dave_nelson___atlanta__ga

Shooting little league baseball my experience is that the 2x extender introduces to much softness, the 1.4 is fine, and no extender is great. The 100-400 is also great, but only acceptable with the 1.4x and to dark and soft for my tastes with the 2x.

 

With the 70-200 2.8L IS I shoot entire games with the 1.4x and if there is not a lot of cropping (none) the pictures are nice up to 8x10 (from the 20D), with the 2x and no cropping 5x7s are ok and 8x10s are to soft.

The Canon 100mm macro may be a nice addition along with extension tubes.

I also do this. Many times the purchase of new equiptment or even a rental will spur the desire to visit the same location(s) again.

At 300mm with the 1.6x crop factor (480mm equivalent) you should probably be shooting at 1/500 and faster, not slower. (Especially with running subjects and a small DOF)

I do not see the 5D as a replacement or upgrade to the 20D but as a great companion. I plan to use the 5D for wide angle and the 20D for telephoto. Go Canon!

I am not a lawyer but it is my understanding that they can take all the photos they want legally unless you are on private property and the owner has set some rules that state otherwise, even then the only thing the owner could really do is ask them to leave. I could be wrong but I do not think there is anything illegal about taking pictures of someone else?s model or property, it only becomes illegal when used commercially and someone decides to sue. Unless there is a police officer there to slap the cuffs on for some law that I am unaware of nothing is illegal until decided upon in a court of law and unless you are willing to take these other photographers to court you are wasting your energy even thinking about it.

 

I think that "legally" the only thing you or the model could do is sue after the fact if someone uses her picture without permission. In fact the owner of the car and the owner of the property could probably also sue IF the pictures taken by someone without permission are used commercially.

 

Surround your shoot with "danger" tape, or hire some "assistants" to stand between the other photographers and you models.

 

Or just get over it and hand out a lot of promotional material and think of it as an opportunity to get your name out there.

 

Again, I am not a lawyer and do have no experience being sued or suing anyone else. I have read a lot of books and website articles on the subject though.

 

Personally, if I have the time at the events I shoot I volunteer to take pictures with other peoples cameras with them in or out of the shot and return their camera with a business card and a smile. That approach has worked well for me this year and I think it is one of the many reasons my print sales are going so well.

 

Sorry for the long post, slow Sunday morning.

Having used Photoshop for 13 years now I tend to buy one new book a year and read it cover-to-cover. The <a href="http://amazon.com/ames"><u>Kevin Ames book "Adobe Photoshop CS: The Art of Photographing Women"</u></a> was last year's read (great book by the way.)

<p>I don't think I ever bought a book just because of an upgrade though, the documentation and help files that come with Photoshop have always been sufficient.

<p>I highly recommend the "Classroom in a book" series though. I buy or borrow one of those every couple of years.

I am using the S&F and really like it. I regularly use it cary a Canon 70-200 2.8 L, Tamron 17-35, 550EX, spare batteries, and all the extras. I made suspenders for it so that I can carry my entire kit on the belt, but it does get heavy after awhile and makes it hard to sit down.

 

For just the 70-200 and extra batteries though it wears very well (with the camera and another lens on my shoulder.)

If the use is editorial you should be ok, but if it is commercial you are wide open to a law suit. Actually you are always open to being sued, but it is just much less likely if it only to "document" something instead of being used to "sell" something.

Keeping the bag in a sturdy canvas or nylon padded camera case when in transistion has worked well for me in the South of the US. About 15-30 minutes sitting out seems to do the trick, sometime a little longer for longer lenses like a 70-200 2.8.

 

Putting it in an "air tight" bag is another oportunity for condensation.

Please let us know how this turns out Mark. I am very interested. I am sure that what ever you choose to do will be the right thing for you and your business.

Memory Cards: You are better off with multiple cards instead of one large card. If one gets lost, broken, corrupted, etc.. the hope is that you may not lose everything. I get just under 300 images per 1GB card shooting JPG large and superfine, just over 100 in RAW on average. I usually shoot JPG and carry three Lexar 1GB (two 80x, one 32x) cards. Shooting sports I can tell the speed difference between the 32x and 80x, but it is not a huge deal.

 

Battery: One battery lasts me about 800 pictures without flash. I do not chimp and do not let subjects see the results, but every now and then I do look at a histogram or check to make sure I got a particular shot. I carry two Canon BP-511 and one BP-511A batterys with me. I do not think I have every used more than two in a single day, even shooting 700 plus pictures at DragonCon.

 

Battery Grip: I bought on for the 10D way back because I shoot a lot of portrait oriented photos, but rarely used it. For the 20D I have not bothered with the grip. I do switch from hold the button on top to holding the button on the bottom to try to ease the wrist fatigue of holding the camera in portrait mode.

OK, now I am really confused. I either misread both articles or they contradict themselves in the second article...

<p>That <a href="http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pub&dt=050920&cat=scitech&st=scitechcamera_blocker_futuretech_050920&src=abc"><u>article from AT&T</u></a> left a lot out. This article from News.com has a lot more information.

 

<p><a href="http://news.com.com/Crave+privacy+New+tech+knocks+out+digital+cameras/2100-7337_3-5869832.html?part=rss&tag=5869832&subj=news"><u>Device Seeks to Jam Covert Digital Photographers</u></a>

 

<p>Any highly reflective surface will get hit with a beam of light. Digital, film, or even eye glasses are zapped with the current technology.

