frank_dzambic

<p>You can use fill flash in Av mode very effectively. You just have to remember to also keep an eye on your shutter speed which you don't normally have to do if you're not using fill flash. If your max sync speed is 1/200, then shoot away with fill in Av mode making sure the shutter speed isn't any faster than that. If it is, and you like the aperture you're at then you can adjust your ISO downward. If dropping the ISO speed doesn't get your shutter to 1/200 or less you need then you start adjusting the aperture. </p>

<p>It really depends on how important using a particular f/stop is to you. If you need it at a particular setting, then work as I described. If it really doesn't matter to you at all what the f/stop is set at then you may as well just use Tv set at 1/200 if you're using fill flash.</p>

<p>Of course once you're in Tv you'll have to keep an eye on the aperture setting. If you have it set at 1/200, but then you see the aperture blinking, then it's likely that the scene is dark, and your lens doesn't have a wide enough aperture for the camera to open it up enough to give you a correct exposure at 1/200. You also want to keep an eye on the aperture so that in a really bright scene the camera isn't stopping your lens down to f/22 for example making it very difficult for the flash to add enough light. </p>

<p>So basically you need to watch your f/stop and your shutter speed regardless of which mode you're in (Av or Tv), knowing when to switch back and forth between the modes, and also select the appropriate ISO to get the results you want or to allow you to work in the mode you prefer.</p>

<p>While it sounds daunting, if you're spending a day at the beach for example on a sunny day with few clouds then the exposure will stay pretty steady, only changing slowly as the sun goes down throughout the day. So you can figure out a good setting in a non-important shot and just leave it there until your image preview or histogram lets you know you need to make an adjustment.</p>

<p>Thanks guys. The bad reviews I was reading (on Amazon and other places) were for ATI 2011, the newest version. I may have to reconsider those reviews, or at least compare ATI 2011 to that Prosoft DataBackUp utility. It is interesting that Windows will actually prevent my older copy of ATI from running after I installed it because it may cause system instability. Haven't seen that with any other program before.</p>

<p>I used to use Acronis True Image 10 for cloning hard drives and making backups as well, but my old copy will not run on Windows 7-64 Pro. In looking for an updated version I've found overwhelmingly bad reviews on the latest versions. So if anybody has any recommendations for reliable software they use that will clone a hard disk, as well as do incremental and differential backups in a non-RAID setup I'd appreciate it.</p>

<p>The image is salvageable, with a bit of patience. I tried to go for a more "natural" sky colour, using your 8 bit jpg. If you have a RAW file you can potentially do a lot better. Lots of use of the Shadow/Highlight, big adjustment to the Hue slider for Cyan in Hue/Saturation, and a few other tweaks.</p>

<p>You got a lot of good advice in the replies. I probably would have went with a Graduated Neutral Density filter for this shot as that would have guaranteed a reduction in contrast. A polarizer may or may not have helped, it's hard to say. That's a filter that you have to try and see what you get on location. I also agree on not stopping way down to f/22.</p>

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<p>Hmm, I could swear I typed this out in my previous reply.</p>

<p>Arthur, I've been using sleeves from Staples/Office Depot for probably 10 years now for my smaller prints, and every one of them slips out as easily as the day I put them in, and there is no discolouration at all on the prints, nor is there any ink left behind on the sleeves. I think the material Atlantic is using is even higher quality so I have complete confidence in the longevity of my large prints in their sleeves. Read the specs on their site and I'm sure you will too.</p>

<p>Arthur, I can't really give you any info other than what's listed on Atlantic's website where they describe their materials. As mentioned, their material is rated archival by the U.S Library of Congress, where the sleeves over at 11x17.com are specifically rated non-archival.</p>

<p>I probably should have mentioned in my review that I've only had these sleeves for a couple of days, not months or years so I can't really speak to whether problems will arise in the future.</p>

<p>While they are crystal clear when you look through one sheet, a stack of them (with nothing inserted) takes on a silvery metallic sort of appearance, and holding one at an angle will show some purplish reflections like what you might see on the surface of a multi-coated filter. But they're effectively invisible when looking at one straight on (with nothing in it), or when viewing a print through one.</p>

