josh_ross1

The kit lens takes a 30D and gives it image quality that matches a $400 point and shoot. It is a terrible, terrible lens. That said it's the only really wide lens I have so I use it when I need to and it works. Just don't go around trying to tell people it's a great lens. There are a lot of people on this forum that seem to think that the kit lens is great and I really just don't get it.

Don't ever use Qtips on the sensor. You probably won't damage it, although it's quite possible if the cotton slips away from the cardboard, but more importantly you are quite likely to get a bunch of lint left behind.

As Bob said you will not get any performance advantage going to the extreme IV.

This may or may not be photoshopped, I don't think so, but you can create it all with one light and an umbrella. A reasonably reflective wall will help to provide a rim light. If you are using an accessory flash just zoom the head to it's maximum and use a shoot through white umbrella. Point the hot spot created from a tight beam through the umbrella at the wall just to the right of the model. The spillover light will light the models face while anything that reflects off of the wall will work to provide a rim light.

It's hard to read the contact info. I am primarily a designer not a photographer so working photographers may do things differently but I don't like cards with images on them. Keep it simple. A nice logo and good design. Then use your website [which looks good] and if you have some money still a good self promo piece. Some kind of clever little brochure type thing that really shows some of your work nicely and more importantly has some kind of clever theme. If you were going to stick with this I would move everything down to a color strip on the bottom or maybe the top.

No your not missing anything. You need two units so pocketwizards will cost upwards of $400. The gadget infinity stuff will cost around $35 and pretty much do the same thing. It's all about how much ultimate reliability is worth to you.By the way you can now get the gadget infinity stuff from here instead of ebay, apparently not the 16 channel units but this is what I have and use. I just added a hotshoe to PC adapter and now I hang the receiver from the stand instead of it being mounted under the flash. http://mpex.com/ItemDetail.aspx?SKUID=12003&SKU=5000854110123&SN=0000&Q=False

Get yourself a gadget infinity radio trigger off of ebay. Get the 16 channel one without the hotshoe adapter and also get a miniport to hotshoe adapter. I suggest doing it that way because it's much nicer to hang it from the lightstand pocketwizard style rather than have a big receiver mounted under the strobe on the lightstand. Or if you can afford it, as Ellis mentioned get a set of pocketwizards.

How about a powerful accessory flash, or two, some light stands, some umbrellas and some pocketwizards?

How about a 580EX a light stand and a pair of pocket wizards. Otherwise everyone loves Alienbees for their price to quality ratio.

Try a png file and see if that works for you.

Either the 24-70 2.8L or the 16-35 2.8L or both :). Or if are not looking to spend $1K for a lens right now then get your self a 50mm f/1.4.

I would try what Kyle suggests order from either amazon or B&H and ship it to the hotel. Both of those store will be significantly cheaper than anything you can buy locally.

Clark the 24-70 is f/2.8 the 24-105 is f/4.0 for me that's pretty much all I need to hear. I think for your purposes the faster lens will be better and the range should be fine. As far as ordering from Amazon or B&H you can sign up for amazon prime for like a month for free [you get a free trial] and get free 2 day shipping or $4 overnight. Thats what I did when I bought my 70-200 2.8. Still if you would rather pay $500 more plus tax instead of shipping I guess that's your choice.

If price is not the issue then get the 5D. It's a much better camera and it's full frame so your lenses will have the same field of view that you are used to with 35mm cameras. The larger censor also means it has substantially better low light capabilities. The only reason I would get a 30D instead of a 5D would be if you had a bunch of EF-S mount lenses and didn't want to sell them or you couldn't afford the 5D. Also don't buy the cameras from wherever you are looking. Go to B&H or Amazon. The 5D with the 24-105 is $3,319.95 with free shipping and no tax on Amazon. You might also consider the 5D body only for $2,585.10 plus the 24-70 f2.8L for $1,135.69 and the 580EXII for $414.59 for a total of $4135 from Amazon. You could get it all for within a $100, depending on your tax rate, of what you were looking at locally.

