prinosphotography

<p>I work with my wife, we both carry two cameras at all times. Like others have said, besides providing backup, it allows you to more quickly change between lens setups. Sometimes I'll be using one for available light, one for flash etc. Gear does break, I think you need to have a second camera ready to shoot at all times. Even if you told me there was zero chance of equipment failure, I've grown accustom to having multiple camera options. It was pretty much the same with film too... one body for color, one for b&w or different speed films, etc.<br>

Working with an assistant I think you can get away with just carrying one as long as they are always ready with another.<br>

As for stowing equipment.... all cameras, lenses & cards stay on us at all times with beltpacks. I know too many that have had their gear grow legs, even at the church. The only thing we stow are reflectors, lightstands, that kind of thing. </p>

<p>If it's a matter of size & weight...a good lens case on a beltpack will take care of that 70-200 and save your back. ThinkTank photo has a really good case for 70-200/2.8 (Nikon or canon) that lets you keep the lens shade in place. I wear everything on beltpacks now--I can cary twice as much as I used to with a domke bag and no sore shoulders or back after an eight to twelve hour event. Having the 70-200 on the camera is a different story, there's no disguising the weight, but it's not something your going to have mounted all day long.</p>

<p>Use both! I also work with two bodies (Canon instead of Nikon, but I don't think that changes the discussion) and primes & zooms compliment each other in different ways. The only thing I would say is that if someone *forced* me to choose one over the other, I'd pick primes because you have more flexibility with wider apertures. Like anything else though, it depends because the situation at each event is different. For single focal length lenses, I most often bring 15/2.8 (fisheye), 24/1.4, 35/1.4, 50/1.4, 85/1.8, 135/2. <br>

A good do-all combination for two bodies is 35mm on one an 85mm on the other (adjust accordingly for dx sensor on the D300)... that can take care of an awful lot of situations without compromise. </p>

<p>This looks really great. I figured this camera was going to have excellent high iso performance, but the color and tone at candle-lit ISO 12,800 was impressive. I didn't want to leave my full frame 1dsII's, but maybe this one would have me considering a crop body again.</p>

 

<p>I don't think your lighting choice makes a difference, it's whether or not you are directing the subjects or not (sounds like you weren't in this case). </p>

<p>I'm in the wpja, and I know there are plenty of members that do off camera lighting as well, I think we had a contest category one time specifically for it as a matter of fact. Moving a flash off the hotshoe is just another technique, just like bouncing, I think it's all fair game.</p>

<p>As far as wpja helping bookings, I think it depends on the competition in your area and the quality of your work. The wpja definitely drives a lot of traffic and, speaking personally, has led to a lot of business over the years. </p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>One cannot have it both ways the lens either holds focus or it does not. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think I said they don't hold focus, just that the technique of zooming after focus works better from going tele to wide. With the lenses I have, going wide to tele does indeed hold focus, but the focus is not as accurate to start with at the wide end (or there is just a bigger tolerance for error), so if it starts slightly front- or back-focused when wide, it's still back or front focused when zoomed in. Being parfocal and having correct focus are different. My 24-70 is less accurate at the wide end I would say (though much better after being calibrated). My 17-40 seems fine (but it's depth of field is much greater and it's only f4), and my 70-200 is spot on throughout it's range, forward or backward. </p>

<p>Whether they are designed to be parfocal or not, I'm not sure (Canon doesn't mention this in there specs that I can tell), but the ones I have are <em>effectively</em> parfocal. Let's say that we had a zoom that was spec'd and known to be parfocal. I still would not expect better results by focusing wide first, then zooming.</p>

<p>My primary comment to the OP was simply that based on my own experience and that of others I have heard over the years, the 24-70 can sometimes benefit from recalibration of focus. I also think that can be exercerbated by the fact that it's focussing accuracy is probably not as good at it's wide end compared to it's tele end.</p>

