bryan_andersen

<p>Get the EF 50/1.4 over the EF 50/1.8 because it has full time manual focus override. Why do you need it, because often you get focus lock on something other than an eye and focus then compose does not work with large apertures. You need the ability to tweak the focus just a bit. The other reason is it is just a sharper lens and built stronger. Get the lens shade too. It will help reduce glare and also will help protect that part of the lens that moves in and out with focusing.</p>

I feel you are a bit early. The still camera won't go away for a few decades. The reason is resolution. Plain and simple. On the other hand I do see video gaining an increasing hold on the market. HD Video is getting fine image quality for consumers and general TV use. I expect as WEB speeds increase to see a greater amount of video there in place of the current stills. We don't have digital ink yet so the need for truely high resolution vido capture for journalism and print use isn't there yet. Also for stills in ink publications greater resolution than current video cameras (including RED ONE) can do. In 20-50 years time I expect digital ink technologoes to be able to do full two page spreads in full motion video at or above current print resolutions.

 

PS: It isn't just journalism. Advertising is most likely to head to full print resolution video before the press does. Remember flash sells. Where the in money to be made...

My Bogen/Manfrotto 3021BPRO doesn't have column play when locked down, but I'm not happy with damping in the legs. The legs are too thin, you really need fat legs for high mm telephoto work. You will need to use the trick of draping your hand over the lens to add a bit of weight and damping with it for good shots.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton would be nice durring the summer. Also they work much nicer with shorter length lenses. Jackson WY (south of Grand Teton) has a night life. A couple days there, then a couple days up around Yellowstone or vise versa. If your kid hasn't been to Yellowstone, drag him there. Make sure you get up early and get into the park for sun up and stay for sunset. Durring the middle of the day hit the exhibits, sunrise and sunset are for nature photography. A side trip out the north east enterance to the Beartooth Pass, but only do that on a clear day. The Beartooth pass is one of the highest paved roads in the US. You get up over 10,000 feet and above the tree line.

So far I'm at check approved. I'd sent mine in on the absolute last day possible with no pre-registration online.

Actually Yellowstone NP doesn't have 500 grizzly bears, it is the whole area around the park and the park it's self that has 500. So it is even less densly populated. From looking at the maps, I'd say a third to half of the gizzlys live all or part of the time out of Yellowstone. Look for a carcus or bear jam.

"As far as I can tell, historically artists were not "liberated" to speak as the singular authority of their works until the Dadaists who railed against the establishment of curators, historians and critics. And it's been a lot of fun since."

 

My guess having known critics, curators, and artists is that the artists opinions were ignored or just not asked. The Dadaists got tired of this and had the gaul to speak up and say this is what I meant and that is all I meant. Personally I like keeping people guessing as to what is on my mind with each piece of artwork. I have a series of sculptures that I will likely never sell due to liability issues. I call them the "decidedly deadly series" because they will drop you dead if you touch them without taking proper safety precautions.

Editorial publication of photos is part of the freedon of privacy we give up to have a free and independent press. Unfortunately most of the press in the US is not free of corporate control so it isn't as independent as it should be.

I'm a heavy user of fluorescent lamps. I've been getting 840 (4000kelvin and low 80s CRI) and 850 (5000 kelvin and high 80s to low 90s CRI) series T8 bulbs for use in my home and studio. I have more light with less electrical consumption. I don't bother with the compact fluorescent lamps designed to screw into a regular Edison base. I only use purpose made fluorescent fixtures. I have some shorter fixtures that use the PL style twin tube compact fluorescent bulbs. As for ballasts, get fixtures with quality ballasts. GE makes some nice ballasts that don't have AM radio interference, hum or flicker. I've changed the ballasts in some cheeper fiztures to GE ones. Also the life expectancy is wonderfull. The lamps I'm getting are rated for 20,000 hours and I have yet to replace one in 8 years of heavy daily use. PS, in a fixture where one ballast controls multiple bulbs, change all the bulbs on a ballast at once. If you only change one bulb you will halve the life expectancy of the replacement.

 

I'm also looking forward to cheeper LED based lights. They should have 100,000 plus hour life expectancies with no mercury to worry about. The color balance on lamps I've seen recently is getting much better. One way I see some done is to use a UV LED with similar phosphors to what is used in fluorescent lamps. Other designs are going for multiple differnt colored LEDs. Those won't work for photography as they will have a very peaky color spectrum. Because of that I don't expect them to be that well received by the market. The ones using phosphors will produce spectrums as good as any fluorescent lamps and I expect them to be much better received by the market.

