, but it's much heavier. I liked the T90 because it was solid but not overly heavy, like the F100. This is all very subjective, of course, so you should try all three and see which fits your style best.

Sean, I think you would get more useful advice if you gave us an idea of the type of photograph you will be doing. Are you doing an abstract black and white nude, or a blurred motion shot, or an evocative headshot? Shooting her running through the water at the beach or a studio shot? The kind of advice you give her might include what to wear, what hair and makeup styling to do, where to look, what to think about in order to get the expression you are looking for, props to bring, who to have along, etc - it's pretty hard to come up with something generally appropriate for all the possible images you might be trying to create.

Since you are getting together to take pictures, I often start out by looking at some. I show them my portfolio, maybe some clippings from magazines, and talk about the kind of images I have in mind. Most people have no idea about lighting and don't have a vocabulary for discussing images, so having some examples to show them can be helpful. Saying "I thought we could use some angled soft lighting with a feathered background spot" doesn't help them much; "I think this is a cool look" usually works better. I think of this kind of picture as a joint project between photographer, model, stylist, makeup artist, etc, and I've found it helpful to give all concerned some clue about what you are trying to do. I'm assuming you want them to be happy about the results so that you'll get more opportunities (word of mouth is by far the best bet, I've found). The trick then is to make sure that at least some of the images please the subject(s) as well as the photographer. If they want a traditional clean portrait and you want to shoot cross-processed grunge images with a post-apocalyptic feel, you might want to do some that match their goals as well as your own. You want them to have fun, to like the results, and to be relaxed during the shoot. Music can help, as can people they know who loosen them up and make them feel good. Remember that being in front of a camera with lights blasting away (if you are using them) is a very uncomfortable experience for a lot of people. With a couple, being together hopefully helps, but I mostly shoot one model and we don't always know each other that well. For women in particular, they'll be a lot more confident if they have a good friend there. Just make sure it isn't somebody that makes them tense (boyfriends often have that effect).

If you take straight shots in contrasty sunlight, you'll see some pretty harsh contrast even if you are shooting with something like Kodak NC. Backlighting is a standard solution, potentially with some fill flash to open things up - that's a common technique that works well and is easy to handle solo. If you are willing to put up with a bit more overhead, you might think about bringing along a reflector and/or a scrim. I find the light often looks more natural and you can see exactly what you are going to get. I don't know if you have an assistant or are comfortable asking guests to help out; if so, a scrim can yield really beautiful lighting as the sun filters through it and casts a nice diffused glow over the subjects. You'll need someone to help, given that there may be some wind - it's usually not practical to mess around with stands and sandbags and so on when you are on a boat. The collapsing disk reflectors are not too big or heavy so you can bring one or two along and it's not that big a deal if you don't end up using them.

 

One thing to keep an eye on is squinting. If you are out on the water and there is light reflecting all over, it can be hard on the eyes and can lead to undesirable expressions. Watch their eyes as you choose the direction they will be facing, and try to pick one where they look relaxed and comfortable. It's worth being a little careful about this; tension that isn't immediately apparent while shooting becomes all too obvious when you make a decent sized print. You don't want the bride looking pained :-).

 

Sounds like fun - good luck!

There are many fine films you can use, and of course tastes vary. So I would suggest that you test a few different ones beforehand, if this is a shoot that will be hard to replicate (perhaps people are traveling from a distance to visit?). I've had very good luck with Delta 100 in the studio; if you do decide to test some candidates, I think it would be worth your time to include it. I've shot a wide range of skin tones with it from very pale to very dark; in my experience, it handles the spectrum gracefully and yields a nice tonality.

 

Best of luck.

Thanks for the responses .. I should have mentioned that this is for an M6 and that I have tested it by focusing at a ruler which is at an oblique angle to the camera. The point of sharpest focus is a bit off. Since my particular style is to shoot at or near minimum focus with a fast lens that is nearly wide open (90mm at f/2.8 or f/2, between 3-5 feet), being slightly off is a problem. I don't normally take pictures of rulers, but I noticed that I was getting a lower yield of sharpness from the M6 than the M3 (I take portraits and I like the eyes to be sharp). I'd like to get the alignment tweaked but would rather not send it off if I can avoid it.

I have a simple task - verifying alignment of the rangefinder - and

was wondering if anyone has experience with a local Seattle tech who

can do that. I've had a full scale CLA with some body mods that

were done by Sherry on an old M3, and she did a great job, but this

should be a pretty trivial fix and it would be great to handle it

locally if possible.

 

Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

I had the 85/1.8 and the 200/2.8 and they were both excellent. They handled well, were solid and reliable over many years of shooting, and they had excellent sharpness and contrast. I think you'd be very happy with those lenses ..