Yes, radio is the way to go. Try out the gadget infinity system. It's about $35 shipped and that includes a sender AND a receiver. extra recievers are around $15 each.

You will be just fine with a 550EX. Sure a nice big strobe is great but instead of that for now just get a pair of pocketwizards a light stand and both a silver lined and a white shoot through umbrella. You can get soft enough light even when you use a bare 550ex if you get it off of the camera and find the right angle/distance. If after you have played with the 550 you still find yourself wanting get a for a while get a strobe setup and you can still use the pocketwizards. Check out the

s t r o b i s t b l o g

You should pretty much always be in manual for this type of stuff. Just make the decision to miss stuff now so that later on you not only won't miss stuff but you will also be able to meter everything correctly. It really won't take long before you able to switch things quickly and accurately. I have to admit I didn't even know that the pop-up flash was adjustable since I have pretty much never used it. If you buy an accessory flash such as the 430EX [probably a good choice for you] you would meter for the sky then if it's bright day I usually go a stop or two underexposed then just adjust the TTL compensation depending on your distance from the subject. This gets you a nicely exposed person with a slightly dark background. If you want everything equally measured just keep the sky metered accuratly and adjust the TTl as needed for fill. Check out

h t t p : / / s t r o b i s t . b l o g s p o t . c o m [the spaces are just avoid censorship] to learn about flash more.

Maybe digial darkroom would have been a good forum, but either way the answer will still be no. Only opening and resaving loses quality merely moving around on the hard drive does nothing.

I have a 70-200 and I use it for portraits on a 30D [same crop factor]. The 135 is right in the middle of that range so I would say it works well enough. There are two things that I find hard. First the 70-200 can't focus that close [don't know what it is on the 135] and thats worth noting because there are a lot of candid situations where people are walking towards you, or you are in a crowd and can't get back far, and you miss the shot because they are too close and you can't take it. So I would think about that as you are considering. The other thing I would think about is how much you like more head shots vs environmental portraits. It's hard to get environmental shots with a long lens like that. If you like a nice tight crop with lots brokeh though it will be great.

I would have mentioned s t r o b i s t but he said that he already has a SB600 that isn't cutting it. You could consider Quantum stuff or maybe add another SB600 and use them in tandem. I am not able to link directly to the double flash bracket I want to recommend but if you search the user elv0000 on f l i c k r he makes them and they are nicer than anything else out there.

Just wanted to add another opinion. I don't think it matters if the whole face is in focus. The eyes are in focus and engage the viewer. That's all that counts.

I can't believe in all of the responses only one person said to work on the lighting. The location stuff is all great and the GOYA advice is good too but your going to find that to get shots that are really above the standard it's all in the lighting. One thing I would try is playing with hard light. All of your shots have nice even soft light. Great if you want to play it safe but if your asking how to find the creative spark it won't come from being safe. Learn how to use hard light. It's not safe but when you nail it looks so much better. Try out a beauty dish, a ringflash, bare bulb, light from lots of angles at once, overpower the sun in full daylight, etc... The other thing only one person mentioned [i didn't find Tim Scholar impressive at all] was looking at other photographers work. Find work you really like then learn how to duplicate the look and once you can copy it stop copying it and integrate it into your own style. These are some links that I like. http://www.manipulator.com/ http://www.thefstopmag.com/ http://www.timtadder.com/ http://www.snapfactory.com/ http://www.timtadder.com/ http://www.davehillphoto.com/ http://www.michaelgrecco.com/projects.php http://www.mullerphoto.com/ http://www.patrickhoelck.com

yah I forgot to mention ISO. Go up as needed.

Others replied and pretty much answered the question but yes I would say buy the body only and play with your lenses. Once you get comfortable then buy yourself a fast L series lens in the focal length you want.

I think people are going to need more info about what you are looking for. Is portability a concern? What type of budget do you have?