I'll also say, let the camera chill. This way it will be at a nice stable temperature. Keep the batteries in your inside coat pocket with a heat pack. I have multiple batteries for cold weather shooting. I rotate through them durring the day. Often they can be used a number of times as they will revive from the warmth of the heat pack. Batteris are an electrochemical storage device. As such they are effected by temperature. The colder it is, the lower their ability to produce electricity.

"Never mind the eagles. They fend for themselves! Feed the starving photographer!"

 

If you feed a starving photographer you will endanger the species. You will be encouraging behavior that doesn't produce ecconomically viable photographs. Photographers need to learn what does and doesn't make a sellable photograph. If you feed them they will start hanging around philanthropists instead of getting out and taking photographs. Who knows we might have to start relocating them from around philanthropists and retuning them to streets and wildernesses. :) :) :)

 

PS: Do a google search on "A fed bear is a dead bear".

There are about 1000 grizzlies in the lower 48 states. 500ish in and around Yellowstone NP. The area around Glacier NP I think is supposed to have 400ish. Think about it. Given the sizes of the areas, the chances of seeing them are slim. It is very helpfull to find out the habits of them in the area you wish to visit so you can maximize your chances.

 

The numbers are remembered from some articles on the delisting of grizzlies in the Yellowstone area.

 

Being interesting myself I did a bunch of Googling.

 

Historical distribution maps and many good links:

http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/noframe/c032.htm

 

Interesting information:

http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/grizzlyb.htm

 

1998 Map near the end of article with recent relative distribution of population in and around GNP:

http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/glac_bearDNA_update.htm

 

Wikipedia entry (could use some improvements):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly_bear

 

--- http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/whitebar.htm

"Grizzly bears and black bears eat whitebark pine seeds whenever they are available. In average cone crop years, bears feed on them from mid-August to late fall. Following years of bumper cone crops, many cones remain in squirrel caches the next spring. When this happens, bears begin to feed on pine nuts as soon as they emerge from their winter dens. They are capable of locating and excavating cone caches under at least 6 feet of snow. Bears continue to feed on whitebark pine seeds as long as they are available and pine seeds from the previous year's crop can dominate bear diets for the entire next season. Research demonstrating the importance of red squirrels and whitebark pine seeds to bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem (GYE) and documenting the critical role of over-wintered nut caches to bear behavior and nutrition is reported in Kendall (1983) and Kendall and Arno (1990)."

---

 

Many study links:

http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/products/index.htm

Go to your auto parts store and look for the red locktight. Put your screws in with it. They won't come out. In fact you my never be able to extract them.

 

I have Manfrotto's 3245 which is also a quick adjust monopod. I don't reccomend it for heavy loads as it will shorten up when loaded down heavy. It may have an advantage over the 685B in that it's bottom leg section is the largest and is relaviely water tight up to it's top.

I now use a backpack made for hiking. I've found that when I have a heavy load I need a proper backpack suspension to transfer the load to my hips. This allows me to carry the load alot longer. Load carried on your sholders takes much more energy to carry than if carried on the hips. For ready access to a couple of most likely used lenses, CF cards, and batteries I use lens pouches mounted on the backpack hip belt. I use a Tamrac N-11 Backpack to Camera strap to put the load of the camera onto my backpack sholder strap. For padding the camera equipment in the backpack I use pouches and lens cases. For wet weather I put the contents into dry bags.

I think he means a hosre saddle.

 

I'd just use a regular saddle bag and use pouches, etc. inside it for protectig the ear. Look at what Billingham has in pouches for use in ther bags. Crumbler has a line they ball buckets which are a unit that is designed to go into another bag. They would also work.

For high accuracy tripod head leveling I use a gel platel level. It's basically a plastic disc shaped spirit level about 1.5" in diameter. Edmunds Scientific sells them for full retail. You can find them for less at other places. In use I just close my QR clamp, then set it on top. It's large enough to bridge across both sides of the clamp. Because mine has a flat base I can also set it ontop of the tripod hotshoe. Many bubble level have a slightly domed base so only the edge contacts, they can't be set on anything smaller than their base diameter.

 

For leveling the tripod I use a carpenters post level rubber banded to the center column. Any home building store or carpenters tool store should have them for under $10. I cut mine up some to make it smaller and lighter. They are already quite light, but usually somewhat bulky.

 

ReallyRightStuff has a hot-shoe level that looks good. I haven't bought one of theirs as I already had the other ones.

I'd just use the 100macro and the light table. I have a piece of 100mm x 100mm opal glass that I use as a light diffuser for slide copy work. I place the light source about 1 foot behind the opal glass. I use a 1 inch gap between the opal glass and the slide. For color ballance I just photograph the opal glass without a slide. Sometimes I've used my 580EX as the light source. If I do I use it's 14mm diffuser.