<p>I probably should have stressed a little more how much patience is required to slide a 19" long sheet of paper into one of these through the short side as well. Not a concern if you're doing a print here and there, but a different story when you have dozens or hundreds to do.</p>

<p>This isn't a question, and probably belongs somewhere else, but the topic comes up from time to time, and I imagine that Casual is a forum that everyone checks regardless of their camera brand, so....</p>

<p>Sooner or later if you're printing large photos and end up with a sizable collection and not enough wall space, you'll need a way to store all those prints. I think archival storage boxes are what usually get recommended when people ask for advice, but I've never been crazy about that idea for a couple of reasons. First, the prints are completely out of sight and out of mind, stored in a box somewhere in a closet or basement, and secondly, if you do want to view them you still have to be very careful in how you handle them so as not to get fingerprints and oils on the surface. Cotton gloves are a solution to that problem I suppose, but I wasn't crazy about the idea of having to put on cotton gloves to flip through a large stack of prints, as well as gloves for whoever may be viewing them with you, and that still leaves the question of dust possibly getting on them while you're viewing them.</p>

<p>A while ago, I decided that mylar sleeves in a binder would be the answer. That's how I store my smaller prints (8.5x11), and it makes for easy storage, transport and viewing with excellent protection from dust and fingerprints. The only problem was finding large sized binders and sleeves. Maybe I was using the wrong search terms on Google, but there didn't seem to be a very large selection out there. I finally stumbled on Atlantic Protective Pouches (www.atlanticprotectivepouches.com) located in New Jersey.</p>

<p>The website is plain, but it does contain illustrations of the various styles and configurations they offer, along with price lists and material descriptions. The nice thing about Atlantic is that you can have custom sizes made, and Wally the owner is also friendly and incredibly patient at answering questions.</p>

<p>I ended up ordering a couple hundred of their "Super-L" style for binders in the 13x19" size, and can say I'm absolutely thrilled and satisfied with the quality, the service, the packaging and everything else. The material is made of archival grade mylar polyester approved by the Library of Congress. It is thick at 3 mil, and absolutely clear. Leave a print hanging halfway out of the sleeve, you'd be hard-pressed to tell where the sleeve begins, and where you're looking at a bare print (on Epson Premium Luster paper). The sleeves have a 13.38" x 20" Outside Dimension / 13.25" x 19.25" Inside Dimension so 13"x19" prints fit nice and snug inside with no danger whatsoever of them sliding out of the sleeve accidentally. As a matter of fact, I had the opening made on the short side of the sleeve opposite from the binder rings and found it was actually very difficult to slide the entire print into the sleeve making me think maybe I should have had them made with the opening on the long side. It just takes patience though. There are also no logos or brand names or any markings of any sort anywhere on the sleeves. They're crystal clear from one end right up to the binder holes.</p>

<p>They will also make simple pouches for you with no binder ring holes, and you can pick which side of the sleeve you want the opening to be whichever style you go with. As I mentioned earlier, they also do custom sizes (though I'm not sure of the maximum), so if you have a stack of 16x24 prints I know they can make sleeves for those as well. I'm just not sure of the absolute maximum size they can go.</p>

<p>I also ordered 13x19" 3 ring binders from 11x17 Inc-- www.11x17.com -- prior to finding Atlantic Protective Pouches. These are heavy duty binders with a beautiful glossy piano black finish. Not cheap, but they're strong and have an upscale look. They're shipped well and have a protective paper on them to protect the finish that you have to peel off to reveal the high-gloss piano black finish. The only thing I'd really like to see with respect to the binders is maybe to have handles riveted to the spines for ease of carrying so that you could walk with the binder hanging down from your hand. Apparently from talking with Wally at Atlantic they also have their own source for custom sized binders, but I don't know anything about their prices or appearance.</p>

