marcsharp

<p>Last November, I did a portrait shoot for a longtime client and her baby daughter. All went well, and she was very pleased with the photos. The photos were delivered to her via Smug Mug with their personal use license.<br>

Since then, the client entered her child in to a "Cute Kid" contest given by a local magazine in her community. She submitted one of my photos which was published in the magazine, and won a small prize. Their is still potential for her to win a bigger prize.<br>

Fortunately, I agree that her child is super cute. I have known her for a long time, and I hope that she wins some nice prize which she certainly deserves. I have no intention of pressing the issue, but I wonder what the legal implications are in this matter. She used the photos to make money which is specifically prohibited in the personal use license. I checked the magazine's contest application, and it specifically asks if this is "your photo" or if you have permission to use it. They did watermark the photo with "Photo by Marc Sharp" in the magazine.<br>

So here are the questions... In a situation like this, did the client do anything wrong? Did the magazine do anything wrong? Did the photographer do something wrong? Is the photographer entitled to additional compensation or prize money? What might I do in the future to prevent this type of misunderstanding?</p>

<p>To answer the question... I would say that the 40D is an excellent camera for portraiture. I don't think it makes any sense to buy a 5DII right now if you already have a 40D for portraits where you control the lighting. I would wait for the 5DIII. It will definitely have the new and improved auto focus. It will likely have improved high ISO capability, but we will have to wait and see if the 5DIII is revolutionary or just evolutionary.</p>

<p>Season's Greetings</p><div></div>

<p>A scene from an alley on Galveston Island.<br>

5DII, 16-35mm lens at 35mm and f/2.8. Processed from 3 exposures with NIK's HDR Pro.</p><div></div>

<p>Ideally, you should have the 24-70mm f2.8L. Once you have that, then the 16-35mm f2.8L would come next, and your "Holy Trinity" of lenses will be complete. However, these lenses are very expensive. You could keep your 50mm and your 70-200mm, sell everything else, and use the funds to help. However, I would recommend RENTING the lenses for events until you build up enough clients and money to buy. I have used lensrentals.com and borrowlenses.com. They are excellent excellent excellent at what they do, but if you have access to someone local, then you can probably get a better price.</p>

<p>This happened to a co-worker of mine. Her photographer canceled sick at the last minute. Her mother was supposed to take pictures, but SHE missed her own daughter's wedding because she was sick too. She must have been REALLY sick. Bottom line... Very few photos were taken, and none are great. She should have called me.<br>

I think every professional event photographer should know someone who can take their place if needed. The second shooter is ideal, because that way they already have their schedule open and have planned to be at the event.<br>

I have heard that limo driver's cancel a lot. Sometimes they just don't show up! If your bride is late for the show, it could mess up your photo plans. It might be a good idea to know some good limo services in your area just in case this happens.<br>

Anyway, when your client asks this very important question, you need to be able to give a good answer. This will make your service much more valuable than the guys who have no plan. You might even tell them your plan before they ask. It's a good sales point.</p>

<p>I think you have what you need. You might look into an ultra wide angle. If you are shooting full frame (5DII), then 16-35mm f2.8L. If you are shooting with a cropped sensor, then there are lots of choices... probably the 10-22mm EF-S. Wide is not my first choice for portraiture, but it is kind of fashionable right now especially for environmental portraiture.</p>

<p>And here is someone who saw me taking her picture. I just smiled and waived as she walked by and continued her phone conversation. I chose this subject because of her unique fashion sense.</p><div></div>

<p>Here is another taken much closer. This time I just snuck up, composed the shot, and fired away unnoticed. There were lots of other people watching me, but my victim was totally oblivious.</p><div></div>

<p>When doing street photography, I seem to get better results shooting at a higher ISO even in good light. I think the fast shutter speed helps to get a sharper image. I will also often stop down to about f/5 sometimes to increase my chances of getting things in focus. I'm still shooting people from far away, because I'm to shy to ask permission. However, I like the shots that people get when they do ask. I am working on overcoming the shyness.<br>

I don't even think these people saw me. I just saw them. They looked interesting, so I took the picture from across a street with a 70-200mm zoom.</p><div></div>

<p>And I want a full head of hair.</p>

<p>How about he goes to turn on his darklight, and he accidentally electrocutes himself?</p>

<p>A shrine to Texas</p><div></div>

<p>I haven't had a chance to play with this device, but it looks pretty cool. For about 300 bucks you can get the Promote Systems Promote Control unit which is an automated controller for your DSLR (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Promote-Systems-Control-Digital-Cameras/dp/B002CTLJFC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295412860&sr=8-1">AMAZON</a>). It will take a series of any number of shots at different exposures automatically. Pretty cool for us Canon shooters who only get three bracketed exposures. Another way to get more bracketed exposures on a Canon is to set each of your user defined custom function settings to a different bracketed exposure increment and then just switch the dial to the next setting after each series is exposed.</p>

