vincedistefano

<p>Hans - just realized I misspoke; I meant to refer to the VR on my 70-200 - the big f/2.8 lens. VR activation on that was very noticeable, you could feel it and hear it clunking into place. I'm sure some of that also has to with being zoomed out with a heavy lens while hand-holding; the adjustments it makes are very pronounced.</p>

<p>Hoping I didn't make a big mistake here - I bought a Nikon 16-35 f/4 lens from a guy in a neighboring town, after seeing some of his image samples, researching the lens, and getting to see it and do some test shots in person. Price was right, and it definitely fills the gap in my coverage.<br>

But I never 'tested' the VR on this lens. <br>

Now, I only have one other VR lens, the hallowed 17-200 with the first gen of VR. When VR is on with that lens and I focus, I can feel and hear activation and see the image stabilize.<br>

This 16-35 is a second-gen VR lens. With VR on, it doesn't have the same 'feedback' that the 17-200 does.<br>

I'm hoping that it's the nature of VRII, or this lens in particular, and that this is normal behavior and that I didn't buy a used lens which has a busted VR mechanism.<br>

Now, the couple of shots I've taken with it so far have been at what might be relatively too high of a shutter speed? Like 1/60th or I think I tried one with 1/30th. Which I guess on the 30-35 end kind of keeps in line with what you should be able to get away with handheld anyways. <br>

Hoping somebody has some info on this, just started at work and won't have any time until late tomorrow afternoon to try this, but it's going to make me mental until then!</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I've just discovered borrowlenses.com, pretty neat. I rented a 20mm f/2.8D ED AF, and am really enjoying it. Maybe try renting one for a week, take lots of pix, and see how it does for you? It's $565 on B&H. With the resolution of the D800, being a little wider than you might need all the time is not an issue. Plenty of crop room if you need it. If all goes well with my testing, I'll order one the same day I ship this one back.</p>

<p>Let me preface this by saying that although I'm new to shooting video on DSLRs, I've got a pretty good grip on the pros and cons of recording video on my D800. Just trying to avoid all the "why don't you use a dedicated VC?" debates that always seem to pop up. <br>

Looking for insight from anybody using an external audio system on their Nikons, and for specific recommendations on a good wireless setup. Needs are fairly basic. If it weren't for camera sounds finding their way into recordings, the onboard mic would likely be good enough. Mostly we're talking about corporate, interior, talking-heads type of footage.<br>

TIA for any pointers or recommendations for particular gear. </p>

 

<p>I'm sure you'll get lots of other responses for viable solutions, but I can only speak to what I use - SmugMug.<br>

You upload your images, and set prices based on what profit you want per image or gallery. SmugMug shows you what it will charge you for an image, and you then add to that price to derive what you'll keep.<br>

For example, SmugMug might charge $1.29 for a 5x7, but you charge $3.00 and keep the difference. Customers never see your cost. SmugMug prints and ships the images. Oh, and you can totally control what formats and sizes of prints are available, from 4x6 all the way to wall canvas. When I cover events like marathons and stuff, lately I've been finding that more people are buying the full-sized digital downloads than prints, even though it's typically $10-$15 for a download.<br>

Only downside for low-volume photogs is that they hold funds until you reach a certain amount of sales ($300 I think), but there is an option to cash out earlier if you fill out a form or two. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Just ask them"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's all well and good, as long as the customer knows how to answer those questions.<br>

It would still behove the OP to figure some of this out, for when he inevitably hears "Uh, we dunno...what do you think? How is it normally done?"<br>

Some clients simply don't know or understand what they "need" - or the implications of their answers. So, you could ask them for a list of requirements - and be prepared to walk them through questions. You can give them a choice among RAW files, Photoshop edits, hi-res jpegs, or all three - but you'd do well to explain that although RAW files are digital negatives, unless they have software they won't really be able to work with them; having them would be for their archival purposes. Just an example, may not apply here.</p>

<blockquote>

 

</blockquote>

<p>"Maybe I'll open a book store :) jk."<br>

Haha...thanks for the LOL!</p>

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<p>"Crop properly at time of capture at 12/16mp or crop really sloppy and correct in post at 36mp?"</p>

 

 

 

</blockquote>

 

 

<p>I see this a lot and I don't understand this thinking that it has to be one or the other. Haven't you ever been in a situation where a scene has just unfolded, you don't have time to compose, so you just shoot wide so that you have a shot? Something is better than nothing. This is why I'm ramped-up to get my D800. I don't mind cropping in post at 36 mp when the alternative might have been to not get the photo in the first place. Cropping a shot taken that way with my D300, I might be limited to a 4x6 print. With the D800, I can make prints from mistakes as large as prints done from properly-cropped photos.<br>