The 105/2DC lens is a very fine portrait lens and I shoot with it a great deal. It's a good balance between speed and heft (for me), has very nice background blur, good sharpness, and handles well. I've shot with a wide variety of lenses this length (in the Nikon, Leica, and Hasselblad lines), as it is my favorite for people, and have not found a lens that is notably better. The only downside to it that I've experienced is that it is only ok as far as autofocus speed. That doesn't matter in the least if you are doing traditional portraits, of course, but I shoot children a great deal and the speed is helpful in catching them in mid-flight. For that, an AFS lens really does improve the odds significantly. But aside from that, it's a wonderful lens to shoot with.

 

The 85/1.8 is a highly practical, fast, small, modestly priced, fine performer. But it doesn't have the smoothness in the background that I like and I personally don't love the way it handles (for manual focusing). The latter is a pure aesthetic issue that has nothing to do with the images it produces (which are very good) but we all have our whims. If you are still early on the learning curve, this is a great lens to start with and you can sell it for a very modest round-trip cost should you decide to get a different lens later.

The 85 seems like a better choice for you if versatility is a prime concern. It gives you a significant change from your existing 135 and it opens wider so that you can shoot in lower light. Also, I used to have the 85/1.8 (new-style FD) and it was a particular favorite - it was a very nice lens to shoot with. I prefer a longer lens (105 is my main length), because I do a lot of portraits and studio shooting, but the 85 a bit more general purpose. It isn't a huge difference either way, of course.

 

Cheers.

I find the 150 to be perfect for head shots with a cooperative subject - I use it in the studio and find it ideal (with a tube) for close-up work. The 250 would be very unwieldy for that use - it is too long and too heavy. I often handhold the 150 with strobes, but I wouldn't try to do that with the 250. I think you'd have quite a difficult time street shooting with either, frankly, but particularly the 250 - it's not too practical to shoot without a tripod (which isn't a typical street shooting accessory) unless you have a lot of light.

 

Best of luck.

Fashion photography ranges from very straight beauty shots to wild special effects, as you have no doubt already observed. Some of the effects are achieved by using unusual films - cross processing E6 into C41, high contrast black and white, etc etc. On the other extreme, portrait photographers often want low-contrast films that are all about skin tone. Depending on the effect you are trying to create and whether you want to shoot slides, here are some ideas:

 

Low-contrast with great skin tone: Kodak 160NC

Good skin tone but more punch in the colors: Kodak 160VC, Fuji NPH, Kodak EPP

 

I've had great luck with EPP for shooting models with makeup; it's a bit tough on skin for those with less perfect complexions and without a good makeup job, but has worked out very well for me in doing fashion shots. I like 160NC for portrait work a great deal - it is forgiving, can hold a wide tonal range from lights to darks, and works well under strobes. NPH is a great all-around film and is fast without being grainy.

 

You can also use the more extreme color saturated films like Velvia, but in my experience you cannot use it without very careful makeup and excellent skin - it can make a normal person look absolutely horrible because it emphasizes red aggressively.

 

Tastes vary, so you may find that you don't like any of these films, but I hope you find these suggestions useful. It seems that just about every film has been used successfully to take some kind of fashion shot ..

 

Cheers.

Marc, that is a good tip for people who are shooting at a distance. The fact that you say 95% of your shots are quick to focus that way suggests to me that you tend to shoot subjects that are more like 8+ feet away from your camera than near to min focus distance. If that's true, then you won't see much or any effect from reframing even wide open. The reframing change is on the order of a few inches.

 

I often shoot at minimum focus distance (I like to be very tight) and reframing causes real problems with center patch focus. Sometime, try the experiment of focusing a fast 90mm lens carefully on the eyes at minimum focus (3 feet or so on an M). Reframe to put the eyes near the edge of the frame and shoot wide open. You will notice that you are focused very noticably back from the eyes, leading to the common result that the shirt is in focus and the eyes are unacceptably soft. This is common with a 75 at 1.4 or a 90 at 2. It's worth knowing about; one fix that works for me is to get in the habit of leaning forward a bit when you focus and back when you shoot.

 

Cheers.

Yes, Jeff's suggestion is a good one. Just like it's very hard to break into the photography world and make a good living, it's tough as a makeup artist. A lot of people who go into the field have fantasies of working on supermodels and pay the bills by working counters. Many of them are good (although a lot are terrible and few are trained in the way that makeup registers on film - you do things differently for daily wear vs. for a shoot). Once you find somebody you like working with, hang on to them! Professional photographers who work with people as subjects generally have a few makeup artists they always seek out - they have a tremendous effect on the quality of the end result.

 

Cheers.