<p>So, while I'm not affiliated or profiting from any of the companies mentioned, I'm extremely happy with binders and mylar sleeves as a storage solution as they provide protection, portability, and "viewability". Since both products are hard to come by in these larger sizes (at least for me they were and I can usually find anything online), I figured I'd share.</p>

<p>Personally I think you took a marvellous portrait of a real cutie there! The only real problem I see is a strong colour cast that can be removed in post processing.</p>

<p>Though it doesn't exactly answer your question, my advice would be to keep doing what you're already doing, and keep fine tuning it so your results just keep getting better and better with the same equipment. What I'd also suggest is to place a piece of white paper in place of your daughter under the same lighting setup, and take one picture of it. You'll be able to use that to set your white balance and get rid of the colour casts for the whole session with one click (in post processing), or set your camera to Custom White Balance based on the shot of that white piece of paper under the same lighting setup. Alternately you could also frame a little looser (like you did here) and include that white piece of paper somewhere in the frame where you can crop it out later after you've used it to set your white balance in post.</p>

<p>Last bit of advice would be to move in a little closer, or crop afterwards so the kid doesn't look like she's floating in a sea of blackness.</p>

<p>Like I said, I think you took a great shot there. It just needed a bit of tweaking. While you're practicing with what you've already got, you can take your time and research other lighting equipment and portrait techniques without rushing into a purchase you might not need.</p>

<p>Oh, and don't forget to take some shots you can use for blackmail purposes once she's an uncooperative teenager!</p>

<p>Frank</p>

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<p>There was a well known and common issue with 40D's where the shutter button would act up and had to be replaced by Canon. Usually what would happen would be that the shutter button would work when pressed halfway, but wouldn't fire the shutter when depressed fully. When it happened to me it was extremely intermittent at first, then it became predictable, and then it pretty well just stopped working and had to be replaced. I wonder if your problem isn't simply a variation on a theme?</p>

<p>It's counter-intuitive, but try replacing the 4 AA's in the flash. My 580 EX's will do some strange things when the batteries get run down, including firing full power blasts, losing the zoom setting, etc. At least it won't cost you much to try it.</p>

<p>Just a couple of thoughts off the top of my head here.</p>

<p>The Photoshop print dialogue has a horizontal/portrait setting, and the print driver dialogue box also has a horizontal/portrait setting. Make sure they're both set to the same setting that's appropriate for your particular print.</p>

<p>I also notice you have a margin size set for all four margins, and I'm assuming you did that manually when you set your custom paper size. You also have the "center image" box checked. I would try simply making sure you have your photo sized correctly in PS, check the "center image" box, and leave the margins blank. Or at the most only fill in half the margins values, like top and left, and leave right and bottom blank.</p>

<p>Maybe there's something going on where the printer is trying to center the photo, but that would leave 1/2" margins let's say at the size you've set the photo at, but then it knows you want .013" margins so it wants to scale the photo to give you the correct sized margins and a centered photo, but then it realizes you left the scaling option unchecked so it starts to have conniptions because it doesn't know what to do because it can't give you a photo at that size that's centered with .013" margins all around.</p>

<p>Try it on that sheet where you aborted the print after only an inch. Just feed it in from the clean end. At least if I'm wrong you won't ruin another new sheet.</p>

<p>A good zen question to ponder when you're set up and waiting for the light to change.</p>

<p>Maybe it's all just varying degrees of infinity?</p>

<p>Sticky or a non-responsive shutter button on the 40D is/was a known and relatively common issue. I had to get mine replaced by Canon, and I want to say it was around $250 but I can't remember for sure anymore. The symptoms were just as you described. The shutter button would focus and meter, but when it came time to depress it fully to take the picture nothing would happen. I had it happen once or twice when the camera was new, and chalked it up to a "breaking in period" until it came back with a vengeance 40,000 actuations later by which time the problem was known and widely reported. If you Google for the problem you'll see various fixes you can try, like blowing air, or pressing down the button and twisting it at the same time, etc. All are very temporary fixes and believe me your frustration will mount as you repeatedly miss shots until the button pretty much fails to actuate the shutter entirely. I think it should have been a free fix or recall myself considering how many people were having the issue. Otherwise it's a fantastic camera.</p>

