harryjacksonjr

June 20, 2016

Robin Smith, I was wary of that when I first bought it, but from what I've seen, and from what I've read, the overall difference in the two is negligible. In fact, you need software and a magnifying glass to see the difference once you've stopped down to F7 or more. I've spoken to colleagues and they say the big difference is shooting sports. The Canon F4 is a better product. With wildlife the nature of the work (pun intended) is there's no difference. But issue here, I don't shoot sports. A bigger issue is that a colleague at work said he'd put it on a sports photographer's website for me. I took it out of the case to take some photos of it and made a big mistake. I touched it, caressed it, spoke softly to it and apologized for thinking something as mundane as another camera body was reason enough to part with her. Then I lay it back down with a promise I'd visit more often.

So much for selling equipment.

May 17, 2016

I'm hearing this a lot.

May 16, 2016

I own the 500L big lens. I hardly ever use it. In fact, I think I've used it four times. I even have that suitcase carrier and instruction manual.

I recently bought the Sigma 100-600 zoom sport f5.6 (I think). I couple that with my 1.4 teleconverter and get great shots and it's not so cumbersome to haul around ... yada, yada. That lens, two other lenses and two camera bodies actually fit in a camera bag that can be an airport carry-on. The 500L can't really travel the way I like to and I refuse to check it through.

Now, I'm coveting the 1dxII that's coming out soon. I'm thinking of trying to engineer a trade-in or swap, lens for camera body.

I'm wondering if I have the leverage for an even trade, considering that 500 and the subsequent generation is over $10k.

Before I start negotiating, has anyone had a similar experience or have even a inkling of what I might expect when I make that offer to a camera shop. I got the lens from B&H, so I might start with them.

I already own the 5DIII and a 7D and a respectable array of lenses. As a nature photographer, I'm really coveting that low-light, super-fast and smooth rapid fire. I tried out the original 1dx in my office and fell in love with it, like one more thing I couldn't afford.

I don't hate the 500L. I just don't want it to sit around gathering dust when I could put it to use as currency.

Any advice?

h

May 9, 2016

You've already decided, but, fyi. I have a 5diii. But the honest, hand to my invisible friend in the sky, I only bought it because I'd banged up my 5dii crawling through rocks, dodging rocks, scratching up the 24-105, etc. etc. Had I known then, what I know now, the 5dii did what I needed it to do when it wasn't broken. Don't get me wrong, the 5Diii is a superior camera. Buying it saved me from the ego-purchase of the 7Dii as my backup. But the 5diii does so much more than I need, it's overkill.

I'd compare it to buying Microsoft Word. Most of us write letters, stories and memos. We don't need all that other stuff, but you can't get it otherwise. MSWord6 was plenty, but they stopped supporting it.

I had a major, major surprise, though, last year. I took the Lumix fZ1000 for a test drive. That puppy is marvelous! It's not as impressive looking as my main camera, and the 5diii does precision work and longer, telephoto, but the fz1000 does everything I need for everyday hip-shooting. A 400-24mm zoom, 20mp censor, Leica-class glass and clarity that blows away every other camera in it's class -- other than Leica. And $800. I carry that around all the time, now. And my shoulder isn't nearly as sore.

April 10, 2016

Actually, when it comes to weight. I'm converting a golf cart. I've already modified a wagon. But it makes too much noise.

April 10, 2016

Thanks. I'm registered. I wonder why I didn't get a notification.

March 18, 2016

Frankly, sounds like your friends needs a new circle of friends. That being said, if he's really wanting to learn some fine art stuff, start here:

http://www.meetup.com/figure-photography/events/229169259/?rv=md1&_af=event&_af_eid=229169259&https=off

Otherwise, My suggestion is don't shoot models. One reason is because you'd have to put up with models. There's no money in it unless you move to a fashion center -- NYC, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Houston, Miami -- and throw your dice there.

I'd still say, though leave the other circle alone. That brought me down and I'm not even close by.

March 15, 2016

I got the sports. I'm still trying to find literature on the contemporary. Camera shops stock the sports because it costs more. I bought it because I shoot a lot of birds and I needed something more capable of fast-draw shooting.

hj

March 15, 2016

What's the word on the Sigma 150-600? I've been reading and it seems to review better than the Canon 100-400.