And I'm also curious - those who insist you frame a shot properly so that you don't have to crop in post: are you not doing ANY post, then, on those images? Because, once an image is opened up for post-processing - maybe a little noise reduction, a little sharpness or saturation or whatever - it's not like it takes more than a few seconds to adjust the crop anyways.</p>

 

 

 

<p>Watermarking + IPTC metadata + don't give anything at a truly printable size until somebody writes you the check.</p>

<p>Geesh, I HATE when web sites impose their audio on me.<br>

I clicked your link, and imagine how horrible the Tom Petty album I'm playing sounds with YOUR music in the background. Turn off the audio. They're my speakers, not yours.<br>

(It's also a pain for people who might be browsing your site while at work, and suddenly some unsolicited audio comes on for everybody on the other side of the cubicle to hear).<br>

Just my opinion, but I know I'm not alone. I don't even like it when stock music sites such as Music Bakery just launch into sound.<br>

Also, ditch Site Meter. Go with Google Analytics. Then you don't have to share your Web traffic data with anybody who might click on that distracting little button on the bottom of your home page. Google Analytics is also free and provides just about any info you'd want to know regarding your site's traffic.</p>

<p>We know that the results are what's important, but the original poster wasn't asking what OUR perception would be if we spotted a pro photographer using non-pro gear. We have inside information, so to speak.<br>

Regardless, right or wrong, perception DOES count.<br>

A non-photography example: I'm an IT director. I had several laptops sitting around in inventory I could have given our newly-hired, high-profile New Business director. Some decent although slightly older Dell laptops. They're in good shape and have the software he needs already installed.<br>

Instead, we opted to get him a sexy Macbook Pro system (although it boots into Win XP, FWIW).<br>

Is the quality of his proposals, his PowerPoints, even his strategic thinking any better because he uses the expensive new Macbook Pro? No. He'd be the same writer and businessman with an older but still capable Inspiron versus the Macbook Pro. He would make-do with whatever we gave him.<br>

Does it help his confidence and his image when he sits at the table with a half dozen marketing execs from a Fortune 1000 company and begins his presentations? Absolutely.<br>

Do those potential clients understand that on some level, it's still just a computer and shouldn't impact their decision on whether or not to hire us? Yes they do. But they are consumers as well, and the image or style or profile conveying by using sleek, current technology does impact them at some level. They watch the same movies and TV shows and commercials we do.<br>

We're in a highly-competitive arena, and so every bit of advantage helps - whether it's a practical advantage or a perceptual advantage.<br>

People are impressed by pro-looking gear, period. Again, whether or not that's stupid of them isn't the issue. And, certainly, if you're a pro who's able to get good images of out amateur gear, then it should be a given that if you had pro gear, you would continue to get good images. I'm not advocating somebody who sucks to begin with goes out and buys pro gear to pass themselves off as pro photographers (although I'm sure there are many who do).<br>

I guess it comes down to how much you can invest in image. But seeing how a Nikon D300 or D700 is still going to give you better images regardless, it make the decision to invest in "image" a little easier.</p>

>>I mean, why not simply take the card out of the camera and plug it in my computer?

 

I shot an event recently (high school cheerleading competition, indoors) where we had some photographers on the floor doing the shooting, and runners picking up our cards and taking them back to our kiosk for printing, while we swapped-in new cards. (very fast-paced event).

 

Wireless would have been sweet, as the runners kept getting stuck in crowds and we ended up with a back-log of cards in very short time.

although I dislike some of their larger desktop drives, I really like Lacie's "rugged" line of portables. The ones I use take a beating well, and they've got triple interfaces. FW800 is pretty nice to work with, and with the FW bus you don't need to haul around an adapter.

If "advertising" photography is boring and tedious to you already, then you're not doing it right. Have you achieved perfection in your advertising photography work?

 

There's almost always a way to inject your own creativity into anything you do, whether it's high-brow or menial, whether you're doing street or snapping shots for a catalog.

 

And it branches out beyond taking the actual photos. For example, is your workflow 100% dead-on and efficient? No? Then there's a place for your creativity to shine.

>>BIG caution: If the client says you will make all sorts of money selling reprints, chances are you will not. They grossly overestimate things, mainly because they have no experiance with such things.

 

True indeed. Boy have I learned that the hard way.

I charge the same as my hourly rate for photography. After all, if I wasn't giving the lesson, that's what I'd be doing instead. And it took an investment to get to the point where I could teach beginner photography. Also consider - are you going to put together any handout materials, or a web page with an overview of your course for the student to refer back to? Are you going to teach them on their camera, requiring you to possibly study-up on it a little? And some of it depends on who the student is, and what the "market will bear."