<p>Frank</p>

<p>It's certainly worth sending it in to Canon for an estimate. I dropped my 70-200 years ago in a vertical orientation from not more than a couple of feet onto a cement parking lot and lost ability to focus though the zoom still worked I believe. I don't think it was more than roughly $250 for the repair. It was the USM clutch or something along those lines.</p>

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<p>I now have a mounting ring with 2 broken plastic tabs and a sheared screw.<br /> It's still under warranty but I'm sure Canon wouldn't cover anything like that.</p>

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<p>The postage wouldn't be much to mail the mounting ring and sheared screw to Canon and ask for your lens to be repaired (not replaced) under warranty. Maybe with a letter explaining your disappointment at the cheap construction and shoddy workmanship. The worst they can do is say no, and if laughter is the best medicine you'll feel better either way. :-)</p>

<p>Every shot I've ever missed has been an awesome shot. Every one of them. Unfortunately not every shot I get is an awesome one, but every time I've missed one the thought was always "Man, that would have been such a great shot!". It's never "Oh well, that shot would have sucked anyway". Funny how that works.</p>

<p>What you need is a light tent. They can be bought or made at home and are excellent not only for jewellry photography but other product photography as well. If you want to make one yourself (no reason not to) they can be made from cheap materials such as cardboard boxes or pvc tubing, and tissue paper or fabric. You can Google for tutorials on building your own.</p>

<p>Forget about the little white arrow since it's causing you nothing but confusion anyway.</p>

<p>For maximum polarization effect, the sun should be at a right angle to your subject. That means when you're facing your subject with the camera ideally either your left shoulder or your right shoulder will be pointing at the sun. The polarizer will still work if the sun is at less than 90', but to a lesser degree. It also works well when the sun is directly overhead, though it won't have much of an effect on the sky when the sun is that high.</p>

<p>Sometimes the polarizer effect will be subtle, and you won't always notice a dramatic darkening of the sky, but if you look closely through your viewfinder you may find bright reflections being reduced and/or eliminated on leaves, rocks, etc. If you're not seeing any effect, then you can simply remove the polarizer and gain a stop or more in shutter speed if you need it.</p>

<p>The nice thing about a polarizer is that you see exactly what it's doing as you rotate it while looking through the viewfinder. It's either doing something, or it isn't. So you don't really have to remember to have your subject 90' off axis to the sun though you can use that knowledge to reposition yourself and/or the subject if you want to achieve the maximum polarization effect.</p>

<p>If you're still curious about the little white arrow, head out and position yourself so that the sun is at a right angle to where you're pointing the camera, turn your polarizer until you see the maximum effect while you're looking at the viewfinder, take the camera away from your face and see where the little white arrow is, notice where the sun is and you'll know how to use the little white arrow. But the little white arrow is completely unnecessary.</p>

<p>As far as white balance goes, you may as well take it after you put the polarizer on if you're going to use it, though if it's a good quality neutral polarizer the white balance shouldn't change very much if at all whether it's on or not.</p>

<p>I don't have any concrete answers with regard to the legalities involved, but I found the first two replies interesting as they are completely opposed to each other. I agree with William, in that if a person indicates they don't want to be photographed, then honour the request and find something else to photograph. Call it an application of the Golden Rule, treating others how you'd want to be treated, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, respect, whatever. With 7 billion people on the planet it shouldn't be too hard to find someone else interesting who won't mind being photographed and might even encourage it.</p>

<p>Derek's reply on the other hand--well, let me just turn the tables. There's no law against playing the accordion out in public (whether there should be is another debate), and you also have no expectation of privacy when you're out in public carrying a camera. Would you like it if you were set up somewhere maybe photographing wildlife, or contemplating a macro composition, completely immersed in what you're doing, and an accordion player decided to set up next to you and start playing because he was so inspired by watching you record the scene? I didn't think so. The accordion player might also tell you "I'm not breaking any laws. If you don't want to hear accordion music, stay home."</p>

