yannig

I forgot: If possible, bounce your flash from a light-colored surface to create indirect light. This has a much more natural look!

OR: use an off-shoe cord!

(man, i'm answering an old thread :))

I often shoot at parties as well, with a 400D and a 430EX. I use both 1.8 primes

@ ISO1600, and my 17-55 2.8 with flash.

The primes without flash are alright if there's enough light, and if the subject

doesn't really move. Shooting the DJs works like this, because most of them

don't really move much.

The party people i have to shoot with flash nine out of ten times. With shutter

speeds between 1/20s and 0,5s, it's virtually impossible to get a sharp shot of

someone dancing without using flash.

Most of the time i shoot them @ ISO 400, 1/15s - 0,5s (the more ambient light,

the shorter the exposure, to avoid excessive streaks from lights), and my 430EX

at +1 stop FEC. This results in good but flat exposed pictures. When there's

enough light in the background, you can get a nice colored background in your

pictures. It depends a lot on the lighting used at the party ...

Diffusers: don't use them. You'll want to have a _bigger_ light source, not a

diffused one which is the same size. Light that goes to the ceiling (or anywhere

else, not in your frame) doesn't improve your shot!. Unless there's a light

colored surface near them, but in that case you could just bounce without

diffuser ... With a diffuser your flash has to use a lot more power (1,5 to 2,5

stops?), which makes your batteries drain much faster!

I no longer use Photoshop CS, so i'm doing this by heart, and i don't know the Epson drivers. But with most devices it's like this:

In the "print with preview" window you can somewhere choose "photoshop manages colors" or "printer manages colors". Set it to "printer manages colors". In the driver ("page setup" from the print with preview window) you can probably choose something like that as well, set it to printer. Maybe you can even choose an input profile (like sRGB or AdobeRGB).

If you let the printer handle colors, your working space should be the same as what you've chosen in the driver.

There's already A LOT been said about sensor dust; read about it ...

My advice; Do it yourself with a very (!) clean make-up brush. But first of all:

read about it!

Not bad, but as you already said, i'd experiment some more with your light setup; it would look nicer without the shadow in "1005", and also, i think they'd look better a little bit brighter.

[evil] I see sensor dust! [/evil]

David, no doubt it's good ... But like you said, you'll need a lot more subject to background distance to get comparable blurring.

I've even got some nice bokeh shots at 5.6, but that's with a background far away.

The Cream-Machine effect (background at maybe 2-3 meters ...):

I realized i didn't really answer your question.

Some papers need more ink to give a saturated result (they absorb a lot for example). Using such a profile on a paper that doesn't need much ink could cause bleed (ink stays wet), or can give a more saturated result.

If you use profiles from different manufacturers, it's possible you get different results. They make profiles for different results. For example i like my prints rather neutral, but someone else might like more saturation. This is a decision taken by the profiler and by the profiling software.

The question you're asking is actually what i do for a living.

Using a profile for another paper is not recommended, but will often be acceptable.

Why? If we look at ONE printer and different papers, we use different profiles because each paper has a different color, and reacts differently to the ink.

Now waterbased (pigment or dye) printers need a coated paper to get good results. That's why photo paper is a lot more expensive than plain paper, plain paper isn't coated. These coatings are often pretty similar, and cause the ink to react in more or less the same way.

My two main portrait lenses are the 85/1.8 and the 50/1.8. I also have the 100/2.8 macro, but i find 100mm already too long on a crop body, it makes the faces look unnatural.

The 85/1.8 is my easiest lens to focus with manually (except maybe for the 100mm macro).

I wouldn't get the 70-200/4 for portraits, the bokeh will be a LOT worse than with the 85/1.8 for example.

I could formulate my opinion, but it would cover a lot of things already said ...

So i'll keep it to this: It's not the gear that you use, but what you do with it that causes "wow". With almost all the cameras i bought i was disappointed at first, but i just had to learn to use it, and discover its strong points. The difference between SLR and digicam become more obvious the harder the circumstances; low light, sports, macro ...

And this, my "lens wows" ;)

EF-S 17-55: Incredible image quality (matched by none of my other lenses), and by far the fastest focusing lens i have (especially in low light). I hear a lot about the low-light focus speed of the EF 85/1.8, but it's way slower than the 17-55.

EF 85/1.8: Something about the pictures it takes really appeals to me. I think it's the combination of shallow DOF, great contrast, and great colors ...

For as far as i know: ALL canon EF lenses have built-in motors, because not a single canon body has a built-in motor.

Why should they? I'm happy i don't have to rely on a slower, noisier "body motor".

I always use only one focus point, most of the time the "corner" ones, i mean the north-east, south-east etc focus points. I focus with that single point, and then recompose.

Only for moving subjects i tend to use all the focus points, so the AF can "find" the subject faster.

Like Christian said, the longer the focal length, and the wider the aperture, the harder it'll get to get the eyes in sharp focus. My new EF85/1.8 is giving me a hard time ;)

Arie, as i posted in my first answer, i wasn't shooting through the glass. I used a black cocktail glass, and shot through the surface of the water.

Anyhow, as i tried it out again yesterday, i wasn't able to notice this effect ...

Savas; the level of focus needed is far beyond the capability of the AF sensors. When i use my good eye, and use no diopter adjustment, i see the same.

David, Steve; no, it's not at all too dark to see. The scene i was shooting was lit by regular halogen light + the additional illumination lights of the MT-24.

