mike butler

Chris,

I've been following your two threads with great interest because I think I'm in the same

boat as you.

What I've been thinking about doing is having a series of variously toned and untoned/

neutral b&w photos made using an Epson K3 printer and Epson/piezo printer at a place

like West Coast Imaging.

I suspect the piezo (similar in concept to the ultratone system), would produce better

classic neutral and warm-tone b&w, but if the K3 gets me somewhere in the "pretty damn

good" ballpark--I think that will tell me which printer to buy for home use.

It doesn't seem practical to me to switch around between neutral, warmtone, and color

inksets. I also like to skew some photos toward blue or yellow, which may be more difficult

(or not possible--someone correct me if I'm wrong, please) with grayscale.

Best of luck,

You also could conceivably use Canon's off-camera shoe cord on a stand. At least it gets

you a couple of feet either side of the camera and a little higher.

You can buy a swivel gizmo from Photoflex and Bogen (I think) that lets you mount a hot-

shoe flash on a stand. These also have a hole for slipping in an umbrella.

I'll just offer some spots where I differ.

ﾕ I set a big preview window and give the best exposures and compositions from a

particular shoot three or four stars. I then use these as a guide for going through raw

conversions and then creating master files. I don't batch name/process anything until I'm

sure I want to spend time working on it. And by then, I usually have too few things to

worry about batching. But that's my style.

ﾕ Metadata: I add that to a master file I like and is likely to eventually go out in the public

domain--web site, e-mail, custom-printing, etc. Why enter metadata to photos that you

may end up not even working on? It helps you find things later, true--just make sure you'll

want to find it later.

Post-processing can be as unique as picture-taking. Find a system that works for you, and

fine-tune it as you go along.

Hope that helps a little.

OK, here's a technical answer...

Didn't go digital until the 5d. Was a film guy before then. I'm not a FF shooter kind of guy,

but I like the way I see the FF view. The 5d allows me to crop, not that I'd ever crop...

Scott,

At the end of the day, you'll have the best picutre. At least I hope you do. And it won't be

because you had a 30d or a 5d.

Dick,

I'm glad you said "make" photographs. When I find myself asking, "Why did I take that?" I

realize it's because I just took it--it's representational; I've made a pretty picture, perhaps,

but so what?

I take pictures in the hope that I'll make one every so often, something that might give me

(and someone else) reason to pause.

Best...

If you're lucky, you'll be able to shoot about 1/60th-1/90th or so at 1600 with a 2.8 lens.

I'd shoot raw, average WB, and color-correct later (with noise reduction, too).

Sometimes, pictures like this can look pretty cool if you give them a tungsten balance, or

something in the 4000-4500k range. Try it.

Don't overlook black and white conversion, too. A cyan filter in post processing can do

interesting things with balancing contrast all the crazy spotlight colors.

Hope that helps a little.

Brooks and NK are right of course. But I think you can do fairly well with a 580 in an umbrella

and still retain e-ttl. Some mfrs. make soft boxes for hot shoe strobes, but they tend to be

pretty small. A 580 in a 3x4 softbox might have hard time getting through.

Dick,

Your OP made me think of the famous Karsh portrait of the Nazi officer, where the use of

harsh uplighting made the subject look demonic. Definitely a point of view going on there.

Maybe point of view is a better term for bias or perspective. Anyone who makes a picture or

crafts a sentence brings a point of view to the task.

paramount cords sells canon cords in various lengths, but they are also "ridiculously

expensive."

You can go wireless e-ttl with the st-e2, but that's about $200 USD.

17-40: own it and love it; great for landscape; not much flare trouble. 16-35: now lusting for

it because of it's speed and shallow dof in environmental portraiture. 17-35: what all the

pros sold to get the 16-35, but a lot of prosumers still swear by it.

I can't quite figure out this lense thing, either. I guess it's whatever you chuse. There's

nothing to loose, I guess.

