blairhall

<p>I've always been confused by this...</p>

<p>Of all the Nikons I've either owned or shot with at work (D70, D70s, D80, D300, D3), I've found all the stock straps to be great, EXCEPT the D3. The D3 strap was disturbingly awful, thin and cheap feeling... the strap on my D70s, which I bought for maybe 8 or 9 times less than the D3, was about 10-15 times better. I just found this bizarre, considering at the time the D3 was Nikon's flagship body and had a price tag to match... you'd think they'd provide a strap that didn't suck.</p>

<p>So ya... I bought a BlackRapid R7 and it's been glorious!</p>

<p>Brilliant idea! Thanks!</p>

<p>Loved this when I saw it in the thread... in particular the way it illuminates the veil, creates a really nice rim light, and casts a bit of a glow on the background. I certainly wouldn't change anything. To echo Theresa and William, it's a very refreshing idea, and definitely one to learn from.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing!</p>

<p>I'm really thinking it's a CPU issue. While the P4 is no slouch, it's still an outdated processor. That being said, NX2 has a really bad habit of even making decent processors look old and tired. RAM will certainly come into play, but Harvey's 4GB is plenty for editing individual RAW files, as is evidenced by his speedy CS3 performance.</p>

<p>I've now used NX2 on:<br>

- my laptop: AMD Turion64x2 w/ 2GB of RAM, 64-bit Win7 - NX2 was not impressed, although the mobile Turion is generally agreed to be a bit on the weak side<br>

- my work Mac: Dual Core 2ghz w/ 2GB of RAM - NX2 was only slightly happier<br>

- my new work PC: Core 2 Quad (can't remember the clock speed offhand) w/ 4GB RAM, XPsp2 - finally NX2 is a happy camper!</p>

<p>All that to say, I hope with the tweaks people have mentioned, that you can get it going to your liking... if not, it may be time for a small upgrade!</p>

<p>My first same-sex union... it was an amazing experience, and tons of fun!<br>

Nikon D3, 70-200 f/2.8 @ f/3.2, 1/320th, 400ISO - shot manual using existing light.</p><div></div>

<p>If you're only going to use one action for the batch, another way of doing it is:<br>

In Bridge, select all the images to batch, then go to the Tools menu and select Photoshop>Image Processor.<br>

It'll open Photoshop, then bring up a dialog with conversion options like format, resizing, destination etc... and at the bottom it gives you the option to run an action on the images.<br>

Works great, and it's a bunch easier than the regular batch process. That being said, if you're needing to do more than just one action, pretty much the only way is to do it the way Robert outlined. Or find a way to shoehorn it all into a single action in Photoshop.<br>

Cheers!</p>

<p>I use Noiseware and it's fantastic, but the one thing you need to be careful of, is that noise reduction can degrade the image and smooth over details (in more extreme cases).<br>

When I use it, I'll usually dial down the reduction a bit, so the details are kept intact, and a little bit of noise is left over, which I generally don't have a problem with.<br>

Is the 400D at ISO400 or 800 really that noisy? A little bit of noise isn't a bad thing, but once you get up to 1600+ on most bodies it can get pretty bad.</p>

<p>Oh ok, I'll bite...<br>

Only things done to this are exposure tweaks in RAW. I can't remember offhand if I colour balanced... I'm looking at it on my laptop, whose screen is about as inaccurate as it could possibly be.<br>

Enjoy!</p><div></div>

<p>I've been shooting hockey for a couple of years now... We use Nikon D200's (very occasionally a D300) with 80-200 f/2.8 lenses. The basic setting is always the same... ISO1600, f/2.8, 1/400th. White balance off a patch of ice (or use an expodisc when I remember it). These settings, in about 95% of the rinks I've shot in, produce consistent results. Sometimes when a rink is a bit darker, I'll bump the ISO up a bit, if it's too bright, I'll stop down a bit. Noise is certainly a bit of an issue on the D200's at ISO1600, but with a touch of NR the prints don't show it. Oh, and for the sake of mentioning it, we shoot in JPG to speed up post-production time (the shots need to be ready for print by the time the game is over). If I were doing it for a publication or even for personal use, I'd shoot RAW all the way, for the reasons people have stated above.</p>