A couple of my friends bought them and swear by them.

February 24, 2016

Thanks. I didn't mention that. 4x6 is standard for events. John, you're not the first to mention the DNP. And Craig, I will put a dedicated flash on whatever I set up. I also have a Lumix Fz1000, but that G12 seems much sturdier for what I'm going to do.

I'm going to set this up, then try it out to get the bugs out of it.

h

February 23, 2016

OK. I've done all of the hard core photo stuff -- documentary, wildlife, fashion, etc. -- and I always end up broke several months a year. Therefore, I'm going to go ahead and do the photo equivalent of putting on a red satin mini and standing under a street light.

A friend has invited me to do kid photos when she takes her llama and alpaca to fairs and parties. She said I could take photos, instant print them and put them in a cardboard frame and get $10 apiece for them, and shoot as many as 50 to 200 per event. And in the summer I could end up shooting two or three events a week.

I'm going to use my G12. But I need a printer that can stand up to that kind of production and any recommendations for how to set this up, or any publications that say how to do this. I need to be ready by spring.

Advice is welcome.

h

August 2, 2015

I was eyeing the canon powershot g3x and started looking at comparable cameras. I ran into the FZ1000 Panasonic. I also kept running into reviews that compared the two cameras and generally, the only advantage the g3x had over the FZ1000 was the 200 mm extra zoom. Reviewers, especially those who shot outdoors a lot, liked the FZ1000 more.

I bought the FZ1000 mainly because I needed a better backup camera. I had to think hard to realize that the only reason I wanted the g3x was because it was a canon. All my big stuff is canon. But their g-series has nothing to do with the dslrs. Nothing interchangeable except the sd cards. So I as free to stray.

My primary fear is that everything I've ever experimented with had softer focus than canons, other than Nikon and Leica. I'm OCD on sharp focus. The FZ1000 actually had excellent sharpness and the photos sharpened well in processing. The controls can be confusing because I've spent the last 45 years shooting canons.

The FZ1000 touted its focus speed. It is lightening fast, but for some reason on some shots it either didn't focus or focused on the wrong thing in the scene. I switched to spot meter and that solved that.

The other issue that has me a bit concerned, is no matter how I fiddled with styles, white balance or even hail Mary bracketing, the color wasn't precise when I shot flowers. That's one thing the 5diii was really good at you captured what you saw. That may be a factor of shooting in jpeg. I haven't tried the raw, but I'm going to do that today. That's when I realized there were no easy to access exposure controls. I'm going to miss those. The g12 had them right on a knob on top. Too many buttons to push on the FZ1000.

Good flash. The zoom isn't nearly as noisy as one reviewer said.

The rapid fire capability is spectacular. I don't shoot video, but the 4K video is nice to have if I need it.Especially if I want continuous shooting with the plans to cheat and do a frame capture. Those will be pretty big files. Incidentally, if you're going to use 4K video, get an extra battery and 64k SD card or bigger.

An inconvenience: It's not a back-pocket camera. My g12 fit in a coat pocket easily. The FZ1000 is a small dslr or a big pocket camera. But it's light as a feather compared to any canon stuff. I'm going to have to buy a case! Yuck.

November 17, 2014

Are there drones out there big enough to handle a Mark III? I've been looking for one to accommodate a G12. I'm still not tickled with GoPro quality off the Web.

May 22, 2013

While looking at all the fancy expensive stuff, the greatest lesson I learned since going digital 12 years ago was to look at the stuff you already own and learn how to use it.

Frankly, the best, most dependable sharpening program I've used has been in DPP, the software that comes with Canon cameras, which I'm using more and more on the front end of my processing. The issue that it took me 10 years and $1,000 in software to finally figure out, was that DPP is an excellent processing program. The downside is that it has so many keystrokes to do the simplest thing, I never exercised the patience to measue the actual quality of the finished product. Frankly, once you tolerate DPP's keystroke sludge, you skate through RAW photos, retouch and especially sharpen quite efficiently, with enough competence to sell to stock photo services and slick magazines.

