todd_masters

I like the crop version and also more color and also if you are shooting in raw there is a red chromatic aberration from the lens you are using that you will want to adjust in your raw converter. It is most obvious on her forehead. I selected the reds quickly in PS so you can see where I saw it, correctig this will give better edge sharpness. Also, I really love the composition, I love the shots of moms with long hair over the baby and rarely get a chance to shoot such a gorgeous mom and baby like this. Good job capturing such good shots. For some reason I love the details and textures of the mom and baby and want to see more vibrance and it seems that it is too soft or something. Maybe just more sharpness in the eyes as I assume you shot soft to smooth out mamma's skin?<div></div>

I have both 24-105 and 18-55. Yes, there is IMO an order of magnitude of difference greater quality and sharpness with the 24-105 and I wouldn't even put the two lenses in the same category (although the 18-55 is a very nice lens for what it was designed for - to get you started.) You will want to replace what little range you have left from the 18-55 range with the 10-22 - this is my next lens, I have the 17-40. Not only will you enjoy sharper images, but much quicker focus and the Image Stabilization will be a nice improvement for your shots.

I use printroom.com and have had a good experience with it, there are different levels you can choose for membership but if you do enough business they waive the fee. You can set prices and they have a nice web client manager where you can easily upload just thumbnails and when someone orders images you just upload those images. Thier lab prints for you and sends you a monthly profit check.

I have both the 24-70 and 24-105 until I figure out which one to keep. I also have the 50 f1.4. I haven't used the 24-70 very much at all and will probably sell that one - if I can bring myself to letting it go. I shoot with a 20D and there is little difference if any regarding sharpness. When I need bokeh or have been in low light situations, I have reached for the 50mm over the 24-70 and it has sitten around in my bag like an old friend that I had great times with but have replaced with a new one. The 24-105 is a bit lighter in weight but still hefty and the two main reasons that I am keeping this lens is the extra 35mm of reach and the IS which makes this lens more versatile. As far as how these two lenses function, since I have shot at length with both, I can tell very little difference with the performance between the two regarding focus (using center point), quality, build etc.. With that said however, to replace the 24-70 it takes two lenses, the 24-105 AND a low light shooter like the f1.4 or f1.8 50mm or other. That speaks to the champion of a lens the 24-70 has been. OR Canon could have made a 24-105 f2.8 IS lens and all this would be moot. If you will be in mostly low light situations where you want to shoot wide open then go for the 24-70, otherwise I vote for 24-105 (and a low light lens). The only pro/cons for these two lenses is f2.8 and low light vs. 35mm extra reach and IS - everything else IMHO is negligible (weight, quick focus, viewfinder, quality, sharpness etc..). Hope that helps.

size goes with subject. For people, get a people sized light source. For F&F a 3ft x 4f softbox will work. I usually shoot at f8 in my studio which takes about a 500 w/s strobe (although I also use a reflector panel for fill). I would get something like a 1000 w/s for your first light so when those moments come when you have more than a single family, you will have enough light to shoot a larger group.

I can't speak to the Tamaron, but I have the Sigma and it performs very nicely. I have read from most reports that the Sigma EX lenses perform better than the Tamaron, but I personally have no comparison. I borrowed a friend's Canon 24-70 and the Sigma performed as well in my comparison shots so I never upgraded to the Canon. However, I just purchased the Canon 24-105 and will be selling both my Sigma 24-70 EX and 105 2.8 EX, both very sharp copies. If interested let me know.

I shoot lots of young kids 4 and younger, I don't know why sometimes, but I do. I started practicing on my kid and friends kids and families to build up portfolio and offer in home studio shots with a mobile studio. I started with 3 200w/s strobes, key and fill in umbrella with a hair light with honeycomb filter. I have a portable backdrop stand and when I started I just took the black one. I would start with letting the kid play and shooting him/her in action to get used to the camera, let them play with it and then go to the studio area and have them help me take a picture of their favorite dolly or truck and then everyone praise the dolly or truck and before you know it the little kid wants to go perform.

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Now I do the same and use natural light if available and/or a 3x4ft softbox and a reflector and take a 500w/s light, which is overkill and usually have it on 1/8 - 1/4 power. I shoot at 1/125 at f1.4 to up to f8 depending on what I want with the dof. I shoot color and then convert to bw in ps to give more options.

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Kids usually do better in their environment and you can get a couple of outfit changes and this time of year you can do halloween/fall and xmas shots all in one visit and make 3x as much. plus you can sell it easy to a mom that hates the walmart experience of screaming kids and you can use that as a good marketing tool.

