mimi_zhou

<p>I assume that you have signed a model release with your clients stating that you have the right to use any of the images for your own portfolio? I would try to talk to her and see if you can reach some kind of compromise. I would take the images down if the client insists.</p>

<p>Thank you everyone for your valuable responses. I now have some idea of how health insurance works if I choose to get in the photo business in US. I have a lot of research to do.<br /> The complexity of the system is part of life like it is anywhere else, will take some time to get to know it well. I will just have to get used to it if I decide to go there. Maybe I will be so used to it, one of these days I would think that the whole US health care system is actually reasonable.Or it is just better to stay in Canada.</p>

<p>Matt, you are right. Personal income tax is quite high in Canada. Though tax is connected to my annual income, not connected to my health care, which means if I get sick or decide to have children therefore can't run the business for a year, I would still have health care even if I make zero profit.<br>

I am sure it would somehow work out considering the legions of photographer living in US. This is just something I am not familiar with (comparing to other types of insurance cost), and it makes me anxious. I guess it is just difficult for me to factor the cost of health insurance in as a business cost.<br>

Thank you for your response.</p>

 

<p>I am considering moving to the United States from Canada, for the sake of my relationship. I am not sure where we would eventually stay, for now, probably somewhere in the New England area.<br>

I am quite new to the photography business, but would like to stay in the business after the move. I know the economy seems bleak, but my main concern is the cost of health care. How much does a freelance photographer have to pay annually, on average?<br>

I know that I could probably get covered by my partner through work, but what are the other options, especially if I would like to stay as independent as possible?<br>

I found that it already costs a lot to purchase equipment, to maintain a studio and to advertise. I just cannot imagine on top of everything else there is health insurance cost. Do you just simply charge more to cover this cost? Are you constantly afraid of getting sick, at risk of losing your business because of it?<br>

I don't want to get all political here, but it baffles me that universal health care is still something that requires debating.<br>

Any response would be great help! For better or for worse, it will ease my anxiety. Thanks in advance.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I downloaded a demo version of a HTML based TTG Slimbox Gallery engine for Lightroom. The color of the published web gallery is very very good. I then downloaded the TTG Simpleviewer 2.0 (instead of the Airtight SimpleViewer 1.8.5) , the same problem with color persists.<br>

I am wondering if the root of this problem lies with Flash Players. Perhaps the next version will read the 5D MarkII files better. I will stay away from using flash based web gallery for a while.</p>

 

<p>Thank you for all your replies, very helpful!</p>

<p>I had flash player 9 previously. I upgraded to 10. I also enabled color management in Firefox3. Here is how if anyone is interested, thanks to a link from elida.ca - http://lightroom.theturninggate.net/?s=ICC+profile</p>

<p>The result, the image looks better in Firefox now on my laptop, still pale though. I was able to check out the online gallery on a brand new G5 with OS 10.5.6, GeForce 8800 GT graphics card, flash player 10, Firefox 2, on a MAC 24in cinema display, what you know, the online gallery images look perfect, and even a little too much red in fact.<br>

Again, the point is that I am used to do only a little bit color balance in Lightroom before exporting and showing client a proof gallery, whether the photos were taken with a 20D, 5D, or a 1Ds. The gallery images online (from different monitors) were never TOO different from the images show in Lightroom Web module nor from my originals in the Lightroom Library module. The 5D mII files were the first to cause such dissimilarity, on my own machine too! This affects my workflow tremendously.</p>

<p>I can't explain this except I feel I am back to the time when people insisted that film is so much superior than digital.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.zmimi.com/photos/test.jpg" alt="" /><br>

The photo above was taken with Canon 5D MarkII, in RAW format, with Adobe1998 color profile. I imported and converted the RAW file into DNG in Lightroom 2.3 on MacBookPro 10.5.5.<br>

The photo on the left is the exported from Lightroom using the "For E-Mail" preset, with sRGB color profile. When I tried to build a web gallery, with Airtight SimpleViewer template, I found the image looks desaturated, less contrasty and somewhat too bright. (See photo on the right).<br>