Granted both the CS5/6, Elements RAW programs, especially in midrange, have excellent sharpeners. But they cost a lot of money with the upgrades and now $50 a month subscriptions. But now, I ask, so what? DPP upgrades regularly, and the upgrades are free.

You can stop reading here, but to collect on some of my years of experience:

When it comes to sharpening, newbies often mistake HOW to sharpen with WHY they sharpen. In fact, too many photographers are just trying to get their shots in focus! That's not the reason to sharpen.

So here are some things to reduce the nuisance blurs that are impossible to correct and leave you blaming your sharpening program.

1 -- If you have time, take your haze or UV filter off the lens before shooting. Only the absolute BEST filters ($100 to $300) deliver nearly undetectible fuzz. The rest, you might as well smear Vaseline on your lens. I've even gotten to the point where I buy used filters for $5 or $10 out of clearance baskets, knock out the glass, then put the rings on the lenses. Then I just stop losing my lens caps. My photo sharpness improved immensely after that.

2 -- If you have time, use a tripod. I almost sent a camera in for repair because I got so much blur, even on a monopod, even at 500 to 1,000. And handheld was regularly disasterous. I found out by accident, I have low-level distonia in my forearms, wrists and hands which causes a minor tremor in my hands that I can only see when I'm trying to see it. You may not have distonia, but holding a camera steady for precise shots is the stuff of legends in photography lore or almost impossible for normal humans. And Image stabilization doesn't help undetectible tremors that protract to earthquake shakes after a few yards -- trust me.

3 -- Trust nothing. Once when shooting a macro assignment in a petri dish in the back room of a hospital morgue, I actually found that shooting between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. was the best for sharp photos -- despite the bodies watching me -- because there were fewer cars on the stret. Yes. The semi trucks going by when shooting something the size of a pin point, caused enough ground tremor to send a blur through a camera -- even though I bought a $1,200 tripod that weighed a little less than the Titanic. Switching the shooting time 12 hours improved performance exponentially.

3 -- Shoot in Tv and spot-meter your subject. Faster shutter speed is better for rescuing sharpness than deep apertures.

4 -- Use the right camera. My Mark II is a Cadillac when it comes to great photos of any ilk. But when it comes to quick-draw, fast focus, IS-friendly rapid fire, my 7D is a Corvette, even with really long lenses.

I guess the short answer, get the best photo by learning to use your equipment and the software that's made for it. You'll save a lot of money and headaches trying to find the ultimate sharpening tool.

hj

March 19, 2012

I just completed the PI course and I thought it was terrific. I had direct access to my tutor/adviser. I never waited more than 12 hours for a response. Frankly I started wondering if he ever had a day off. He'd even respond on weekends.

The material and the way it's doled out was fine. It kept me from getting ahead of myself.

It's an intensely technical course. Very little subjective material. I didn't have to wonder if my instructor just didn't like my style or actually had something to contribute. Most of the comments were about sharpness, exposure and such, very little on composition and creativity.

I shot film for 30 years and switched to digital in 1998. In all that time, I had no idea what a digical camera could do. Also, there are some splendid segments on Photoshop CS5.1. I wanted more on Lightroom, but it was a photography course, not a software course.

I really didn't need anyone telling me my photos were cropped wrong, or someone's eyes weren't looking in the right direction. I needed more information on exposure, lens capability, lighting, resolution issues and jumping between RAW, JPEG, TIFF, how to effectively use PSD and DNG, different techniques of sharpening ...All those naggy issues that were just blurred and vague.

And two of the modules were about starting a photography business, building a studio, hiring assistants, finding agents and looking for work.

I don't know much about NYIP other than what I read here and it kind of turned me off. Too much hit and miss for the quality of course representatives as described here. I'd be royally p-oed if I had to wait weeks for a response, especially terse responses as described in this thread.

I'm very happy with what I got out of it.

hj

August 10, 2011

I'm a little late to this conversation, but I just bought a G12 after my G10 locked up. The repair cost was 40 percent of a new camera. But the way I bang it around and use it to pound nails and pry open beer cans, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

But:

Is there a comparison between a Rebel and a G12? A dslr is a dslr. With the G12 the max aperture is F8 unless I push it. There's a max in and out zoom.

i use this as my back pocket camera -- although I actually keep it in belt pack -- for when I'm not carrying my big stuff. My G10, rest it soul went everywhere, even places it wasn't supposed to be and paid its freight. but it wasn't a dslr.