<p>Ben's absolutely right. You cover the eyepiece so the metering isn't affected by the light coming in through the viewfinder. Once the shutter's tripped and the mirror flips out of the way it doesn't matter if the viewfinder is blocked or not at that point. The scene has been metered, the shutter is open collecting light from the lens, and the camera is acting like the light-tight box it is.</p>

<p>I've never used the little black rubber thing on a strap myself. If my eye isn't already covering the viewfinder, then I'll just lightly place my fingertip over the viewfinder without pressing down hard enough to cause vibration or leave a fingerprint on the recessed glass. Once the mirror flips the fingertip comes off. Of course the mechanical curtain on the pro-level bodies is much more elegant, but the fingertip suffices on the non-pro bodies.</p>

<p>Tough situation, that's for sure. This short video clip shows the realities of flying into the U.S these days.<br>

 

<p>A bubble level is the best way to know your camera is level. But, since you brought it up, there's probably no good reason why there shouldn't be a mark on the lens for vertical orientation other than maybe nobody thought of it. Now that you've brought it up, I think it's a great idea that would cost nothing to implement.</p>

<p>Pocket Wizards are certainly the gold standard, and have always been. But they are ridiculously overpriced, and Pocket Wizard was able to get away with that for years because they were the only game in town. Unlike Josh, I typically do have something against cheap Chinese knock-offs of stuff, but in the case of wireless triggers I think it's well justified. What you're looking to buy is still only good for one off-camera flash. If you ever decide to add a 2nd flash you'll be looking at spending hundreds more again for another Pocket Wizard. If you have your heart set on them, by all means get them as they are a quality product, even if they are ridiculously overpriced. If you'd like a cheaper alternative, do a Google search for "Yongnuo rf-602". They've been out for a while now so there are plenty of reviews and user reports out there. They're a huge step up from Cactus triggers which are absolute total crap, yet you can get a transmitter and 4 receivers on E-bay for less money than a single Pocket Wizard transceiver.</p>

<p>I think a cloudy day is much better than a sunny one if you're shooting stained glass, in order to keep the contrast down, especially if your stained glass has clear/white areas as well as very dark colours. If it's brilliantly sunny outside, you could also go with James' suggestion of hanging some translucent white material between stained glass and the window. It doesn't necessarily have to be fabric either. Printer paper could do as well if the sun is shining directly behind. That will also cut down on the contrast, and if it's larger than the stained glass art (sticking out beyond it), it will give your camera something to base its white balance on. That might cure your problem of purples looking blue. (Of course that problem could also lie in trying to judge a pic on the cameras less than accurate lcd, or on an uncalibrated computer monitor). Regardless, having something white in the frame that you can crop out later can only help. I don't know if your camera has the ability to set a custom white balance, but if so, you can also hold a sheet of printer paper (or gray card or whatever) right by the window where you'll be shooting the art, take a shot of it and tell the camera to use that for a custom white balance and then shoot your art using that preset custom white balance.</p>

<p>As far as the drabness goes, there's a chance the camera is underexposing, especially if there are large clear areas in your stained glass, or if there are large areas of window around it. So, if your camera allows for it, keep adjusting your shutter speed to get more exposure until you see "blinkies" on the lcd, then back it off a notch. The only blinkies that will matter are the ones that appear in the stained glass art itself, assuming you'll be cropping out everything else in the photo. That will give you a nice bright picture with detail in the darker areas and no blown highlights (thanks to the white transluscent material behind it), and then you can always add a bit of saturation and/or contrast afterwards in software.</p>

<p>Though there was no question in the original post, I don't feel reading it was time wasted. Unlike a couple of the replies that followed it. Seems like the OP has some knowledge he wishes to share, and his big mistake was to post it in a forum rather than in the form of an article. Hardly deserving of the hostility and disdain shown. Of course there's nothing stopping a discussion from happening regardless of the fact that there was no question posed. I say thanks to Benjamin for taking the time to make an informative post with a very cool picture, and hope that he continues to do so, in greater detail.</p>

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