<p>Yes, I realize this is a Canon forum post... but all the settings translate perfectly to Canon bodies and lenses.</p>

<p>To answer the OP's question, the 28-70 f/2.8 would be a good lens, but I would lean towards a 70(or 80)-200mm f/2.8, as you can cover action that's happening further away, not to mention get nice tight close-ups of player's faces. That being said, if you're just looking for a wider view, or just want to shoot action that's closer to you, the 28-70 will work just fine!</p><div></div>

<p>Hi Jacques... to further answer your question... if you save the 32-bit image before converting it to 8 or 16 bit, you can always re-open that 32-bit file and change the conversion settings to your taste when you drop it down to 16/8-bit again.</p>

<p>As an aside... Photoshop does a highly average job of tonemapping... check out Photomatix!</p>

<p>Cheers!</p>

<p>I still really like the dark mood of the first image... but the following images, in terms of the bride, are exactly what I wanted to see. Comping the two together would make for a fantastic, moody image, while still revealing a little bit of detail.</p>

<p>Rusla, I totally understand about whether you would want to show the expression on her face... a tense face may not tell the story you want to be told!</p>

<p>Thanks again! Cheers!</p>

<p>If you have the CS4 suite... I'd suggest using Illustrator (or if you like a challenge, InDesign). It's meant for doing exactly the kind of thing you want to do, and the text/layout tools are far more advanced than Photoshop. Once the template is done, you can just import your edited PS image, and you're off the races!</p>

<p>I really like the concept... and the nice diagonals created by the leaning bride and the long shadow. I think they only thing that bothered me, was I wish I could see her face, to see what kind of emotion was happening at that moment. Some fill on the shadow side of the dress would have been nice too. It probably would have been difficult to do that and keep the shadow intact... but with a gobo'd or barn door'd but of fill flash it might have worked. I'd also crop it as per Jen's suggestion.</p>

<p>That being said... nice conceptual shot, and definitely non-traditional like Jen said.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing :)</p>

<p>First wedding of the year for me. It was a miserable gray rainy day, the rain stopped briefly and they wanted to get a couple of shots outside... so we did! I shot a non-tilted version first and I preferred this one. Enjoy!</p><div></div>

<p>I've tried to do this as well... the problem I had was dealing with odd-sized images. You'll already have to write separate actions for portrait and landscape images... when you apply that action to an image that isn't 4x6 (or whatever your standard image size is), it won't work. Well, it will paste the logo, but not where you expect it to be.</p>

<p>So, basically you'll wind up doing separate batches for portrait and landscape, then probably having to do it by hand on odd sized images.</p>

<p>As for how to do it, I just do what Jack suggested and batch through Bridge.</p>

<p>If anyone knows a way to consistently paste something into the same place on any sized document (automated through an action)... I'd love to know about it!</p>

<p>Errol, I was going to say the same thing... Peterborough is right between us (I'm in Ottawa)... we could have rock/paper/scissor'd for the gig!</p>

<p>I'm not sure if this helps but here goes...</p>

<p>I bought a Chimera box for video work a couple of years ago, and when I bought studio flashes, I wanted to use it for them. Chimera made a speed ring specifically to fit my Profotos and it works like a charm! So... I'd check with Chimera to see if they have a speed ring for the Speedotrons.</p>

<p>Cheers!</p>

<p>Brilliant shot... in terms of tweaking, I like what Michael Brown posted just above me here. I always find it interesting that so many people want to straighten the horizon... I prefer the tilt of the original shot... but again that's all personal taste and none of it is wrong!</p>