<p>When I do street photography, I usually use my 5DII, because I will often bump up the ISO to 1600 or higher to get a faster shutter speed to get sharp images even in decent light. Many times, I will use my 7D, because I want to extend the reach of my 70-200mm lens without using a teleconverter, and I prefer the focusing system on the 7D. When I use the 7D, RAW images straight out of the camera imported to Aperture with nothing else done show visibly more noise than images taken with the 5DII and the same lens with the same settings. It happens so often that I am generally more confident shooting with the 5DII. That said, if I didn't LOVE the 7D, I wouldn't have one, but my general opinion (without ever having taken the time to do a scientific comparison) is that the 5DII gets better quality images in camera. Obviously, once the images are processed, both get virtually identical results. I think the 5DII is worth the extra money, but that all depends upon your needs, budget, and priorities. I can confidently say that, in my hands, the 7D does not get better IQ than the 5D Mark II.</p>

<p>Wow! This has been a long heated debate, and I haven't read ALL of it. I don't want to fan the flames, but I will say that I have both 7D and 5DII, and straight out of the camera, if you look really really close, the 5DII gets consistently less noise at higher ISOs than the 7D. I don't care about all the math and technical mumbo jumbo, I'm just looking at the images. (I always shoot in RAW. I will not post examples, so don't ask.) I am comfortable shooting both cameras at 1600. I'm OK with 3200 on the 5DII, but skeptical with the 7D above 2000. Other than that, the 7D is better than the 5DII in many ways. I don't really care about noise that much, so it doesn't bother me, but if I know I will be shooting at a high ISO, I use the 5DII. When I use the 7D the noise is obvious on the computer, but not in the prints. Noise with the 5DII is less obvious. You can pixel peep all you want, but using the camera is where you WILL see the difference.<br /> The difference is so unimportant though. Both cameras produce prints at high ISO that are way better than the grain from film at equal ISOs. I sometimes ADD grain in post processing because I like the effect.<br /> To answer the poster's question, if you feel that you are heavily invested in EF-S lenses, get the 7D. If you can spare the change, (wait for the 5D Mark III or) get the 5DII because full frame is very cool, and you still have your 40D. I'm afraid if you get the 7D, you will still want the 5DII because you want full frame.<br /> To further make people argue, consider this advantage to full frame... If you use the same lens on both cameras (Let's say a 135mm prime), and you compose the same shot, with full frame you will be closer to the subject and have to focus closer than you would with the cropped sensor. That is going to give you less depth of field, a blurrier background, a nearer hyperfocal distance, etc. (These are usually considered desirable effects).<br /> The two cameras essentially have very different optical characteristics, even though everybody is talking like pixels are the issue. On that note, smaller sensors have a higher pixel density which creates more noise in the image because each pixel feels the heat generated by it's neighbors more than it does when there is more room between the pixels like on a full frame sensor.<br /> I hope this doesn't confuse things even more. These are both superb cameras, so just get what you really want so that you don't still want it after you buy the camera that you didn't really want. The 40D is still an excellent camera. I would just keep it and get the 5DIII when it comes out later this year.<br>

I will also add that it wasn't long ago that talking about shooting digital at ISO 3200 was like science fiction.</p>

<p>Been doing some street photography lately. This is in Downtown Houston. Shot with Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II and 5D Mark II. Post processed with Aperture and NIK Viveza 2.</p><div></div>

<p>Start saving your pennies, and wait for the 5D Mark III. It should be out soon.</p>

<p>Happy New Year!</p><div></div>

5dIII coming soon

<p>Happy Holidays</p><div></div>

<p>If those are the specs, then I'm not sure that I would upgrade from the 5DII. The auto focus on the 5DII is not as good as Nikon, but it is simple to use and works just fine. 21.1 Megapixels is more than enough. High ISO on the 5DII prints very well (Especially when fixed with Nik Define). The crop feature on the video would be great for focusing, but I don't use that much, and I have a 7D for the high speed bursts (and it extends my lenses 1.6 times). There will need to be something more to justify an upgrade. If I had a 5DI, then I would totally upgrade to the 5DIII. I might just wait for the 5D Mark IV.</p>

<p>Jeremy,<br>

You mentioned that your Sigma gets some blur on indoor family photos. That might happen if you are shooting the aperture wide open (f/1.4 - 2.8). It will have such a thin depth of focus that only the person you focused on will be sharp. If that is the problem, you will need to increase your aperture number to maybe 5.8. That will force you to increase your exposure time, and movement could cause blur. A good flash technique really helps. Sometimes I think people who brag about only using natural light just don't want to master their flash technique.<br>

As far as lenses go, ALWAYS get the fastest glass you can afford. The Sigma 50 is a superb lens, so I would ditch the Canon 50 even though it's not worth much. The Canon 17-55mm is a great lens, but someday you might want a full frame camera, and the EF-S won't work. I think you have a great selection of lenses. Try a flash unit</p>

<p>Doin' a little street photography today...</p><div></div>

<p>Tell them they can buy back the releases cheaper than getting a lawyer and you will even through in a CD and prints.</p>