<p>My 24-70L needed to be calibrated as it did not focus well at the wider focal lenghts. After calibration it works well, but it sometimes to be a bit off. <br /> I would be careful about focus & recompose with any fast wide angle, it's easy to alter the plane of focus and introduce error that way (e.g if you center focus on the head, then pan down to recompose, you've just tilted the focus plane away such that the subject's head is in front of the focus point). With a 24/1.4 this is even more evident than with the 24-70.<br /> Others in this thread have commented on the focus shift during zoom. My 17-40/4, 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 hold focus through the zoom range in static tests that I've done, though the end results are better when you focus at the long end and zoom out vs. the other way around. I think these constant aperture L lenses are effectively parfocal. Non of the variable aperture canon zooms I've tried are even close to parfocal. <br /> Here was Canon's Chuck Westfall on the topic a while back (I think this was a discussion on the 24-70 and 24-105L):</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>There is no official answer, because Canon Inc. won't comment on it. Based on actual product testing, though, both of these lenses are parfocal as long as you start out by focusing sharply at the maximum focal length and then zoom back to a shorter focal length <strong>without refocusing</strong>. Look at the files on a computer monitor at 100% magnification to verify. <br /><br />If you autofocus after zooming out, the camera may drive the lens to a slightly different distance. This is possible because depth of field is greater at the shorter focal lengths of the zoom lens, assuming a fixed subject distance. But if the image remains sharp after focusing accurately at maximum focal length and then zooming to minimum focal length without refocusing, the lens is parfocal.<br /><br />Best Regards,<br /><br />Chuck Westfall<br />Director/Media & Customer Relationship<br />Camera Marketing Group/Canon U.S.A., Inc.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Chris</p>

Check the exposure times for images where you see the problem, and also if the height of the band varies with the exposure duration. White banding can indeed be caused by shutter problems... either bouncing (re-opening) or by the second curtain getting stuck.

The cord is spring coiled, so it stretches quite a bit, so not a problem with the bracket. The cord can get in the way at times. No worse than a camera strap though. It comes with a tripod mount so you can screw it to the body of your camera, but it's not the most ergonomic fit due to it's size (even the smaller CP-E2 is not great in this respect)

I use this setup occasionally with a single 550 or 580 firing into an umbrella. Dual flashes would give you another f/stop worth of power, but one is a bit less fussy to rig (I usually take it off one of my cameras, I don't have one unit dedicated to the umbrella stand). In fact I think I've read that Denis uses two more for redundancy than output power. You don't need any special radio triggers... the triggering device is either an ST-E2 or another 550/580 on the camera hotshoe.

 

If you do this, rig a battery pack (cp-e2/3, quantum turbo etc) to the stand-mounted flash since it's usually firing at high power levels so you can keep the recycle times snappy.

Purely from a file size perspective, archiving the TIFFs is wasting a lot of space. A quick

look at the first file I see in one of my folders shows the RAW at ~14.1MB. Saved as an 8-

bit TIFF it is 47MB. And to get any real advantage over a high quality JPEG, you'd want to

do 16-bit TIFF (~95MB). Backup the RAWs instead.

 

If you have a heavily retouched, processed images, with the merged result of multiple

composite layers and so forth, something that cannot be trivially reproduced from a single

RAW file, then that is a different story.

 

Backing up to CD may be more stable than DVD. Hard to know for sure there's so many

variables. Always a good idea to periodically check your backup media, and keep at least

two copies of everything.

ICS ColorEyes Display with the XRite DTP-94 calibration pucks are a really good combination.

We had been using colorvision spyders when we had CRTs for our editing station, but I could

never get a decent LCD display profile with that setup.

if you don't go wireless (a good suggestion)bany hot shoe w/pc sync will work. You don't

need the expensive safe sync with the AB strobes, they don't put out that much trigger

voltage.

Marc, they mention on their site that the screen afftects center averaged and partial spot

metering, but not evaluative. What are you seeing with yours with regards to metering

accuracy & exposure compensation?

I would find 100mm not long enough for many ceremonies. For everything else I could

certainly get by with nothing longer but would really miss the longer focal lengths. I love

the look of portraits at 150-200mm (for 35mm full frame).

The primary advantage in a wedding context is you can use less flash output, so you get

faster recycling or greater effective guide number (1/500the would need 1/2 power

compared to 1/250th) yielding greater fill flash range. Some alternatives have been

mentioned...using an ND, having a lower ISO setting, or using a high-speed sync mode for

a dedicated flash...the trouble is all of these solutions can't get around the fact that they

require MORE flash output than if the camera supported a higher native sync speed.