As a cheap way to experiment you can buy a "lens coupler" from B&H to connect to lenses together for micro photos. I find that connecting a zoom to the body with a fast prime (50 1.8) coupled works well and is like looking through a magnifying glass. The dark circle or tunnel vision effect is nullified by zooming in the lens connected to the body.

 

Hand holding for this type of photography is rare. It can be done with good lighting but usually a tripod is necessary for maximum sharpness and depth of field. My preference of ISO 100 with F/16 requires a lot of light and usually a slow shutter speed.

 

I recommend getting a flash for your 100mm first, it will make a big difference in what you are able to photograph hand-held and will allow for greater DOF.

<p>I use Av mode almost exclusively for little league baseball photography. I do have to keep an eye on the shutter speed and try to keep it at/or above 1/500 to minimize motion blur. Wide open does not provide the sharpest images, but it does help isolate the subject and with a high quality lens the background is a nice creamy blur instead of ugly fences, cars, and parents doing everything but watching the game. I adjust the ISO from 100 to 400 based on the need for more light trying to keep it at 100 or 200 when possible.

 

<p>It is my experience that the outdoor lighting at a ball game changes to fast for manual shooting and requires constant chimping to ensure correct exposure, I am not willing to move that slow and expect to take between 200-300 photos an hour at a game which usually results in about 70 to 100 "keepers."

 

<p>Here are <a href="http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/804869/2" target="_blank"><u>photos of a game from last week</u></a> taken with a 20D and 70-200 2.8 L IS with Tamaron 1.4x extender, and from <a href="http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/819470/1/36549721" target="_blank"><u>this past weekend</u></a> with the same lens but the Canon 2x extender (which results in much softer photos.)

What lenses are you using exactly?

It really depends on your curriculum, what do you want to teach?

<p>There are many different

<a href="http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAM&cpc=HOT" target="_blank"><u>digital cameras on Geeks.com</u></a> that fit the price. I think 10 cameras if you have one camera per 2 students or 16 cameras if you want to give every student a camera. Expect cameras to get broken and lost.

 

<p><a href="http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=IC2001&cat=CAM&cpc=HOT" target="_blank"><u>Here is a 2.0 MP camera for $38.90</u></a> each before shipping, and getting prints from a local Wolf/Ritz/Wal-mart/Target at about $.29 each. So approximately $640 for 16 cameras will leave $210 for batteries, prints, and other needs.

 

<p>If your class has access to computers you may not need to print much.

<p>With the 10D and 20D I have found the 70-200 2.8 L to be a great choice and offers a lot of options with 1.4x and 2x extenders. I feel that using a prime lens would be very limiting and would make me want to bring a lot of lenses with me. As it is I usually have the 70-200 with extenders, a 28-75, and 17-35 Tamrons with a 550ex to for fill.

 

<p><a href="http://davenelson.smugmug.com/Zoos" target="_blank"><u>Check out my Zoo photos</u></a>.

The sensor was probably dirty the day it came out of the factory. It is a common problem.

 

It is my experience that wide angle lenses are not sharp lenses in general. Begin by stopping the lens down to f/8 and seeing if that improves your results. I would still expect it to be soft around the edges. Do a search for wide angle lenses that include examples and see if you are getting similar results.

SL ATTANAPOLA; those are really outdated articles.

 

I have the same MB and Processor combination in a CoolMaster Centurion 5 case and found it impossible to keep the processor under 60 degrees celcius even with two input and two output fans. Ended up putting a pre-packaged water-cooler in it and have been running great ever since. I do not think the cooling solution you are looking at will do the trick, the giant Zeldman copper cooling thing wouldn't keep my system cool. Check out the "COOLER MASTER AQUAGATE Mini R120"

 

I love the motherboard and would not hesitate using the onboard sound for a PhotoShop workstation. Adding an inexpensive PCI sound card will not much of a difference at all and may cause more overhead than it reduces.

 

Read the MB manual a couple of times before you start piecing things together, it is available online as a PDF.

<p>I think this is what you are looking for Lee.

 

<p>The City of New York Mayor's Office of Film Theatre & Broadcasting <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/film/html/permits/still_photography.shtml" target="_blank"><u>Still Photography Permit</u></a>.

 

<p>Fill that out and fax it in and the Mayor's office will help you get in touch with the folks at Lincoln center to get permission from them. The people at the Mayor's office were very nice to me even though I ended up not needing the permit for the type of photos I took on my last trip.

 

<p><a href="http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/641702" target="_blank"><u>New York City Fireworks</u></a> and <a href="http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/681309" target="_blank"><u>Around New York</u></a>

Not sure my bracket is the same, but have you tried screwing the flash bracket into the bottom of the off-shoe cord?

I use a 70-200 2.8 IS L to shoot baseball and have IS on all the time in mode 1 and do not change that setting for use on or off a monopod. I try to keep my shutter speeds over 1/500 for most shooting which probably negates the need for IS, but it is what works well for me. Here are some <a href="http://davenelson.smugmug.com/gallery/628269/1/26708374" target="_blank"><u>sample baseball photos</u></a>.