michael_darnton1

I can come up with a story to make anything sound good, on either side of any point, but that doesn't mean much, does it?

 

I prefer to know something about the people I take advice from. You may choose your doctor randomly from the phone book, but I don't.

I'm not wild about flash because of the speed issues that other people are mentioning, but I do like the way your page looks, in general.

This wouldn't be a problem, except I see a lot of people on this forum who are totally willing to give all sorts of criticism and advice, and when you go look at their pix you realize, "gee, that guy has no idea what he's talking about." I put up some of my own stuff on Flicker so that people could see where I'm coming from and decide on their own whether they are interested in what I have to say on any particular subject.

 

I always like to consider the source of any advice I get. The requirements for signing up here don't have anything to do with ability, so yes, if you don't have something to show, your advice is functionally equal to some bum on the street's until checked out and proven otherwise. If you don't mind that, I don't. It's certainly your choice.

My favorite series of lens tests are these: http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/index.php You can click on the chart that looks like a trampoline, and view results at every opening via a slider on the chart.

 

It appears that the 1.4 sort of blows away the 1.8. I got the 1.8, and really, near wide open the edges ain't too good, but I liked the price and the size.

I love my 10-20 Sigma. It's exceptionally sharp, and the length mates perfectly with the 18-135 kit lens--not too much overlap.

I once shot several-month-old triplets and their slightly older brother for a news story, and what I did was jam them all together sitting, adult-style, in a row against the back cushion of a sofa, because we found that this sort of locked them in place, facing the camera, all pointed in the same direction (at the camera), and unable to extricate themselves.

 

Then I got right down at their eye level, close, with a 50mm lens, I think, so they didn't have much else to look at, either. People thought the inappropriately-adult pose was cute.

Google "double color management in photoshop" and you'll find lots of hits explaining why I'm recommending turning color management off as a first step. There are various ways of dealing with the problem, and that's one.

You guys would starve without restraurants to feed you, I bet, and argue about the theory of food as you wasted away. Manu, take a stab at my method. It's only going to take a couple of prints to find out if it works for you.

One more thing: if you do what I said, turn of ALL color management in Photoshop's color preferences--let the printer be the one to decide what to do with what it gets, unfiltered, from the computer. Having more than one thing manage color can really mess things up.

Calibration basically means that your screen looks like your prints, so I'd say you need to do it. Other computers don't matter--you don't know that they'd make any better prints on your printer than yours does.

 

In my experience, ALL laptop screens are much too blue, as well as having some other smaller color problems,which would account for your yellow cast.

 

One way to "calibrate" if you're clever, is to tune up your screen until it looks like your print. Then the screen and the print will look the same. This is possible, but difficult for the inexperienced, to do without calibration tools and software, because PhotoShop and the screen adjustment stuff say the same things about color in very, very different ways. If you have windows, right click on the desktop, hit properties, and start digging for the color adjustments, and good luck!

Perhaps the problem is that you're not charging enough for them. Ideally, the choice should be a coin flip for them, and for you, as to which way to go. They'd pay more to get the negs but the penalty for that advantage would having to pay to get them printed. On your side, you'd get less money, but wouldn't have the printing to worry about. At some price, there's probably a number that satisfies both sides in those regards.

I don't think it's a digital problem. Thirty years ago I judged a photo competition which was 95% bad postcard photos that people mistook for art, and 45 years ago I was entering contests with the same. Face it, most photographers are bad--digital just permits them to be flashier.

 

To me, "landscape" and "street" are like big black holes of substance-free kitch and pretense; at least wedding photographers mostly know what they are and why they're there. :-) Someone on another forum commented that tech-based sites attract a greater proportion of people who are more interested in their equipment than in art, and that's a consideration, too.

Oh, sorry--more directly, yes, umbrellas would probably be substantially better.

When I used to shoot my wife's pots, I used one flood, overhead and slightly in front, shining down through a piece of white fabric. That both softened the shadow, and gave a natural graduated background.

 

One thing in your photos which is traditionally bad from a product-shot point of view is the multiple shadows. With one umbrella you will get both softer lighting, good fill, and eliminate the shadow problem.

 

In fact, I would start with a single umbrella and a reflective white card if I was trying to do what you're doing, first, before bringing in another light, and if I did use another light, it would be farther, darker and placed so that it didn't also cast its own prominent shadow.

For only nine months, you're off to a great start, and I salute the concept of mixing pretty pictures and message. That's the essence of doing good documentary photography. Make sure your keep your eye and stay away from documentary cliches--the bottle against the curb is perilously close. I think you will accomplish what you intend, though, with this start.

You were on your way to taking the lens apart, but now that you've put it back together, I'm sure it's fine.

Yes, the more bellows draw you can get, the closer you can get. Another alternative for getting closer is to use a different lens with a shorter focal length, if you have one.

 

Michaels thank you. :-)

Whoops--more looking reveals that it's a four-element formula, but extremely simple, with two cemented pairs placed pretty far apart, so that they look like just two plain elements. If you really want to geek out, check here: http://www.engr.udayton.edu/faculty/jloomis/eop601/notes/history/rapid/rapid.html

OK, sorry, it's a four-element formula, but extremely simple, with two cemented pairs placed pretty far apart.

Those are good. My recommendation would be FastStone:

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Focus it on something at infinity and measure from the diaphram to the film, and you have the focal length. Divide the apparent diameter of the opening of the lens at the middle into the focal length, and you have the maximum f opening, more or less.

 

Rapid rectilinear is a symmetrical design, not too complex--two elements, if I remember right, and it probably doesn't cover a larger image circle than it's focal length.

I just checked pix of the D40X, and the D40X takes the DK-21M version, it appears.

Does the D40x have the square eyecup mount? If so, for about $25, Nikon has the DK-21M, which is a 1.2X magnifier that enlarges the view to about the same size as their film cameras have. I don't much care for it, because I don't like the way I have to smash my face against the finder in the film cameras, and I don't like feeling like I'm surrounded in the picture, the way those finders do, but it does sort of replicate the size (and inconvenience) of a 35mm finder. I wouldn't be surprised if they made something similar for the round finder models, too. . . . oh, yes, they do: it's called a DK-17M. Amazon.com has both

Yes: you're not considering the 105mm/2 with the fancy variable background blur feature, which is the one I want. :-)

I'm with Nic. I find almost every photograph interesting and always have--that's basically the reason I'm interested in photography. They aren't all of equal art or equal value, but they tell you something about a world you haven't seen, when they're someone else's, and to me, that's de facto interesting. I can easily get past the technical difficulties when someone's handing me a free window into his mind and life.

 

Here's something I've been enjoying lately: http://leumund.ch/v3/flickrspy It's a non-selective stream of pictures that people are putting up on Flickr--three seconds for each, 24/7.

 

To me, the challenge has always been to take this kind of stuff and put it out in a way that's creative and maximally interesting, not randomly organized, but my raw material is similar to everyone else's. To discount pictures because they're not technically or artistically perfect is the ultimate insult to life itself.