After exporting, I checked the web gallery in Firefox 3.0.7 and Safari 3.1.2. In Firefox, the image looks like the desaturated version in Lightroom's Web module; in Safari, however, the image has a lot more red, looks close to the exported Jpg.<br>

I understand that I shot in Adobe 1998, and some color information will be lost after converting to sRGB or after converting for web publishing, but never the difference was so visible and bad from within Lightroom. I shot with the first generation of 5D before, had always shot with RAW and in Adobe1998, the web gallery images had always been very close to the DNGs.<br>

I also tested with the .CR2 file in Lightroom's web module, same ugly stuff.<br>

If you have MAC try http://zmimi.com/photos/test2.jpg in Safari and in Firefox, tell me if you don't see two different rendering on your monitor?<br>

Now it seems that I can no longer go directly from editing in Lightroom to building/uploading web gallery to show clients, because it look bad! Nor I could export the jpgs and shown on web, because somehow they still look off in a non-safari environment? What am I missing here? Help!<br>

Update: I just tried to look at the test2.jpg in Firefox on an old CRT monitor connected to an IBM ThinkPad, the image is deep red; a friend looked at it on her Dell laptop using IE, the image looks desaturated and white.<br>

I have never met with this kind of inconsistancy before!</p>

I wanted to achieve very blurry background and clarity of the main subject without having to PS. It was the goal for this practice.

 

Like this Example, but perhaps with more surroundings:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2047/2278369681_9c15c2b52f_o.jpg

 

but i guess,like in image 2, I should have just used a longer lens and go back in order to get the kind of blur I want... am I right? still troubled by the clarity issue, I want to get to the bottom of this f-stop and clarity focus relation before I can blame it all on equipment.

There is another photo, when viewed at 100%, I can see that the holding hands are in focus as i used center focus. but the girl's face is not sharp, guy's face is out of focus. I am now thinking that shooting at f2.8 is foolish if I want to include two people or include the whole body. But I swear I have seen a lot of photo with great sharpness and excellent DOF plus quite a bit of environment...

 

at f2.8 the background blur sucks in my opinion. again, perhaps should have used a longer lens to achieve more DOF, and step back if I want to include a more surroundings in the shot? if the shooter has to pull back a lot, for example @f2.8, wouldn't he fall out of the distance of acceptable sharpness as well?<div></div>

Thanks everyone for their valuable answers to the focusing question i posted a week ago. The DOF calculator is

immensely useful. Here is another problem I am having difficulty wrapping my head around.

 

I photographed two people in front of a church, and had to include the rather large church in the background. I

used a 16-35 mm lens. The couple is about 3 meters away from me,3/4 length in the frame. The church is all the

way like 50-70 meters in the back. I shot at 1/500, f2.8, ISO 100@ 26mm. They were backlit, so I used one point

auto-focus on the couple. I took about 10 shots, all the pictures are again not so sharp. They only appear sort

of clear, a little fuzzy, definitely are not sharp enough to pop. The church in the background does not seem to

be out of focus so much, perhaps due to the size.

 

Does it make sense to shoot at f2.8 with wide angle shots like this? Would it have been better if I shot at f4?

In general, is it much harder to focus a wide angle shot with wide open aperture? I think the answer is yes.

 

What should I do if want to shoot wide to include the scenery yet to have more blurred background than I have

now, but with the subject in sharp focus? The focus dial does not seem to work very well, except for the center

point...

 

Right, I may have problem with my 20D, but everything is sharp most of the time when I shot close up with a 50mm

at f2, auto or manual focus. Problem is with full body and the right amount of DOF.

 

A quick question about the DOF calculator. it says that the near limit of acceptable sharpness is 3.04m, and the

far limit is 5.85m. As far as I understand, it means that subjects from 3.04 to 5.85 m will stay sharp... am I

right?