<p>Great shot... cheers!</p>

<p>Hi Roy, I currently work in video production and photography here. For some projects, I need to run externally captured audio. Because I'm sorta forced to "work with what I have"... here's what I do: I run whatever audio source (be it microphones or outputs from something) into a firewire audio interface connected to my laptop. In post (Final Cut Pro) I can fairly easy line up the audio track with the video track just by eyeballing it. If the track is slightly off, I slip it back or foward a frame until it visually looks "right" to me. The whole process takes a couple of minutes, maximum. Sure, with timecode generated on everything, it would be faster, but I don't have the equipment.</p>

<p>This is how I see (in the beginning anyways) quality audio being implemented with DSLR video. With today's audio interfaces, you can record 24/196k audio without any issue, and just sync it after the fact with the video captured from the camera. Any non-linear editor these days will allow audio and video to be slipped back and forth on the timeline with frame accuracy, so accurate sync isn't all that difficult to achieve.</p>

<p>I agree with your point though, that audio tends to be overlooked, which is unfortunate, because it's one of the most important parts of the equation.</p>

<p>Cheers!<br>

Blair</p>

<p>I've only done a handful of weddings (4) but have thoroughly enjoyed all of them. I thrive on the pressure, as well as the emotions being played out around me. I figure, as long as I'm prepared for as much chaos as I can be prepared for, I'll be fine, and so far it's worked.</p>

<p>That being said, all the weddings have been for friends or friends of friends, so I've not yet run into any kind of horror story. I'm sure it'll happen eventually, as I plan to keep trying to gain experience... but I don't think it'll sour me on doing them.</p>

<p>I'd also be wary about your expectations with the newer machine. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't run faster than your current setup (which can probably be tweaked as per Howard's suggestions) but 500mb is a lot of data to plow through on any system. Especially when applying something like smart sharpen, which in my experience, tends to be one of, if not the slowest function in PS.</p>

<p>Loving the 10.5... so another vote for that one from me! I bought it to do spherical panos, and have started having fun with it doing other shots too. I'm hoping to upgrade to a D3 sometime this year, so I'll have to start thinking about non-DX options... but as long as I'm still using my D300, the only way I'm letting go of this lens is if it's pryed from my cold, dead hands :)</p>

<p>Cheers!</p><div></div>

<p>Alignment (due to possible camera shake) issues aside, my suggestion would be to use PTGui for stitching. It has HDR support built into it, and I've only used it for HDR panos a couple of times, but it does a pretty decent job of it. It also has a built in alignment/CA removal/noise reduction function... kinda one-stop-shopping.</p>

<p>Another way to do it (still using PTGui) is to use Photomatix (which I also use for HDR) and output to TIFF's that you then feed into PTGUI. You can futz with control points too so you can make your stitch as tight as possible. Autopano Pro also works really well, and does a better "auto" job than PTGui does.</p>

<p>My 2 cents!</p>

<p>This was the first time I've ever had an image judged (other than clients!) and I have some mixed feelings about it. That being said, they have nothing to do with the judges/judging (tall job, and I have the utmost respect for their opinions) and none of the feelings are negative.</p>

<p>I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed, but that's the competitive part in me! I think once I saw the closed thread I picked at least a handful of images that I thought were better than mine. However, at the end of the day, I'm still really new at this biz, and I turned disappointment into inspiration.</p>

<p>In response to David's original post, I don't think I would alter how I would shoot to include elements of the photos that came in 1/2/3, but rather I looked at every photo that was posted that I thought were great (and there were a lot) and tried to reverse-engineer why i thought it was good. Hopefully, that gets socked away in my bag of tricks for when I'm in that situation again. As William W pointed out, learning is an ongoing process, contests like this are good opportunities to continue learning. With any luck, and some more work... next year when I post an image for judging, I'll be able to say I've evolved... but yet I'll still look forward to see what I can nick from the other people who have evolved as well ;-)</p>

<p>To answer Jacob, I had 3 or 4 images that I spent a while deciding on. I wound up going with an image that I thought was my technical favorite... over an image that had more story and emotion behind it. On hindsight, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have changed the outcome, but who knows...</p>

<p>Cheers!</p>

<p>Congrats to the winners and everyone else who entered! Cheers!</p>