mclain swift

Damn, Beau, nice work you have! Thanks very much for your detailed answer. As a new

photographer I really appreciate the help. I have tried several methods of B&W conversion

but I never seem to get consistent, predictable and reliable results from shoot to shoot. Do

yuou think there one method that works all the time or is it a "season to taste" sort of thing?

Here is a particular image that I love the tones on

http://www.photo.net/photo/5141038 What I am wondering if

these B&W tones are achievable regardless of what tones were in the color

image to start with (assuming this is a digital shot)? I am so not happy with

making B&W images. Some seem to work while others just look flat and lifeless

or look like thay have color casts to them.

"I have started to use NX recently and find it to be an excellent preprocessor to PS CS2. The U point technology is a real time saver and I really like the way sliders show the results for noise reduction. That said, it doesn't eliminate the need for PS CS2. I like to erase extraneous pieces of a picture, rather than try for an angle that eliminates it. For example, I took a picture from my house which had my mailbox in the lower right corner of the picture. PS CS2 eliminated the mailbox in a couple of seconds, making it look like it was never there."

 

Exactly how I use it. All of my general work is done in NX and then brought into PS CS2 for final work, cropping, sharpening etc. I think NX is fantastic and it is brand new--it can only get better.

I figured as much. I will have to give it another go on the weekend. Thanks for your

responses, Brooks.

Yes, and I was shooting at my camera's sync speed of 1/250. I think it likes 1/125 better.

Thanks Brooks. What would you think be the place to set the exposure from or is it a

subjective thing?

Sorry, that first link is broken. Here it is http://www.photo.net/photo/4444333

I am having a tough time creating this look http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?

photo_id=4444333 I seem to be getting more of this

http://www.photo.net/photo/3593717 Now both of Gregor's

images are outstanding but I want to have more of a rim light effect on a

silhouette like the first image. My best guess is that strip lights are the

modifiers (one on each side) but how does one not get the spill over the front

of the body? Are the lights feathered behind the model? Are there

flags/gobos being used? Am I doomed to never figure this lighting scheme

out? Thanks in advance for any insight.

It is a very simple question with a very simple answer. What makes anything art? It depends on who you ask.

I will add my opinion. The human body is nothing to be ashamed of and it can be a very beautiful thing to look at. HOW that body is photographed is subjective and the people that view the photograph will have their opinions. Those that find the human body offensive will not like it regarldess of the pose, light, intent, etc. Those that demand a high level of photographic skill will judge the photograph on those merits. Those that can appreciate a beautiful body, regardless of the photographic skill, may still appreciate the photo. And on and on. Some people think my work is offensive and pornographic. Others think it is wonderful. How is that summed up? Oh...Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they have been saying for ever. Can a photograph of a naked person be art? It simply depends on who you ask.

I would expect her face to be MUCH more gaunt. Look at faces from concentration camp images of WWII. This person's face is quite full.

I found something interesting last night. I did a studio shoot with a lovely young lady and I

thought instead of using 1/250 as my shutter speed I'll use 1/125--no dark areas on the

images. Could my strobes be the main culprit? Maybe my camera has a mind of its own. I

did some more shots with ambient light and there doesn't seem to be much of a problem like

I thought there was. It seems to happen with my strobes and a shutter speed of 1/250th. I

used the identical light setup as a previous shoot at 1/250 and had no problems yesterday at

1/125th. Interesting. Here is a shot from last night's session anyway :-)<div></div>

I found something interesting last night. I did a studio shoot with a lovely young lady and I

thought instead of using 1/250 as my shutter speed I'll use 1/125--no dark areas on the

images. Could my strobes be the main culprit? Maybe my camera has a mind of its own. I

did some more shots with ambient light and there doesn't seem to be much of a problem like

I thought there was. It seems to happen with my strobes and a shutter speed of 1/250th. I

used the identical light setup as a previous shoot at 1/250 and had no problems yesterday at

1/125th. Interesting. Here is a shot from last night's session anyway :-)

 

[image]http://www3.telus.net/public/spoof/_mac0070.jpg[/image]

I shoot in RAW so that can't be the problem.