Joseph, Nick; i shot it all manual, and i was framing that shot at F/8. Of course the aperture when looking through the viewfinder stays 2.8 (5.6 ...), so i think you hit the nail on the head there. The DOF of the 2.8/5.6 preview is a lot less than 1mm according too some DOF calculators (most of them just couldn't calculate it, DOF = 0mm), and the subject is about 0.5mm. I will take a closer look at my DOF preview later this evening (i'm cooking at the moment ;)).

Btw, i wasn't focusing through a glass, i took the picture through the surface of the water.

The camera was on a sturdy tripod, the subject on a sturdy table, and i was taking the shot at 1/200s (x-sync) + MLU (sadly my remote is broken).

I will confirm these assumptions in a minute. For now, thanks for your time!

Yesterday i noticed something strange. I was taking pictures of very small air

bubbles in a glass of water. I was having trouble getting a good focus. The

drops never seemed to get sharp.

I'm using an Eos 400D, the Canon EF-100mm macro @ 1:1, a manfrotto tripod and

focusing rail. There's nothing wrong with my ability to focus (the focusing rail

allows for much finer focusing than needed).

Some more details: i'm using an eye correction on my camera (dioptric adjustment

or what's it called), since i have one good and one bad eye. Even when i use my

good eye, and cancel the adjustment, the behaviour is exactly the same.

I noticed a very strange behavious when focusing. When focusing back and forth,

the bubble seemed to get wider when focusing in front of it, and it seemed to

get higher when focusing beyond the bubble.

So when the bubble was more or less round, i took the shot. Amazingly the shot

came out a lot sharper on my camera screen than what i saw through the

viewfinder. Is this due to the viewfinder of the 400D? Isn't it able to reveal

such fine detail, or is there something else going on?

Might this work better with the 40D with a different focus screen? (i'm

collecting reasons to buy the 40D ;))

"I have never found a "neutral grey" in any image unless I put it there. Using the middle eyedropper is one of those myths that gets propagated (along with inverting the column in a tripod) by those that read but don't do."

It's not a myth; i'm not the type of guy that says things without actually having done it.

Indeed, you hardly ever find a neutral grey, but with this method you can get quick results with trial and error.

I too do all my b&w conversion in B&W, and get very good results with that.

Some tricks i use: as you already said, slide your blacks slider to the right until a part of histogram falls off the left side. Adjust exposure and brightness (simply said; exposure moves the histogram, might eventually discard highlights/darks -- brightness pushes everything to the left/right, but doesn't make the highlights/darks "drop off").

You might increase the contrast even more if you like.

Then: Use the tone curve to increase the lights and highlights, and decrease the darks and shadows.

Every picture demands other values, so the only way to improve is to practice. A lot.

Every RAW converter i know of handles jpg just fine, and they all have wb sliders.

Another option would be to use Photoshop. There are different ways to do it in PS, but probably the easiest way is to use levels or curves (either one will do).

Open the picture, press CTRL-L to open the levels dialog, select the black eyedropper tool and click a neutral black part in your picture, then select the white eyedropper tool, and click a neutral white part of your picture, and then select the midtone eyedropper tool to click on a neutral gray part of your picture. Try clicking different parts with the midtone eyedropper to find the right white balance.

Bruce C, the focal distances are: 55mm, 100mm, 300mm. All three shots were taken at infinity focus, with external flash (on auto). I checked the difference between infinity focus and closest focus, but there was no big difference. I took infinity focus for all three because that's the only point where the macro reports the actual aperture.

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You didn't win yet, but you can have<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nogood/515988335/" title="Photo Sharing"> that beer </a> for free. ;)

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Mark U, i just did another test. I shot a completely white (crt) screen with the 17-55, the 100 macro, and the 70-300 at the same focal lengths as before. Yesterday i did the test by shooting a white sheet of paper with flash; today i shot my screen without flash. All three shots were done in manual mode, F22, 0,8s. The shots from the 100mm macro and the 70-300 were virtually the same, the one from the 17-55 came out slightly darker. So, the results seem to be quite inconsistent. Maybe because i took slightly different angles, maybe because i didn't pay attention to the distance between the screen and the lens, ...

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The 70-300 got serviced about a year ago, pictures taken in the vertical position were soft ... How could i test for aperture defects? Take a lot of pictures of the same subject and check for variations?

No, that's not what's happened. I am always very careful when changing lenses (camera facing down, shake dust out of camera and lens, ...).

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It's the same dust, once more clear. I thought i was finished lightrooming for today :)

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<a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1250/541331863_aa610c70b1_o.jpg" width="600" height="200" alt="Vergelijking 17-55 + 100 + 70-300" /></a>

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These three pictures were taken at F22, infinity focus as RAWs, and without edits exported to jpg. These are 50% crops.

I just wanted to start cleaning all my photo gear, so i wanted to start of with

cleaning my sensor. I take a lot of macro shots, and noise was starting to get

very obvious. (on a side note: i sold my 350D for the 400D because i was fed up

with cleaning my sensor)

So first i wanted to check my current "sensor dust level", and mounted the EF

50/1.8. I took a picture at F22 and infinity focus, and i was amazed i had

problems finding the dust. So i mounted my EF-S 17-55, used the same settings

and took a picture. Again i had trouble finding the dust! So i mounted my macro

lens (EF 100 macro), used the same settings, and you guessed it, the dust was

suddenly very clear! When i compare those three pictures there is a *huge*

difference.

So, the million dollar question; why does this happen? Is it because of the lens

design, the aperture blades, or what?

I know the macro lens "loses light" at close focusing distances, but i took all

three pictures at infinity focus, so the actual aperture should be the same ...

Oh btw, i'm sorry to disappoint you, but you don't get the million dollar if you

give the correct answer. :p