 

Many other DSLR's will sync to 1/250th though, so in practice it's not that big a difference

from 1/250th to 1/500th. A bigger difference is if you take advantage of the fact that the

D70 will sync with strobes right up to it's maximum shutter speed (not just 1/500th) if you

are NOT using a Nikon dedicated speed light. The Canon 1D (not 1D Mk II) will do the

same thing, as will some other DSLR's that have CCD sensors (and electronic shutters)

rather than the CMOS sensors found in the majority of current DSLRs. This 'hidden feature'

is sometimes hard to take advantage of however, as you often run into other limits if you

try to use very fast sync speeds (say 1/2,000th)...your strobe output may be longer than

the shutter duration, and hardwired sync connection is typically required because radio

triggers can't support that fast a sync.

From what I have seen with my 1DsII, issues regarding vignetting and edge sharpness have

to do with the lens being used, and not some intrinsic limitation of the sensor itself. For

example, a 17-40 at 35mm focal length and f/4 is slightly soft at the edges. But put on a

24-70L @ 35mm & f/4 and the edges look a lot better. Put on a 35/1.4L at f/4 and the

image improves again (and is pretty darn sharp corner to corner).

 

There is no question that very fast and/or very wide lenses vignette on the 1DsII, but that

is also the case with the same lenses on an EOS 1V (or any other) film body. Comparing

film captures with the 1DsII, I don't see any marked difference in this aspect of

performance. Again, I think it just comes down to a lens issue. With something like a tilt/

shift lens (or a adaptor-mounted medium format lens) that has a larger image circle than

needed for full frame 35mm, these 'edge' problems are not visible like they are with the

conventional lenses.

 

While there may be a sound theoretical basis why a full frame digital sensor would exhibit

reduced performance due to the light angle and other factors, in real world use I just don't

see it being any different from what I was seeing with my film bodies, which also show

reduced performance at the edges compared to the cener of the frame.

 

Whether or not this is a disadvantage compared to digital bodies that have a crop factor

like the D2X depends on what your needs are. You might be able to get a 16mm lens that

is sharper to the corners @f/2.8 on 1.5x crop bodies(yielding a FF-equivilent 24mm focal

length), but if you need that same field of view at f/1.4 you run out of choices for a

cropped sensor... you can only get something that wide AND fast that with FF. Everything

has it's tradeoffs.

<b>The chief concern I have is the obsolesce of storage mediums and file formats.</b>

</p>

Honestly, file formats are the last thing I would worry about. I have newspaper articles I

wrote using a word processor called 'LeScript' on a TRS-80 from 1983, and they are still

readable by running the program with free emulation software I can get to work on current

PC's or Macs. That's 22 years and counting for a ridiculously obscure type of file format. I

bet canon sells more Digital Rebels next week than that word processor ever sold, and yet

I can still use the data in it's native, proprietary form. </p>

 

Storage <b>mediums</b> is another story. That data got moved from 5 1/4 floppies to 3

1/2 floppies, to hard drives & CD's, etc, etc. That issue is more of a pain to deal with from

a logistical standpoint. I will say though that I have data CD's burned with some very early

burners (circa 1993) that are fine today. But to be safe, you need to rotate your archives on

to new media types, and multiple locations, that's really the only way to make sure you

don't run into problems.

<em>Recently, I have been tempted by the 4/3 system. Why you may ask> It has been

announced that Olympus is bringing out two new lenses, (all in 35 equivalent focal

lengths) a 28-70 f/2 and a 70-200 f/2. That's right, f/2.</em></p>

 

The advantages of f/2 zooms on the 4/3 system vs f/2.8 on other DSLRs are largely

nullified by 1) their greater depth of field due to the small sensor and 2) a stop or worse

noise performance (compare the 8MP E-300 to a 20D for example). I'm not saying they

won't be good lenses, just that it is not a slam dunk that the total imaging system is going

to be better just because of the f/2 zooms. It will be a great improvement over their

current slower variable aperture zooms though. </p>

 

<em>If only Canon made a 30mm f1.4 lens that is as good as their current 50/1.4 EF, to

use as a 'normal' lens on the 1.6x cameras. I'll be first in line.</em></p>

The 35/1.4L is one of the best lenses in the Canon line up -- as good or better than the

50/1.4 and it's equivelent to 56mm on 1.6x bodies.