I have to admit, the image stabilization on the G12 is magnificent. I tend to tremble even when I'm not tired and a monopod has been the rule or a surface with a towel. But I shoot this one from my eye and it's quite crisp.

It gets back down to the formula, what do you want to do and how big do you want to do it.

h

July 22, 2011

Actually, I agree with the evaluation with respect to the CR audience. From my perspective, though, I find the 7D on bottom of the pro cameras and hte 60D at the top of the amateur cameras. I haven't seen the review, but viewfinder vs. live view is one thing. But most of my friends do bracket manual focusing.

And the other issue, I'd recommend a 60D to someone in favor of putting the real money into the glass.

I have a 7D as a backup, but 90 percent of the time, it sits on my 500 L with a 1.4 teleconverter and set of MF.

I don't think CR's audience is interested in that.

h

June 8, 2011

Is there some way to connect my 5DII or 7D to a laptop so the monitor will work as live view? I'm wonding if doing so will help with the precision of my focusing. I have the utility progams that come with the cameras, but what comes up on screen with any of them is far from enough of an image to constitute live view focusing.

If I could figure it out, I was going to attach ine of those 8 inch or 10 inch laptops, but so far no luck. Any advice would be appreciated.

I considered purchasing one of the 5 inch or 7 inch lcd monitors by Ikan, Marshal or Sony. But they have the problem that with the 5D, what comes up on the monitor is the same size as the 3 inch lcd monitor on the back of the camera.

h

June 2, 2011

Simply, when your computer no longer does what you need it to do as fast and as precisely, upgrade. Sometimes, you can increase speed when you increase memory.

What's more important is to drop a few bucks on a one or two terabyte standalone hard drive, compress it and back up your data frequently. The older the computer, the more frequently you need to back up. If your hard drive crashes irreparably, the shock can be traumatic. An older computer, too, will break with less stress than a new computer so, the older, the more care you need to take. Hard drive recovery is unbelieveably expensive, so prevention is worth ... etc.

One thing that can save a bit of money, though, if you have an afternoon to do it, can make your computer sort of run like new. It's called system restore. I don't know if this is on the Mac, but I'm sure there's a comparable function.

The process will take four to eight hours and a lot of clerical work. The function will clean your hard drive head to toe then reload the operating system to the condition it was in when you took it from the store. You'll wipe out all of your data, your programs and all of the tweeks you made on your software. You can rebuild the system without all of the clutter that you no longer use -- streamlined.

The good side is when you wipe off your hard drive, you'll also erase that sludge that's accumulated over the months and years. But you need to take the time to record what you want and don't want; once it's gone, it's gone and if you didn't back it up effectively ...

Make sure you have all of the software you'll need to reload; you can't back up software. Find and save the file from your browser's favorites. Get the websites from your freeware and pirated software you used.

Reload your stuff as you need it and your computer will run smoothly. Your bulk will be in the backup.

It's always an option.

Finally, if you do get a new computer, run system restore then give your computer to a Boys & Girls Club, homeless shelter or some other human service.

h

April 1, 2011

I think I figured out how to ask my question better, although it's pretty much been answered: If I took a Hasselblad sensor and snipped away all but the 36x24 that's about the size of a full-frame sensor, would that sensor the Hasselblad left behind be of superior quality or is Hasselblad touting a bigger area giving a better photograph.

A couple of people have explained marvelously that the sensor has better specs pixel to pixel, but not enough to take out a mortgage to buy it.

Thanks all.

h

March 30, 2011

@BF

I went through Gerald's slide show. Nice stuff. I missed three of 25 that I viewed, but I picked out 100 percent of the Hasselblad photos. Gotta give props where it's due. With respect to Hasselblad owners here, I was able to see a superior depth and clarity in both the foreground and background; and in the original photo, I couldn't tell where the focus point might have been.

