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Well, I guess I could always hook up this monstrosity for extended battery life...

I know this question has probably been asked somewhere before but I can't seem

to find an answer to my specific version of the question. If I forget to put

my A-1 in the L position the battery is usually dead the next time I use it.

Is this normal? What's killing the battery? The manual says something about

disabling the active circuitry by putting it in L. Is the light meter

constantly churning away when the camera is on? I can leave my AE-1 Program on

without it eating up batteries. I know I've read somewhere about the battery

test button being a possible culprit for battery drain but couldn't find the

post. I would just like to know if I'll have to keep buckets of batteries on

hand for every time I forget to turn off the camera?

Really? Cool! I'll have to use that in the future to isolate my trash from my "commissioned" work.

I agree Heather... it can be tough sometimes trying to get simple advice and answers just because it seems like people are trying to scare you away sometimes. I can't tell you how many posts I've read that contain a comment along the lines of "sorry but if you don't know THAT, well, then you really have no right to be shooting such and such." But you just have to brush those comments aside and bask in the glory of the great advice and feedback that others give. The people on this website are extremely passionate about photography and their passion manifests itself in various forms...sometimes even hostility. Personally, I've found that there are people willing to pay me for my services because even though my images are far from high art, they are still better than what Uncle Ned and his Pentax can do. And by continually practicing and experimenting and reading, my craft will only get better despite the naysayers. Good luck on your new photography venture! (and as a CPA I'd recommend investing in an easy to use accounting package like quickbooks so you have legs to stand on come tax time)

Flickr seems to work really well as a photo album scrapbook but it lacks any kind of customization to make it a good marketing tool. I have a pro-membership at flickr so when I shoot the occasional wedding I can upload all the good shots into a set. Then the bride and groom and their friends (and anybody else on the planet for that matter) can download the full res images and print them to their hearts content. Of course they can also go look at 700 snapshots of my dog too if they feel like it.

Thanks for all the great input eberybody! Right behind the bride and groom is beautiful lake superior. I guess it only makes sense that the light that gave me spectacularly vivid blue/green waters would reflect back onto the subjects. My original thought was that my fill flash was somehow overpowering the sun, which was unbeleiveably bright that day, and that was the source of the blue. The film I shot on this day didn't seem to suffer from the same problem (Kodak Portra VC 160). All of my lenses have UV filters on them (Hoya and B&W) but I have to admit I don't know that much about the effect of UV on my photographs and how to compensate for it. The thing that bothered me the most with this picture was that the Skin tones seemed so far off. I don't think it helped that the bride was pretty fair complected and then as the day wore on you could just see the grooms head getting redder and redder as it baked in the sun. I'll definitely check out that DVD.

This is my first post so I'm hoping the link I posted will show the picture.

When shooting digital Nikon D200 with an SB 800 everything auto I find I've

been getting somewhere from a bit to a lot of blue cast over the photo. Is

this a white balance issue, an exposure issue, or a combination of both? Any

input would be much appreciated.<div></div>