 

Photoshop lesson - to me that's a bit tougher. What will you be teaching - how to do basic photo adjustments, or more advanced pixel wranglin'?

>>When using the IMG tag, it's best to avoid using any kind of width or height setting at all.

 

I don't understand this claim at all. The best thing to do is size the image to the EXACT size you want it on the Web page, then definite the size in the IMG tag using the exact same pixel dimensions. This keeps the layout on the screen "proper" whilst elements download and populate the various sections of your page (or if an image gets lost on the web server; at least the size definition preserves the general layout). The space on the page is "reserved" for images at their proper pixel counts.

 

Of course what you never want to do is change the size of a image IN CODE by specifying a larger pixel dimension in the IMG tag than what the original image has (leads to jagged appearance), or by using a smaller pixel dimension in the IMG tag than what the source is (the user still has to download the large image, even though he's seeing it smaller - so why not let him download a properly-size smaller image in the first place?)

Edward - yes, you're also correct. I do that as well, probably should have mentioned it. Photos are "live" on a raid drive, backed up with software (in my case, Retrospect on a Mac) to external drive, and also archived onto DVD for offsite storage.

4 gig is the biggest I'll go with my CF cards, for fear of the "all your eggs in one basket" potential for disaster. Lots of discussions here on that already, I won't go into it but use the search to find all the opinions out there.

>>Unless you are very picky about having the latest video card every 4 months, however, you should be delighted with it.

 

Christina, if only. Love my MacPro, but my major beef with it is a lack of video card options. There are lots of expansion options you have with a Mac Pro (RAM, 4 hard drive bays, PCI slots for stuff like extra firewire or USB) - but video ain't one of them. When my ATI 512mb card died in my Mac Pro, I had ONE option for replacement unless I wanted the several thousand dollar, exotic scientific rendering weirdo card.

 

In fact, I have a friend with an older G5 tower, and his video card is going bad, and he's looking at having to trash the whole machine because nobody sells video cards compatible with it any more. And it's only a few years old. (technical reason is that it was a model right before they switched over to PCIe or whatever).

RAID is NOT a backup solution per se, it's more of a disaster recovery solution. RAID won't help you if an image

is corrupted or accidentally deleted two weeks after it's taken. Only an incremental backup will do that. Do some

google searches on backup techniques involving RAID versus file-level incremental backups, and you'll find plenty

of info to support this assertion.

 

(FYI, I do both. My active drives are in a RAID array, and this helps to keep me running if a drive fails. At the

same time, the data on those drives (photos, word docs, mp3s,etc) are backed up to a separate drive).

 

The built-in Backup tool in XP or Vista will do what you want. It won't be fancy, but you can backup only

new/changed files to the same backup file, until the backup file size approaches the total size of the hard disk.

Kelly, with all due respect, ftp servers can be perfectly secure if set up properly. We use ftp constantly, dealing out or receiving terabytes of info over the course of a year.

 

And yes, there's always somebody "rattling the doorknob" - but guess what? FTP is not unique in that regard. All traffic on the Internet is based on ports, and FTP is just another port that is perpetually tested. If you had a look into a network sniffer's log files, you'd see that anything that's connected 24/7 is subjected to probes.

 

I'm concerned that perhaps some bad experiences you had, that may be atypical, would prevent somebody from considering it as a solution. That said, I'm finding the YouSendIt service (or others like it) to be more appealing lately, but for other reasons.

"Hits" is an old-school term that's largely meaningless. Technically, a "hit" is a single file served from a Web page.

Analytics software like Webtrends, therefore, might report that your home page had 100 hits on a given day - but that's

not the same thing as 100 *people.* If your home page consisted of 9 graphics and the html page itself, one view would

constitute 10 hits.

 

Instead, the metrics to use are visitors and page views. One visitor generates x number of page views within the site.

 

I only mention this because the next thing I'm going to say is, once you get a site up and running, you should set up a

(free) Google Analytics account for your site. Then you can track visits and page views as well as referring search

engines and the keywords used to reach you, other web pages that send traffic your way, etc.

 

www.google.com/analytics

 

SiteMeter is another that's popular, but I never cared for having to have their little graphic on my site.

Who said anything about running wide open FTP servers?

 

Anyways, if you're looking for a client, Transmit gets my vote. If you're looking to serve files via FTP, I've used CrushFTP server before, and it worked very well. Of course, being some flavor of Unix, Mac OSX has a built-in FTP server. You just have to take some time to create ftp-only accounts on your machine, but the info is all out there.

 

Another option for getting files to your clients is a service like YouSendIt, which we use a lot at our agency: http://www.godfrey.com/blog/post/2008/08/26/204

Video is 72 dpi. So, no. It would be of no benefit and just slow you down editing.