With respect to my curiosity, I didn't see where the difference was anything other than camera skills, a tripod, flat water, no breeze to move the leaves even though you're shooting through a kickass f22, a shutter cable, fill flash for the foreground, 1SO 50, and I could reproduce that with a good dslr full frame.

Gerald's Nikons reproduced Hasselblad quality at least three times, and mainly the difference was the depth of field and things like details in trees in the backgrounds. That was him behind the camera, not the camera.

Other than that, I'm working on a documentary-based website based on photos and narratives, and my first project is photographing where homeless people sleep in major cities across the country, and I've been chased twice out of tunnels by psycho veterans, who throught I was gathering information for federal surveillance. I'm glad one time I was just carrying a G10. But hauling a Hassy along with a short, wide and medium telephoto zooms in the dark, in the cold someplace where I'm only marginally welcome ... unsafe.

March 30, 2011

I think I got what I wanted to see. And I've seen a lot of excellent logic. And the technical information has been marvelous.

Frankly, you've made me quite satisfied with what I'm shooting. In fact, the folks at my photo processing lab said they could take a well shot photo and blow it up to fit on the side of a truck, if that's what I wanted.

To take this out of the realm of high-technology where I often fall through the ice, I don't thing the difference between the Hasselblad sensor technology is worth the expense if I'm not shooting really big art for a gallery. I don't shoot art for a gallery.

I've shot medical research photos with a macro, tripod and focus rail, well lighted and teenie f-stop and a LOT of bracketing. And the physicians were more than happy with the results and 130mb tiff files for their powerpoint presentations. (don't ask, sworn to lifetime of secrecy about what they did and how they did it.)

I haven't seen any photo I can't take with my 5DII; and (and the Hasselblad people aren't going to like this) when I've been to photo shows, the Hasselblad enthusiasts tended to focus on the quality of the print while the dslr and slr folks would dwell on the content of the photo. Hasselblad folks shot things that were sitting still and dslr and slr folks shoot things that were in motion, sometimes violently. I have no idea how consistent that is. I have seen documentary photographers in the field with Hasselblad film cameras, but never yet digital. But that's what I've seen, not necessarily what is.

So it's obvious where I've pitched my tent. In all, it's what you need to get done and which the tools do it best.

As for my ex-friend who quit speaking. He likes to be praised, not questioned. He's not speaking to a lot of us in the group.

March 29, 2011

@David. Interesting. But does processing in a 64-bit program compensate. Also, is there a point where the human eye doesn't see the quality and it's all specs? I look at the work in National Geographic and on the website, and I look at other photo sites and good-quality magazines. I don't see anything that would make me chuck that kind of cash.

@John. That's another thing. I actually see the difference between L-series lenses and other lenses and cameras. In fact, autofocus isn't good enough for them. I manual focus and bracket and get better results than AF. And for digital some of the photos I see are really crisp. And I really don't see that in photos I know have been shot by Hasselblads. I do see a teenie bit difference with Leica photos.

@Blake. Snubbed? Never. Frankly this discussion is to get some answers. As for the detail, I prefer to start with too much. Then use "surface blur" to smooth out any wrinkles. But I don't shoot models. The biggest problem with that is I'd have to work with models. When got gave me my gifts, she forgot patience.

March 29, 2011

Na. This was poor salesmanship.

I think he was so set on selling me a $9K used camera and triple that in lenses that when I dared ask him a question as to what would I get with his camera that I don't have with mine, he got a bit insulted. You have to know the guy. And frankly, I still feel that way. I agree with Brad. Considering what we call the greatest photos in history were taken with contraptions that we'd call junkers today. Different cameras do different jobs. I haven't shot in a studio since 1973. I spend time practicing instant focus. I look for ways to lighten my loads on my shoulders. I use light thats there when I get someplace.

Frankly if I wanted superior detail, I think I'd go to large format cameras. They're available in digital now, and film in large format isn't obsolete.

Simply put, photography is not one size fits all.

h

March 29, 2011

She's your sister. Instead of saying no, tell her to bring a couple of cute girlfriends to help and they you tell them you don't know why they don't have stellar modeling careers. ... I won't go on.

Seriously, what could e the problem? I have relatives I don't like and I'd let them use something as simple as a backdrop.

What's really going on here? Let us in on it.

h

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