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good luck!

how long you all been digital? this "Dragan Technique" was quite the fodder for many threads a while back and resulted in probably most peoples' first try in actions on photoshop. For most folks that have been digital for a while - the mere mention of Dragan brings back nostalgic memories of trying to create the best action to copy it. <br>And yes it is all post processing techniques in ps. <br>

 

<a href="Zip_Actions/3D.zip">ZIP</a>

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<a href="www.pbase.com/mikew714/dragan_technique">dragan_technique</a>

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<a href="www.atncentral.com/download.htm">www.atncentral.com/download.htm</a>

 

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you can do your own searches and find a ton of actions, but you will find that you need a good, sharp pic to start with and plenty of tweaking. Good luck.

with regards to holding the reflector, I have a large oval 5 in 1 type and take along a spring clamp and face two legs of my tripod towards the subject, lean the reflector on the legs and clamp it to one of the legs, set focus, and trigger with shutter release while I adjust the reflector as needed (you can even use your foot while looking through viewfinder). since the reflector is on the ground aimed up at 45 it gives off more flattering light for the ladies and takes out bags and wrinkles with the modified fashion lighting. I usually use the silver for more contrasty and a stop or two of more light.

Paul, how "superb" is this lense, is it really that much better than the 24-70 2.8 and worth the loss in light? Have you found that the IS makes up for the F4 vs the F2.8? I like everyone else am thinking of trading in the ol' 24-70, 85, 105 and 50 lenses if this performs as well as the MTF shows.

 

Todd

I opted to get an additional 550 instead of the STE2. It does everything the STE2 does but it also gives you an additional light source if needed and you can turn off the flash so it only acts as a master. Also, and there is some debate about theis, the 550 seems to have a greater range than the STE2. Also the 550 is a much better flash than the 420 so I would encourage you to get the 550.

Ditto to Gareth, that is what I do. Use auto bracket so you dont forget and stay real still to keep the frames as identical as you can to make photshopping faster. Or just spot meter the window and shoot in Tv and then spot the wall, recompose and shoot the same frame. If you can take a tripod and shutter release cable!

Nadine had a good response. I also agree that the 50mm might be kind of tight and you will be pushing your dof. If you go 50 I would get a step ladder to shift the dof and get the most of what you have as well as 10' light stands.

 

I dont have a copy to show but I shot a large family reunion outdoors (4 rows of 10) with two large foam core reflectors just in front of the group, one 300w/s portable battery powered pack at about 30mm at f8 and 1/60. The shot came out good except I wish I was level with the middle row and that my light source was higher and that I had two of them. If you are going to battle direct sunlight, then you will need much more light. As mentioned earlier, one stop over ambient.

I use three different things to take the edge off. Here they are from smallest to biggest.

 

1. omni bounce, good for indoors, slightly warming, one stop loss. I try to just use bounce flash off walls and ceilings where available also. Although I don't use it as much because the built in diffuser achieves about the same results without so much light loss.

 

2. the lumiquest 80/20 velcro kit you are talking about with white/silver/gold insert. looks odd but takes good pics. I don't use it very often because I can usually get better results with tilt and swivel bounce light indoors.

 

3. small photoflex q39 lightdome 16"x22" with flash bracket which is only really good for headshots or small kids in a more formal type setting shooting with ettl wireless (or manual). Need another master though but is a good accessory for on location portraits.

 

4. actually there is a fourth which I mentioned above, the little flip up diffuser works pretty good once you get used to it and I can't tell much difference from the omni and lumiquest unless you are very close to your subject. I usually point my flash up for bounce and keep the diffuser vertical like the old tape a notecard to your flash trick. It projects some light towards your subject, makes a catchlight and the rest of the light bounces down. Does the same thing a lumiquest does without looking so odd.

 

you can get all of these for around $100 so it is cheap to play around until you find what you like. Hope it helps.

I used the index print in Photoshop just as mentioned above. Tweak the default setting of 72dpi for a little better quality and you have the traditional contact sheet. If you want professional style you will need a studio managment software like Fugi StudioMaster Pro, which if you sell pics is a good investment and is now what I use. You can also check with your pro photo lab to see if they have SW you can have access to. (http://www.studiomasterpro.com/)

 

If you use the Adobe Automate Index you might as well do the batch rename as well to make your photo index more organized. Good Luck!

when I had the 10D 11x14 was as large as I printed where most couldn't tell it was digital. To an untrained eye that is as large as a 35mm film comparison which is what I think you are asking. I did print 16x20s that still looked stunning but with close inspection lost some detail. The 20x30 prints also looked great from 3-5ft away.

 

So to answer your question and ignoring the distance issue, 11x14 is your answer for a "clear print". Although larger prints look great when not looking too closely at it and resizing with programs like genuine fractals will also make larger prints look better. Don't be afraid to print 16x20 - they will still look awesome on anyone's wall!