It depends what you are trying to achieve. As it stands, it's a pleasant grab shot of an attractive subject in nice light. Some ways you could alter/improve it:

 

The light angle leaves her eye sockets dark (known commonly as "raccoon eyes"). Since the eyes are generally the most powerful element to a portrait, you mill make much more impact if you bring them out. This can be done with a reflector (my suggestion) or other supplementary light. I think you would find this image much stronger if you had a white or slightly warm toned reflector positioned to cast up some light and put sparkle or catch lights into the eye.

 

In general, there isn't much life in her expression (the lack of light on her eyes doesn't help).

 

Her skin is broken out, and the oblique angle of the light highlights that. You can avoid that through a combination of softer light, makeup, or softening/retouching of the image. By far the most flexibility if you have the time or expertise available is with makeup. I would suggest a layer of base finished off with some powder.

 

There is a sheen on her skin on her forehead, which you could also get rid of with makeup.

 

The light is angled to leave a somewhat unattractive shadow pattern on her face. I would consider angling her away from it a bit more, leaving a stronger contrast and avoiding the eyelash shadow.

 

I find her body angled too strongly away from the camera - a matter of taste, of course. Always watch the neck to see if you are creating wrinkle lines by having the subject crane around too far.

 

You may disagree with all of these ideas .. just thought you might find them useful.

 

Cheers.

I would definitely discourage you from trying to fix it yourself. Lenses are a bit tricky, and starting with an expensive bread and butter lens for your professional activities does not sound like a good strategy. You would probably rather practice on some junkers. Also, the special tools you need probably will cost more (considerably more) than the repair, and you may well need some parts anyway. Just one opinion ...

No, you aren't worrying too much. Definitely by all means *rent* before buying. Most 35mm cameras are pretty similar to each other (at least the manual focus ones were, and the AF ones are fairly close in handling). The different MF rigs are vastly different to use and I suspect you will have strong opinions after you try them out.

 

In my experience, the RZ is a terrific camera for very specific purposes - on tripod, in studio (or next to your car) photography. I find it nearly unusable handheld, in notable contrast to the Hasselblad (which I use) - I shoot almost everything handheld because I primarily use MF in the studio with electronic flash. I would have been very unhappy with the RZ, despite its many great qualities, because I'd be unable to handhold, and my style is very dependent on moving around a lot with the models. I hate using tripods. The RZ is exceedingly bulky and heavy, making it very tough to carry it around in the field. But some people do it .. it depends on you. I'd also be unhappy with the Mamiya 7 (another great camera) because it doesn't close focus so I couldn't do the tight frame-filling portraits that I like. But if you have a different subject or style, you might find either of those cameras to be ideal. It is very expensive to purchase a system only to find out that it doesn't work for you. I'd rent several times, until you know what you want, and then buy it used. Since digital appears to be supplanting MF for many pros, you can pick up some great deals.

 

Cheers.

Yes, generally you would use a very thin tube for people (unless you want to do a closeup of their eyes or something specialized like that). Like many Hasselblad shooters, I often use a short tube (8 or 10mm is typical) with the 150mm lens to do portraits. I like to get tight, and this gives me the close focus that I need. You can go from filling the frame with their face to a head and shoulders pose with that type of combination. This is not like the kind of macro photography that uses very long extension to get extreme closeups. That type of shooting involves microscopic depth of field, very careful positioning of the camera, focusing rails, etc.

 

Using a tiny tube on a long lens is just like shooting with a lens that has a tighter minimum focusing distance (and can't go to infinity). Also, a tube that short doesn't affect exposure much (a fraction of a stop) so you can mostly ignore it even if you are using a handheld meter, as I always do. Long tubes are a nuisance with a hand meter because you have to compute the extension factor.

 

Cheers.

Polaroid is a poor choice in this situation, in my opinion. They are fairly expensive, the quality of the image is not that great, it is difficult to reproduce, and it is far from archival so the pictures of your new child will not last very long. Unless you have some particular reason why you need instant images and you don't care about these issues, I would avoid it. Polaroids can be wonderful - I depend on them in the studio to check lighting and they are a great tool - but their strengths and your goals don't seem to match very well.

If you are doing complex studio lighting setups, a Polaroid back is a wonderful tool. If you are outside shooting landscapes, get a good spot meter and learn how to use it - you really don't need Polaroids at all unless you are choosing them as an artistic medium with unique characteristics. Polaroids are most useful when you can't see the light that you will be using (i.e. flash) and when you are doing extremely painstaking work where any issue with the image can make it unusable (i.e. commercial shots). I do quite a bit of shooting in the studio and would never buy a medium format camera without a Polaroid back, but outside the studio I almost never use one.