You'll get the the 16-35 sooner or later. It might be better to take the pain later. Don't

overlook the importance of having beer money.

Peter,

paramountcords.com (http://www.paramountcords.com/proddetail.asp?prod=pw-mhsf1)

has what you need. There was or still may be a guy on e-bay offering to put a mini-phone

plug directly into Canon EX flashes. It voids the warranty, but the strobist.blog is creating

quite a demand for this sort of thing.

Hope that helps a little...

Unless you're very good at color balancing and using gels, you could still do a pretty

creditable job with a tripod, wide-angle lens, and available light in the daytime. It may not

be Arch Digest, but maybe your friend isn't expecting that. I think that would be preferable

to having a 550 be your main source of light.

Get a feel for how daylight tracks through the rooms and plan your shoot accordingly.

You'll probably get some blown-out highlights at the windows and a lot of specular

highlights in some cases, but you can say, "Hey, that's how Martha does it."

Best of luck...

Steve,

PS wizard Ken Kubota sells a plug-in called Sloppy Borders that replicates full-frame lines

and platinum printing edges. It's expensive though--$125, and it requires PS CS or newer.

http://kubotaworkshops.com/store/cart.php?

target=product&product_id=16155&category_id=259

Fred Miranda has some frame, border, and matt effects, too.

Hope that helps a little.

Hi,

Never tried the 28/2.8. I might have been scared off by the negative reviews. The 28/1.8 is

generally considered a dud, too. I had an Elan 7 and used the 35/2. I trashed this lens a little

in a previous thread because I don't think it's very good wide open and in fast-moving

situations, but it's still pretty good. I eventually got a 17-40/L and find that I use it at 35-40

and 20-24 most often. 28 seems like a boring, in-between focal length to me. But that's me.

Best...

Hi Jen,

The 430ex would also be good match for the 30d.

Basically, once you put the strobe on the hot shoe, the camera and flash are going to know

what to do. You can use it in program mode and get pretty good pictures.

More creativity comes in when you use the flash in aperture priority, shutter priority, or

manual modes. Fill flash is automatic in shutter and aperture priority modes. The flash

fires a pre-flash to determine flash exposure and the camera figures out the ambient light

exposure. If you want most or all of the light to come from the flash, switch to manual and

use a fast shutter speed and a mid-range fstop.

If the flash is too weak or too strong, you can compensate for it in camera and/or by

dialing down the power on the 430 or 580.

You'll find more in-depth articles with a search. But practice is key.

Best of luck

Thomas,

This discussion could be a setback for your physical and mental health! As a condominium

association president (a thankless job if there ever was) in Florida once told me: "If people

have enough time, they can separate fly shit from pepper."

Maybe it's all about "seeing," whether you're behind the camera or viewing a print.

I admire artists (photogs, painters, etc.) who sometimes have no interest in showing how

things look and are able to create something new that is interesting by itself.

Perhaps when the viewer gets to the stage of "how (or why) did you do that?"--the artwork

has already struck an emotional or visceral chord and it is a success.

Great discussion...

...I don't know James,

It's unlikely anybody would have both of these lenses. The 35/2's clunky autofocus and poor

sharpness at about f/4 and under (at least in my experience) was enough to sell it back to

keh without worrying about light transmission.

I say get the 16-35 L and be happy...

Hi Brett,

There's no magic software or hardware for creating magazine style images. It's mostly

about perfect lighting and perfect exposure, perfect color and perfect contrast. You have

to keep in mind that most magazines and ad agencies are working in the limited 4-color

space of CMYK. They have color-correction/PS gurus who spend many hours getting it

right on their monitors and marking up subsequent series of proofs.

High-key lighting, selective focus, and skewed horizons seem to be in vogue right now.

Try reverse engineering whatever you see in Martha Stewart, Real Simple, In Style, or

whatever your favorite magazines are at the moment...

Best of luck...