It can't be this difficult. I have 20D, Canon SW and Adobe CS and have no troubles. Get a card reader or connect camera to computer to get the RAW files on your PC. You will need to convert to JPEG and archive anyway so you need them on your PC. The Adobe RAW driver works fine for 20D, just download it and put it in the right Adobe folder as the instructions indicate. You can only work with RAW in Adobe with the plugin or with the Canon SW. I have never met anyone that had an issue with Canon SW reading the RAW files, if you still have issues contact Canon Tech support because there is probably some configuration error on your setup. Can you at least get the raw files on your PC through USB to camera or a CF Card reader?

Wow Dave, I don't know what is more impressive, that awesome shot or the fact you hand held for 1/2 with such clarity. Nice job. I hope you are selling prints of this. With regards to the question I have printed 16x24 regularly at ISO 100 on photo paper and canvas with crystal clarity and have only printed two 20x30s that look very good at arm's lenght without upsizing.

This is not a bad thing, call it up scope and add it to your package in your contracts up front.

 

"digital cosmetic enhancements - $10 per image" or whatever you find economically feasable. Removing double chins is a lot of work and I would do it your self because it will totally change the image and represent you. This work can easily double the time of your workflow reducing your earned wages by half. I fix flaws that are mine or quick fixes that really enhance an image for free, but charge beyond that otherwise it will never end once she discovers that you can give her the shade of hair she always wanted, porcelain skin, whiter teeth and eyes, a face lift, take 25lbs off etc... Turn it into cash and start disclosing it up front. I have a VIP package that includes unlimited editing which has been popular and also shows folks that things can't just be given away. Protect your time! However for this one time until you figure out what you want to do, I would explain how long this takes and that you normally would charge extra but she can pick her two favorite shots and you will do them for free and charge beyond that. Be honest, tell her this could take you about 20 hours to process and that your time is not free. She should understand.

you will need to flatten the plane using the same tricks for a large nose. Keep light level or a little low to highlight under the eyes and the sockets as shadows will bring attention to it. Use a telephoto and step back, like a 105mm - 200mm to flatten the features more. I would try keeping the camera level to the eyes and the main light slightly lower or use fashion lighting with a fill light poined at the knees to spill light upward to fill the eye sockets with light and work alot of poses! You can only do what you can do!

You are off to a good start, reminds me of my first shoots. I would try to have the light more head on rather than to the side, but shadows add drama and it is a personal opinion, but when shooting women the shadows will highlight wrinkles and age them so getting some fill light will help. Wrinkles and folds in a background can be distracting, like others said, create more distance between subject and background for portraits and decrease your DOF using a tele and wide aperature. If you are shooting raw adjust your curves to darken the background out and make sure your monitor is calibrated so you will know what your prints will look like.

know how your camera handles fill flash and practice with it and hope for an overcast day. If you don't have fill flash you might think of getting a cheap reflector such as the sun shield for your car windshield or white paper board and recruit the dad to get a little more light on them if going all natural. I think the bigger challenge is getting the poses you want with the kids. You might think about some kind of props to help keep them entertained like a little football or find some flowers or a rock they can climb on to keep them from getting moody.

I got one off ebay for studio work for around $30 and it works great. I don't need the pocket wizards for what I do. I trigger my main strobe with it to fire off my other slaves and it has worked flawlessly for me. I thought for under $50 it was worth a try and I was happily surprised. I got the unit where you power the receiver between your ac and your mono, so it is only good for ac indoors. There are some that have battery receivers that may give you more options for portable flash triggering like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30084&item=3880258517&rd=1

it doesn't sound like a flash issue, it sound more like an exposure issue. If you have the canon on spot metering on center check your exposure settings and change your metering to evaluate the entire frame. If your shutter/aperture are high then you will only be exposing for what is directly in front of the flash and you will lose the background. Switch to manual and expose for ambient light by reducing your shutter speed as low as you can go, say around 1/40 and see what that does. As for flash, lose the built in flash and get at least a 420EX and if I were you I would save for the 550EX or a Sigma 500, they will give you more options when you upgrade. Your pic quality will improve greatly with an external flash and you won't have to mess around with redeye anymore!

you are fine, I almost always shoot with the Canon 50mm f1.4 which as mentioned before is more like an 85mm with the crop factor, which, BTW is the old school standard. If you need to get in close, you can approach your subject with the 50 or get your 70-200 out, but I think that the 50mm is a bit sharper as a prime and will both give a better shot and focus faster for you. Later if you do larger groups and need a wider shot, IMO the 24-70 would be a better choice for you but I would save your $$ for a 20D.