bill.akstens

<p>The Canon autofocus assist is nice but be aware that it only works in One Shot mode. Also, if your flash is mounted up on a bracket it may throw off the autofocus assist beam alignment.<br>

Curiosly, the fastest lenses are not always the best performers in regards to dark focusing. For example, I've always found the discontinued Canon 20-35 f/3.5-4.5 lens to be terrific at finding focus in dark locations, much better than my 50mm 1.4 and 85 1.8 lenses.</p>

<p>I photography with Transitions lenses all the time. I like them well enough. Be aware that the Transitions coating will develop many micro cracks (like a faint crackle pattern) and start to develop a noticeable yellow color cast after about 2-3 years. In my experience after 3 years the lenses need to be replaced.</p>

<p>The Wayfarer's website will give a good idea of what the grounds look like (lots of photos there). As stated above, the chapel is very small. Some times of the year (typically spring-early summer) a thick marine layer (fog) will roll in, obsructing the sea vistas.<br>

I suspect your 85mm will be fine there. Bring wide angle lenses too. There is a nice covered walkway out back, grassy yard, and rose garden. The front chapel steps are very nice for group photos, and the front area has many large trees. Nice fountain area too, but watch for splotchy light.<br>

The chapel usually schedules weddings back-to-back so your time will be strictly limited, and enforced by their wedding coordinator.</p>

<p>Although it gets hot in the summer, camp sites are much easier to find June-August. My most recent camping trip to Jumbo Rocks was 24-hour stay over a Thursday-Friday in mid June. The campsite was only about 10% full, highs hit 100F, and lows sank to 69F. Weather was not too bad actually, especially if you take things slow during the peak temp of the afternoon. The biggest problem is bee activity, especially in Jumbo Rocks. The bees are pretty persistent around food and water in the summer. Signs posted in the campground offer some tips for dealing with bees.</p>

<p>The b&w images Blurb has printed for me are pretty close to what I submitted, and I have not noticed any color casts. Overall I've been very happy with their quality for the price.</p>

<p>In my experience, the type of lens can affect the 5D2 autofocus as much as the body does. And the faster lenses are not always better. My older Canon 20-35 f3.5/4.5 lens autofocuses much more reliably for me than the 50/1.4 and 35/2 in darker situations. In dim lighting I find the 5D2 to be a center-focus-point-only camera.</p>

<p>There are lots of useful threads on this topic in this forum. Many people have seen odd flash behavior on the 580EXII due to an issue in the new mounting foot design. One of the electrical pins looses contact and sends the flash into TTL mode, or turns on the modelling flash. This can be very annoying when it happens during a critical shoot (ie wedding). The redesigned flash also has silent recharging, which some find to be less desireable. Also, the new flash doesn't have a dedicated master/slave switch, and the function is now selected by menu. Some wedding photographers prefer the original design.</p>

<p>I have a hi-def .mov movie from a 5D2 that plays back fine on-camera, but in the latest free version of Quicktime on a PC it does not play well. I can get the audio, but the video is just a huge mess of green/violet pixels, and the playback screen is about ten times bigger than my monitor. I must be missing something simple. Any ideas? Thanks.</p>

<p>From a conservative viewpoint, a 4x6 crop at 1200x1800 pixels is only adequate to print a 4x6. The client will not be able to use that sized file to print 11x14! Even a 5x7 will start to fall apart upon close inspection.</p>

<p>Item 3) on your list has been reported by many others. There is some mechanical deficiency in the new foot design that creates intermittent contact in the pins. The flash goes into TTL mode unexpectedly. I've experienced this issue with mine, as well as randomly having it go into stroboscopic mode when rotated to portrait orientation. I'd like to buy another 580exII but I've hesitated, hoping Canon will fix this on newer builds.</p>

<p>Not exactly 'landscape', but there are two giant (40 ft tall?) cement dinosaurs in Cabazon, on the 10 freeway. Rather unique.</p>

<p>Recommend the Getty Center. Free admission, just pay parking and your transportation. Always an interesting photography exhibit in the west gallery. An impressive, relaxing and not overwhelming museum. I find it to be photo-friendly as well. Take your camera inside.</p>

<p>OP checking back in. Thanks for the thoughts above. During my initial test I was at ISO 1600, focusing about 4 ft away with a 50mm lens. When I looked at the 580exII flash coverage bars it did show coverage for a much greater distance (thanks Nadine). When I dialed down the ISO toward 100 the flash coverage was reduced, as expected, until it eventually landed in the correct range, giving a good exposure.<br>

I have to conclude that during my initial test 1/128 power was simply way too much flash, given my ISO and aperture settings. I'm initially surprised at this, since I'd expect a flash in manual mode to be able to be dialed down low enough to just barely be detectable. I guess I could bounce or diffuse the 1/128 output to reduce it more.<br>