You can use P.Fn-21 to enable quiet shutter mode, which delays the mirror return until

you take your finger off the shutter button. This does help a bit at the expense of the

longer viewfinder blackout. Still, it will be noiser than a 10d or similar.

whew, lots of responses on this thread....

 

When I first went through this with the 10D I did a bunch of test shots and was abel to

convince myself the AF/MF * button trick with C.Fn-04 is effective. It was hard to evaluate

just by looking at my actual work because I got better at compensating exposure over time

(same way you get used to a camera's metering pattern reacts). In the end, here's what

worked for me with the 10D:

 

A) C.Fn-04 set to 1 - This makes the * button the AF button instead of the shutter release

B) C.Fn-13 set to 4 - This move FEL to the assist button (the one that looks like an x to

the left of the * button). You need to do this if you want to keep the ability to FEL if you

have set C.Fn-04 to 1 because that overrides the normal behavior of the * button in flash

mode which is to FEL.

 

NOTE: setting the custom functions as described above changes the instructions on page

100 of the 10D manual which Jammey quoted above (there is a footnote on the bottom of

p.100 that notes the change in behavior with C.Fn-13 however.

 

With the 10D, much of the time, I will just focus with the * held down, and take the

picture when I wan. I don't often focus and recompose, I move the focus points instead, so

the focus point is on my subject. When exposure is more critical and the focus point is

over something very light or very dark (or very reflective!), then I am careful to release

focus (*) before pressing the shutter. It's harder to explain than to do once you get used to

it.

 

ETTL-II in evaluative mode on the 1DsII (and I'm sure for the 20d, 1DII) is much more point

and shoot and works very well. ETTL-II in averaging seems closer to the 10D in

performance when used as described above.

 

I use FEL on the 10D more than the 1DsII, and this is what I've found helpful...

Many times there will be a consistent and BIG target in the scene that you can FEL on with

a certain compensation factor. Like a dark tux at - 1 1/2 or a white dress at + 1 1/2. Or

smaller but still consistent like a face at + 1/2. ETTL on the 10D is actully very

CONSISTENT, it's just a bit tricky to use in practice because it's basically spot metering for

you.

 

Two more things that help... 1) bouncing and/or diffusing flash indoors (I like stofens, but

use whatever modifier you like) helps even out flash exposures a great deal. 2) I tend to

shoot fast lenses wide open and higher ISOs if needed so ambient light is often a large

percentage of the overall exposure, and that tends to even things out as well.

ettl debates aside, if you are getting exposures totally blown (+2 stops), double check that

the flash is seated correctly. It's very easy for the pins to be misaligned if the flash is not

pushed all the way in (or works itself out if it's not tightened down). If this occurs, you can

easily get a situation where the main x-sync pin is in contact, but non of the smaller four

contacts used for ettl are making contact. The flash will still fire, but it will fire at full

power... leading to overexposure in almost all cases. This also would explain why it looked

better in shade (because maximum flash was closer to correct)

I wouldn't sell a 550 just to replace it with 580. I recently got a 580 to use along with the

550's I had and it is an improvement (slightly smaller, command dial is easier to use than

the rubbery buttons on the 550), but it is not markedly better. I would maybe think about

replacing the 420 with a 550/580 as the 420 doesn't recycle as fast as the other units and

can't take external power if needed.

 

T4D won't mount on a hot shoe, you need a bracket. No support for ST-E2 (it has it's own

radio wireless TTL system). I rented one and the ETTL module just did not work on my

1ds2. On non-ETTL auto though it worked fine.

yes, the 350D will work the same way as your Elan II. With the camera in Manual, the

camera will provide autoexposure for the flash (ambient exposure depends on whatever

your manual settings are) . PowerShot digital P&S cameras handle M mode diffferently (I

have a G3 that works like your pro1, but my DSLRs work like your Elan II)

 

For the other point people have discussed re shutter speed & crop factor:

If your exposure is letting in enough ambient light, then the shutter speed chosen will

affect the motion blur visible in the photo, so you can adjust to 1/1.6 x focal length

instead of the 1/focal length rule for full frame (film) just as with non-flash exposures. In

practice though, you can often get away with much slower shutter speeds because the

flash provides most of the subject illumination and is quick enough to freeze the subject.

but I think the shot is kind of nice as-is