Hey Obi...nice idea. I will give that a try. Thanks guys.

The mirror thing sounds like a viable issue. No, I am not exceeding my sync speed (the darkness isn't as defined as that), and it doesn't really matter if I am using flash or ambient light. I guess I should have mentioned that. Sorry. The mirror thing does sound like a very cood culprit though. I am going to be without my camera for 8-12 weeks aren't I?? Kill me now. Are there any specifc tests I can try to see if the mirror is the case?

I shoot moslty in portrait orientation so I guess I am referring to the top of

the frame when in landscape orientation. The top (or left) of the frame is

always dark. I have checked my backgrounds for light fall-off and there is

none. I can take a shot in both orientations and the dark edge is there--

onthe left in portrait and on the top in landscape. I have tried with and

without lens hoods I have tried adding more light to the left of the

background which mad no difference obviously because if I trun the camera the

dark edge is along the top of the frame. It looks a lot like a light fall off

sort of thing but there is no way it can be. Could there be something wrong

with the sensor?

I am sure the lighting setup was simple but I am sure it is not responsible for the tones in the image. I believe it has been tweaked in PS, gels were used, whatever, but something was done other than a camera, a strobe and a reflector. That did not come out of the camera like that with just a simple flash and a reflector.

I have a couple of Opus lights I bought as my first studio lights. They are cheap but do the trick. Mine only have 1/4, 1/2 and full power which doesn't leave a lot of flexibility. I use them now for mostly background lights, hair lights, etc. or when I shoot outdoors so if the wind knocks one over I am not going to cry too much about it. I really like my Aurora Genesis Uni-lever units. I need to pick up a couple more at 400ws. I have two G-800's which I find are a little bit too powerfull for some of the things I want to do. I am really happy with these units. Well built and very flexible.

I bought a generic radio trigger for my studio strobes from Ebay (some guy in New York

makes them I think) and absolutley love it. I haven't had a problem in almost a year with

it. However, I bought a bunch of different ones on Ebay for my speed lights from come

palce out of Hong Kong and they are absolute crap. My SB-800 won't fire and my

SB-600's are hit and miss. The test button will fire them all the time but the camera won't

trigger them consistently at all. Also depending on where I am in the world the damn

things go off themselves!! I now had to shell out serious cash for Pocket Wizards and the

gadgets that go with them to be able to use my speedlights with them. They haven't

arrived yet so I have no idea how they will be. Unfortunately I could only afford a

transmitter and a reciever fro now...man those things are expensive. I hope the old saying

is true in this case.

I am not sure why so many people are having such grief with NX. I think it is fantastic and will only get better with future versions. I don't process 100's of images, I work on a select few images individually so I can't speak for those that need to batch a ton of images. I am running it on my new Mac Dualcore G5 with 4GB RAM and it blows Capture 4 away for speed and reliability (it does seem to take longer sending a tiff to PSCS2 though). I was at a friend's last night showing her NX and she has an XP machine with 1 GB of RAM and it was pretty slow and lots of HD caching. I told her to put at least another GB in it and she would see a speed increase. I feel that a lot of people that are complaining about NX are running it on outdated machines. This is powerful modern software processing large image files. NX needs to be on a modern machine with lots of memory and it runs just fine. IMO anything less than 2GB is a waste of time with a lot of today's software and OS's.

Wow wow wow wow wow. Now this is some slick software. Yes, the interface is a little odd,

but from just playing with it for a little bit this thing is AWESOME! The control point feature

is simply outstanding. I can certainly see me using much less of PSCS2 in the near future as I

begin to get more familiar with NX. Good job Nikon (so far that is).

Yes, it looks as though the image could have been painted with a hand held flash.

David,

I'll check the rear screen next time I am near my camera to see if it is indicating the correct

bank.

Well, I must be daft then. I select bank A, make my changes and exit the menu. Go back into

the menu slect bank B, make my changes and exit the menu. Go back into the menu, bank B

is still selected, slect A, and the settings are the same as B. This should not be. What is it

that I am not doing correctly?