 

Thanks again for taking your time to answer my beginner questions, very very appreciated.<div></div>

Matt Laur said "You've got to take control over what's in focus - very deliberately". Jackpot! Exactly what I cannot achieve with consistency at the moment. With the same camera, same lens, I assume same techniques, I get sharp and non sharp images half half I'd say. And that is driving me nuts really.

 

Great advice, everyone, thank you so much. It is definitely time for me to pay more attention to shooting technicality.

 

Do most of you agree that learning how to MF quickly is much better than trusting camera's AF system? What about shooting (even slow) moving objects?

 

The online DOF calculator seems very valuable as soon as I can get pass the math.

 

Nadine, your answer is thorough as usual. What do you mean by "have my 20D set to use the joystick directly for flipping to the exact focus point."? Sounds like something super useful and helpful.

 

Based on all your suggestions, I think that first, I will test the front/back focus problem by downloading some targets. Any specific suggestions as to where to go to to download?

 

Secondly, I will do focus testing with a person, at different distance and aperture, and try A) center weight focus then re-frame; B) dial the AF points; C) selecting more contrasty points on the same focal plane for better results.

 

Are there other things I must try in order to achieve consistency? Thank you so much again.

Hi everyone,

 

I guess this one of a focusing issue in general. I often see beautiful and soft wedding portraits shot probably

with a prime lens at f2, with subject's eyes ultra sharp, ears, and neck well out of focus. I saw some full body

shot recently on Jessica Claire's website, shot with 200mm f2, the subjects are all in focus and background

nicely blurred. I am just starting, would really like to know how this is achieved.

 

I started out shooting with a 20D and a 17-85 mm lens, and only recently bought a 70-200 mm f2.8 lens to shoot

events. I could not seem to find consistency in shooting sharp images. The focus is often off. I have become

increasingly exasperated during the shoot because of this (never a good thing). I found that if I use the

70-200mm to take a waist-up shot, with 9-point auto focus, often only the subject's neck is sharp in the

middle, not the face; if I use one-point focus, first of all, I found it is difficult in events, or weddings, as

one needs to dial to change the focus in lightening speed; secondly I usually need to reframe the shot using the

focus locking mechanism, but at f2.8, slightly move throws the focus out. I will get one eye in focus if I am

lucky. so now if I have a choice, I don't shoot lower than f 4. I rented a 24-70mm lens last week, and found

myself in the same sort of set of problem. I have my camera and lens re-serviced and checked but it did not

change a thing.

 

Perhaps, I thought, I should not use the 70-200mm to take half body length portraits until I get a more suitable

lens, but still, there is no way to focus better? I must be doing something wrong. I see tons of good sharp

pictures out there shot with wide open aperture. What is it that I am doing wrong? What is the proper way to

focus, let's say for a couple who is hold hands and standing one shoulder length apart in front of a wall? If I

shoot at 2.8 with one-point focus, one of them will be out of focus, if I use 9-point focus, frankly, often the

AF only gets the wall. MF seems to slow for me to use when "capture the moment" is at the core of the business.

 

What do you do? and please help, any advise will be greatly appreciated.

I have the same problem focusing while shoot 3/4 portraits using my Canon 20D.

For instance, I want to use a wide aperture so that the ears are be out of focus. I used one point focus at f4 with a 70-200 f2.8 lens, the focus most of the time came out to be around the area below the neck even though I tried to focus around the eye. When the crop is tighter around the face, the focus is good, but when at 3/4 length, the focus is off. f4 might be a bit too wide but for ones that are focus the effect was nice. Does that mean if I shoot full body, I should stay f8 and above?

What is the best way to achieve good focus? manual focus would be too slow for me for every picture. but i will try the focus testing.

I just purchased this lens in Dec.07. I had not noticed the IS noise until I used it in a very quite environment. It sounded exactly as described above, loud motor turning sound and then a click sound (like when VHS tape finished rewinding). When the IS is off, it is very quite. So it seems like a common issue. No need to think about it twice?

 

Does anyone know if Canon has made any statement about this IS noise?

Thank