 

I bought the opal glass from Anchor Optics http://www.anchoroptics.com

My experience. I have a Manfrotto 3021BPRO tripod leg set ($170US when new), and a 488RC2 ball head ($100US when new). Nearly immediately I chucked the RC2 quick release clamp and plates. For a light camera it works, a Canon 20D with 70-210/3.5-4.5 lens and it is well overloaded. Nomatter how tight I set the screw on the QR plate I couldn't keep it from twisting in portrait orientation. The RC2 QR system does not belong on the 488 ball head. So I replace the QR clamp and plates to ReallyRightStuff quick release clamp and plates. End of twisting problems. The 488 ball holds any lens+camer+flash combination I have in any orientation without slippage. Unfortunately I'm now seeing the faults of the 3021BPRO legs. They aren't stiff enough for my new EF 300/4 lens. They take to long to settle after mirror lockup. With all camera + lens conbinations I see droop. That is caused by lack of stiffness in the legs, and lack of twension adjustment in the 488 ball head. In all likelyhood I'll get both new legs and a new ball head soon. I'm looking at a RSS BH-40 or BH-55 ball head and one of the taller and stronger Gitzo CF leg sets.

I unfortunately don't have my own car with a sunroof. On the other hand I do have a 4x4 pickup with sturdy camera mounts on the roll bar and drivers side door.

 

Use a flash as you pass a street sign. They really reflect alot. It doesn't take much output from the flash for a significant return from the sign. It would be best to do this when there is no other traffic around.

If you want to practice, use a digital camera. You get instant feedback as to what is and isn't working. If you are photographing from a moving vehicle I reccomend using a shutter release cable and to remember driving comes first. It is best to have a driver so you can concentrate on the photography. I've braced a tripod in a car and put the camera out the sunroof. Use a clear glass filter to protect the front element of the lens. I rigged a plastic cape to protect the rest of the camera.

I'd get a regular consumer backpack, then put a Crumbler "Bucket" insert into it for the camera gear. You could also look at inserts/puches made by Billingham and Op-Tech.

I don't have any soft filters yet, but would get softars or similar.

 

What I do now is use photoshop and layers. One layer is the original image sharpened to normal levels. Another layer takes that image with some degree of softening applied. I then adjust the amount of transparency to get the effect I want. I can also use gradients on both the transparency and softening.

I have a generic well built cheap backpack in which I use a laptop slip case for my laptop, and pouches for my camera gear. Sofar it's working quite nicely. For what I'd taking about in pouches, look at Billingham gear. I also use Op-Tech lens pouches. I do a similar thing for hiking, but instead use a proper load distributing backpack.

<p>I got fed up with my Manfrotto CR2 clamp and plates and switched to ReallyRightStuff's lever clamp and l-bracket for my 20D and haven't had a problem since. The CR2 CR plate would twist on the base of the camera when used in portrait mode. The RRS CR plates and L-brackets are cusom fitted so they don't twist at all. RRS has a nice collection of custom CR plates and L-brackets for most modern SLR cameras and footed lenses.

<p>If you ever plan on getting a lens with it's own foot, get an Arca-Swiss style CR plate system. RRS's CR plates and clamps are compatible with Wimberly plates and clamps.

<p>Even for day hikes I reccomend usinng a regular top loading sack style backpack for camera gear. Use something like a Crumbler Bucket and or Billinghan (or others) pouches to hold your camera gear in the backpack. I'm using Op-Tech neoprene pouches for my lenses and other camera gear bits. The <a href="http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&productId=48111560&parent_category_rn=9986490">REI QUICK UL 45</a> is the type of backpack I'm sugesting.

 

<p>The reason I say go to a regular backpack is the suspension on all camera bags I've seen sucks. They really don't do anything to transfer the weight to your hips. They place to much weight on your sholders to be comfortable for more than a couple hours. They also do nothing to bind down the load so it doesn't shift. Yes using a regular backpack makes getting your camera gear out a little slower, but you can use lens cases on the backpack's belt to hold quick access items for opportunity shots. I use Tamrac's N-11 backpack to camera straps to hang my camera off the backpack's sholder strap. That way I don't have a neck strap choking me. For rain or stream fording I use a dry bag inside the backpack. If you really feel the need for more padding you can cut up a sleeping pad to line the inside of the backpack. I use a 18" x 24" piece to line the outside of mine when I don't have any more than my clothing layers for the day. If I have a complete change of clothes that usually serves as the padding around the outside.

 

<p>Another advantage of a top loading backpack is if you forget to close it up it isn't that likely to spill stuff out.