mearle_gates

<p>I wrote Pearstone, and this is their response:<br>

"Hello Mearle, <br /><br />Thank you for contacting the Pearstone Customer Service Desk. <br /><br />The LMT100 from Pearstone is one of our most popular products. <br />Without knowing the specific microphone from Audio Technica. <br />This is where we stand. In general, the standard XLR 3-pin is a mono-connection. <br />On the mini side of the connection, the mini will provide a dual-mono reproduction<br />in the camera or recording device. <br />This method is very common among professionals. <br /><br />Hope to be of Service, <br /><br />Joey Quintero<br />Customer service Pearstone Corporation"</p>

<p>You would think the company would clearly put an important bit of information like that in their product description. God knows, there must be a lot of folks using it with stereo microphones, and not knowing the difference. I'd like to see definitive information on that point before I rely on customer reviews where the topic is not even brought up. Does anyone have a link to some explicit data on the Pearstone LMT 100 wiring?</p>

<p>I see that now. I should have ordered the Hosa XVM100 Series adapter which is for mono microphones.<br>

I have yet to find Pearstone specs that tell whether it is for a stereo, or for a mono microphone.</p>

<p>Michael - Why would you suspect the cable I ordered is wired incorrectly? Here is the link to the one I bought.<br>

http://www.adorama.com/HOSXVM249.html?utm_source=ET&utm_medium=TransactionalEmail&utm_campaign=2point0Product1<br>

I personally would suspect the company knows about what you are doing when they make these things.</p>

<p>I already have the regular XLR to mini-jack cable ordered. My theory is that with it being only 18" long, how much noise is it liable to pick up anyway - if indeed noise is the real issue. And the Pearstone has about the same length of unshielded cable downstream of the transformer, right?</p>

<p>OK. I ordered an Audio Technica AT-897 Microphone today to use with my Canon 5D MK II. The microphone has an output impedance of 300 ohms (with the AA battery). The question is: What is the 5D's audio input impedance? What is the amount of mismatch, in other words? Do I NEED the Pearstone LMT100 low to high impedance transformer cable, or will a regular XLR to minijack cable be all I really need?</p>

Your cheapest and easiest solution is to just plug in a Pocket Wizard to it.

No big deal.

I've never seen it as the least bit dishonorable to ask for a pay raise. You deserve it.

Hmmm. I've got my new portable battery power set-up operating nicely with my Profoto Acute 2R outfit, albeit with

recycle lag, but the real issue I have now is that the generator will not "learn" my pocket wizard channel during

startup when it's running from the battery. It's fine on a wall outlet.

 

The only solution seems to be using the sync cord while on battery power, or plugging a pocket wizard in via the

sync cord outlet - which pretty much defeats the purpose of having the built in pocket wizard.

 

Somehow even with a 600W pure sine wave inverter the battery is not giving the startup current necessary to power

up the learning mode correctly. I'm using a new freshly charged 18 Ah deep cycle battery.

 

Anyone have a solution?

Do you really think this sick in bed for two days response was justified by the loss of a formal shot with your daughter? Where were you at the time?

Personally if I had to deal with a mother of the bride to the extent that she needed to be convinced to "hand over control", I wouldn't take the wedding. That's a major red flag. Trouble ahead: every transgression of expectations becomes a crises. And if I did take it, her name would be nowhere on the contract, and payment would be only from the bride.

I hope you aren't judging the sharpness based on a handheld photo.

I've had that problem, but discovered it was a bad hot shoe contact due to the flash not being pushed in fully and not aligning with the pins.

Ask yourself how your photos will be different from those of properly exposed point & Shooters. And speaking of proper exposure, you're going to be learning very fast the effect of back lighting on your exposures and the effect of a single bright light bulb anywhere in your composition. Count on a lot of badly underexposed images if you don't anticipate this very common situation at weddings!

Marc, your airbrushed look on the leg is great. However it is completely out of sync with the rest of the photo which has specular highlights galore. Thus my suggestion to add them - to make the photo more united in overall appearance. 50's or not.

LOL. I was waiting for that.

To help, Marc Williams' version is the best, but has lost the appropriate specular highlights.

Can you honestly tell me I have not spoken the truth? But maybe you don't want to hear it.

I shouldn't even be looking, much less posting here, but just took a break from my own

post-processing of 4 weddings. I have too many paying images of my own to deal with, so

I'll leave you alone and get back to my own work.

I'm surprised hardly anyone addressed the awful blotch of light just below the knee. And the

ones who did applied an unnatural chalky powder effect to the whole leg. Others created

some awful stained looks.

This thread is pretty entertaining. :-)

Everything I do enters LightRoom with the Auto Tone preset turned on as a default. So,

effectively, yes. One wants to automate the workflow as much as possible. And the Auto Tone

preset actually saves a lot of time fine tuning each one by hand. That doesn't deal with

backlit images so well, or situations with harsh high noon lighting, but a few quick slider

changes takes care of that for the most part. One has to screen every photo anyway for the

throw-aways vs keepers.

Kori - You can be dead certain the best and most highly paid wedding photographers use

PhotoShop extensively to add a signature look to anything they publish. Personally I do

almost everything I need in Lightroom these days, but with the special photos from every

wedding getting the deluxe attention in PhotoShop. I would never dream of farming out my

post processing.

Kori. Not Sunny.

 

Sorry.

Thank you, Sunny. Not enough photographers really know the true power of PhotoShop. But

any of the advanced tutorial lesson DVDs will cover this sort of stuff. It was only a matter of

creating two curve adjustment layers, one to lighten and tone for the proper skin color and

one to darken for the vignette, then painting through the masks to reveal the degree of

change desired.

<a href="http://www.gototem.com/00LtXb-37502784b.JPG" >Fixed up photo</a>

 

If I were you I wouldn't even attempt wedding photography until you get a proper toolbox of

software to work with your images. It's far too much responsibility to have without at least a

much better safety net than PhotoShop Elements.

Learn how to use every single feature of your camera, so you can do the necessary quick

changes like One-shot to Servo, raise and lower iso, adjust relative flash output, etc. quickly

and 100% accurately in a fast moving situation.

Breathing and doing what comes natural is easier if your skills are honed to the point of

_being_ natural.

You'll want to be sure the custom function in the flash is set so that the AA's power is not

also consumed by flashes when auxilary power is attached. That way AA power is reserved

just for internal circuit needs.

I recently bought the Denis Reggie double bracket, and I can only say it is extremely over

priced for what you get. The really bad part are the poor (to put it kindly) hot shoe mounts

that require extended effort and time to force the flash shoe into the overly tight slots of the

mount. Far better and cheaper is the Morris MTH-203 Umbrella Tilt Head available at B&H for

$24.95.

I lose 1 1/2 stops from bouncing into a silver lined umbrella. The resulting quality of light is

well worth it.

The button arrangement on the XTi are completely different than 20D, 30D or 5D. There is

also no way to lock the iso etc. so those settings set with the 4 way toggle like to toggle to

new settings accidentally by a misplaced finger while you are shooting. Maddening! The

photos are excellent - as long as you are diligent in double and triple checking your settings.