mister_lane

I am glad that many readers here have found a way to tell the difference between Monster Cables and other premium cables. You should know that you have a million dollars waiting for you!<br>

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<a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/01/james-randi-calls-ou.html">http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/01/james-randi-calls-ou.html</a><br>

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James Randi is ready to pay up if you can demonstrate the ability to consistently hear the difference in a double blind test. So far hundreds have tried and failed.<br>

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Regarding glass, I am probably not going to be the first one to point this out, but lenses designed for digital sensors have immensely better performance on a DSLR than glass designed for film, especially at wide angle, for technical reasons - namely the light path needs to be as close to perpendicular as possible when shooting against a CMOS sensor, see here:

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<a href="http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?9,1237619">http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?9,1237619</a><br>

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You are free to believe that there is a piece of Zeiss glass that can measurably outperform the Canon EF f1.2 85mm prime on a DSLR body, but please add me to the list of folks who disagree. If I had a million bucks to throw around, I'd put it out there as an open challenge on the topic.<br>

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Interesting thread!

brad:

<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneosd60/page15.asp">http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneosd60/page15.asp</a><br>

There's no cure yet for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist-Shannon_sampling_theorem"> the consequences of not enough pixels</a>, however you can do a heck of a lot better at removing moire in software with access to all three sensor feeds. And so they do.<br>

HTH

You don't shoot jpeg; it's impossible to do such a thing. You shoot RAW and use the RAW converter built into your camera. It is, on a related note, the worst RAW processor in existence, which is natural since it has to perform at speed in firmware, powered by a battery. The best way to answer the question of what RAW can do for you is to understand completely all the tasks that are involved in RAW processing. Namely the linear conversion algorithm, matrix conversion algorithm, white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, and finally lossy/destructive compression. <br>

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Your RAW converter can affect so much more than just exposure levels - de-moire algorithms will keep moire patterns out of shots, something that's nearly impossible to remove from a JPEG. There are a still wedding pros who shoot film because of the white-on-white moire problems that can exist in a traditional wedding setting.<br>

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Here are some starting points

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<a href="http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_hilight.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_hilight.pdf</a><br>

<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=moire">http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=moire</a><br>

<a href="http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_filmtodig.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_filmtodig.pdf</a><br>

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good luck!

I have to disagree. You're always shooting RAW, you don't have a choice. You're just choosing to use the RAW converter in your camera instead of the one on your computer. It's universally not as good - it's embedded firmware versus dedicated software on a GPU. Plus once you learn to use RAW you can go back and make your old photos better; as well as take advantage of RAW processing advances years in the future.

Example:

A slightly overexposed RAW photo that uses the camera's auto settings, processed in CS2, versus the same image converted in-camera to JPG on "auto", will look enormously different. The CS2 one will look way better, because CS2 doesn't discard non-overexposed color channels on a pixel where one channel is overexposed, whereas the in-camera converter in a Nikon, Sony, or Canon body will discard the information and render the pixel as 255/255/255 : all white - just because one channel is overexposed. Try this yourself with a tripod. Just clicking through on "auto" and shooting RAW makes a huge difference in picture quality.

Beginners are going to get hurt paying attention to this post. )-:

The newegg one with Lightscribe, was it this one: <a href="http://www.meritline.com/sumsung-lightsribe-18x-dvd-drive.html">http://www.meritline.com/sumsung-lightsribe-18x-dvd-drive.html</a>

Been looking into this tech myself.

Jason - while I'm no fan of Flash either, I think photography sites are the exception, where Flash is almost required. I like the site, it has a great opener.

Your about text needs some work, it currently contains ambiguous reference, might want to change to "experience in a large studio setting and as a commercial photographer" or something like that.

Taking a look at google's search for links to your site (http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Awww.jasonfordphotography.com), there's no public links to your site in Google right now. Getting listed in dmoz and yahoo directory would help with basic SEO.

What sites are you on right now? Take a look at the top 5 hits for wedding photographer Louisville - if you see individual photographers there, see who's linking them, and if you see link aggregators, get into the free ones.

All common sense web stuff. I think the answer you'll here most here is that it's hard to grow this business on the web. Referrals, wedding planners, and the people who control venues - that's who books the business.

Every time I read one of these, I think how CHEAP the 1D's ability to write to two cards at once is in comparison to the possible outcomes...

I agree with the previous answer. Anyone have any good professional recovery services to recommend? Your husband I'm sure has already ISO'd the media and tried things like formemost forensics on it, but if he hasn't:

- Get a Linux boot DVD, something like Knoppix. Use dd to ISO the flash. Do it a couple of times, and use cmp to see if sections are changing.

- Run foremost forensics on the ISO. Make sure it has header and footer definitions for your raw format if you were shooting in raw. If you shoot jpg you're good to go out of the box. Foremost is available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/foremost/

Good luck!

Frederick is close for us, time & talent is no prob.

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<UL><LI><a href="http://www.sarahlanephotography.com/">http://www.sarahlanephotography.com/</a></LI></UL>

I clicked into your profile gallery and looked at 4-5 pictures in there. This is a no brainer. There are a lot of people who shoot weddings professionally who don't have your eye or your technical ability. If you want to build confidence go select the $1000-$2000 price range on theknot.com and look at your "competition".

I would say the biggest reason not to shoot the wedding would be the fact that you're asking this question. You're obviously talented.

Do or do not; there is no try.

One thing to be aware of as a low-cost beginner is that Nikon uses an encrypted RAW format (NEF) and may use the DMCA to sue the pants off of anyone who tries to interoperate with their format without paying them license fees. This means less free software available to process your RAW images - however if you don't mind forking out the cash for Adobe Camera Raw or similar, this isn't a problem. All depends on your priorities.

http://www.photo.net/equipment/nikon/D70s/

There are a lot of variables here. Many wedding pros get frustrated by guest photography, but not if it's done right. What's done wrong?

- Using a flash. If you're shooting with a flash while the pro is shooting, you are going to ruin pictures the bride & groom are paying a lot of money for.

- Getting in the way. This pretty much includes a 180' arc in front of the pro - if a pro is shooting handheld with a wide angle and steps back and your elbow gets in the way, it's a ruined picture.

I've seen pros handle this different ways. Some simply stand aside until the amateurs are done shooting, and won't shoot while others have cameras out. This usually recruits the bride & groom to shoo people.

The best approach, in my opinion, is educating the B&G beforehand. Someone before suggested a "missed shots" gallery - an album to show the bride & groom BEFORE the wedding of shots that were screwed up by the interference of camera-toting guests - blown out by external flash, or simply in the way. This, plus the suggestion of assigning to the best man the job of "amateur wrangler", can help keep amateurs safely out of the way, with their flash off - and everyone ends up happy.

Put simply, a wedding pro should never put him/herself in the position of having to shoo guests - pros at weddings are "the help", and you want to always appear friendly & helpful. It sounds like this pro hadn't educated her B&G about her guest shooting preferences, hadn't recruited anyone to help her, and was trying to deal with it on the spot by being passive agressive... not usually good for business.

Hope this helped!

Katie - first a question - what's your software suite for building your web site (other than Flash MX?). It looks great!

<br><a href="http://costofwedding.com/WeddingCostLocations.cfm?zipcode=89501&=Go

">You might find this link useful for pricing</a>.

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That said, the book "Guerrilla Advertising" is a really good one for ways to promote a business without putting a ton of money into advertising. Building a business - especially a wedding business - in any area takes time. Spending a day calling and meeting with wedding planners in a new area can teach you a lot about the area pricepoint, competition, and demand.

Good luck!