It is my understanding that auto fill flash reduction would not come in to play in a fully manual flash mode.<br>

I'm going to predict that in ETTL mode the flash can go lower than 1/128. I'll see if I can test more tonight...</p>

<p>Just for kicks I wanted to try manually set fill flash with a 580EXII mounted on a 30D. For the first part of this experiment I metered for proper ambient exposure in a dim room, say f4 1/60, and set these settings with the camera in Manual exposure mode. With the flash off, I get a nice ambient exposure as expected. Now I add ETTL flash set with flash exposure comp of -2, and get results as expected - a nice touch of fill flash. Next I set the flash in manual output mode dialed for 1/128 power, the lowest setting available, figuring it should be about the same as the previous shot with ETTL at -2. This shot turns out grossly overexposed by about 4 stops. What's going on here?<br>

The only explanation I can think of is that 1/128 power is not really the minimum output power of the flash, even though that's as low as you can dial it in M mode. In ETTL mode maybe it can dial itself down as low as 1/1000 or 1/2000 power? I would have thought that 1/128 power would just add a kiss of flash, thus acting as a fill, but it didn't work out that way. Any ideas why that is?</p>

If it were me, I'd go light, and take only the 10-22 and the 50mm. To me, photographing kids at Disneyland is all about the environment, so wider angles lenses work well. I'd add a small flash too, like an older 420EX.

I think at some point the Hewes reels were marketed under the name King Concepts, but last time I bought one it was probably in 2003 so things may have changed since then.

We just got a Vivitar (I think it's a 6200W?) for our 5 yr old. It has a non-zoom lens (zoom lenses are fragile) and is very rugged. Bright yellow cladding, and is rated for underwater use. Uses simple AA batteries and an SD card. Cost around $100US at Target. Even shoots video clips. All point-and-shoots are a compromise, but we like it so far.

I bought a Sterlingtek battery for my 30D. It was ever so slightly too big, and it gets jammed inside the camera body and won't eject. I need to pry it out with a paperclip. To be fair, Sterlingtek offered to replace it, but I never sent it back.

William, I think your formula has two typos in it. I think you want to take 127.5% of W, and 110% of S, otherwise you're giving a very nice discount! A = 127.5%*W + T + 110%*S + V.

Take Josh's advice above.

I would suspect either the flash head is slightly tilted from the normal straight ahead position, or the little white pop-up bounce screen is not seated all the way inside. Those two things have gotten me more than once.

My flash cord has a problem. The spinning lockdown wheel won't spin. I didn't notice anything unusual when I

attached it to the camera hot shoe and locked it down. I used the flash and camera normally all day. Then later I

tried to take the cord off the hotshoe. The wheel was jammed. Somehow I was able to just slip it off the hotshoe, but

even with pliers I still can't get the wheel to turn at all. I started taking apart the end of the cord but couldn't get the

four tiny black screws inside loose. I'm not even sure taking them out would help. Is there any hope of salvaging this

expensive gadget? I can't see anything obviously jamming the wheel.

The other question to ask is how do you sharrpen the images you provide on CD? Sharpening is usually different for each output size. If you don't sharpen at all, does the lab where your clients get the images printed do appropriate sharpening?

Your plan seems reasonable. Start as a pure assistant (grunt work, no photographing) for a season with a photographer who's style you respect and who is willing to explain things to you, learn all you can, then hopefully be allowed to start second shooting. It will help at that point if your gear is compatible/interchangeable with the lead photographers (for example, both using Canon digital, or whatever brand). Your first few assisting gigs might be unpaid or low paid, but if you're good and reliable you should become fairly paid beyond that point.

My tips for being a good assistant: be prompt, dress well, be 100% reliable, work hard, and follow the lead of the boss.

You might want to hook up with an up-and-coming photographer as opposed to a well established pro. Find someone who is just starting to make good enough money at wedding photography that they can and need to start hiring an assistant for every gig. Establish a good working relationship with them for a season or two, be very interested in helping his/her business grow, and eventually they may use you as a second shooter or even an associate primary shooter. Live and breathe wedding photography in the meantime. Read all you can. Shoot every day on your own. Learn to master flash photography. Learn good post processing skills and album assembly. Be computer literate. Pick up a few low-end budget weddings/engagement sessions on the side on your own. If you're good and determined, success will find you...

In my mind an assistant is different from a second shooter. If the job is to be an assistant, then I'd say little experience is needed. An assistant will haul gear, organize people, watch the gear bag, hold reflectors, get coffee, but not shoot. If you mean a job as a second shooter, then I'd say you'd need to be pretty competent as a photographer and at least understand the basics of exposure, focus, depth of field, lighting, and be familiar with the gear.