william_supko

<p>I drove a little over three hours to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, VA. Stepped out of the car at the first stop and pulling out the camera. I had completely forgot that I was doing test shots with 800 iso. I was in the beginings of my career and was trying out the sunny sixteen rule. The only problem was I thought my ISO was set to 100 so everything was coming out over exposed even at the highest shutter speed. I started to panic, thinking I just drove almot 200 miles and was going to have to turn around because of a faulty camera. Luckily I saw the ISO before turning around and going home.</p>

<p>I have a great book from ASMP that answers a lot of questions on photography. Properly releasing a photograph is one of them. I found this link to their website regarding property release. <a href="http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/releases/AboutPropertyRel.php">http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/releases/AboutPropertyRel.php</a> . It seems nothing sparks up debate in any photography forum more than releases. I think the biggest confusion comes from differentiating between the right to take a picture versus the right to use a picture for commercial purposes. An example is the panda exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. If you go to see the pandas at the zoo there is a sign clearly displayed that taking pictures of the pandas is permitted, using the images for commercial purposes is prohibited. At least there was a sign to that effect 4-5 years ago.</p>

<p>Another link on the site that is of interest about model release can be found at <a href="http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/releases/">http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/releases/</a></p>

<p>I know it's a matter of personal taste but I don't like slideshow style sites. I would rather see decent sized thumbnails and pick and choose what I want to see bigger. I don't have a problem with flash as it does prohibit people from easily hijacking your photos. I like to seperate my photos into three catagories living things (people, animals, etc), Places, Things. Then I break them down into sub catagories. </p>

<p>I will be making a day trip to Philadelphia, PA and am wondering if anyone has suggestions for low to no cost outdoor places to shoot. I want to do some skyline shots as well and was wondering if anybody can make some great recomendations of where to get these shots. I've seen beautiful areas to do this but unfortunately they are on the highway so any suggestions would be appreciated.</p>

<p>I keep the price of my proofs low but they are binded, textured, and have a logo on them so that making copies of them is more difficult. I try to keep the logo out of the way but make it so that if they try to chop off the logo they chop off important parts of the image. Most people I deal with would rather see digital proofs for free than pay $100 for a proof book with 15-20 4x6 images. Just my thoughts.</p>

<p>The Statue of Liberty is part of the National Parks Service (<a href="http://www.nps.gov">www.nps.gov</a>) and I believe that is considered to be public land so there would be no need to get a release from the government for it's use. Not 100% sure though. As for getting permits to shoot in NYC I don't believe you need them anymore (you may need one from NPS). From what I understand some out of country visitors were shooting in NYC and the cops arrested them for doing so without a permit, the city was sued and the law was changed. It's hard to tell for sure though because you can still go to the city's website and apply for a permit.</p>

<p>Dust usually enters the sensor when you change lenses. Sometime the dust will land on the mirror or on one of the walls and eventually work it's way down onto the sensor.</p>

<p>Forgot to mention something. Most of the places I know of charge around 2-3 dollars for an 8x10. I use WHCC for most of my commercial printing and I use adorama for prints when they have their 16x20 on sale for 4 or 5 dollars. Just make sure with adorama you select the professional quality paper as they have a lot of different options.</p>

<p>PFP O - When ordering prints from a lab look for Kodak's Endura paper, it comes in luster, gloss, metallic, and maybe matte. It's Kodak's professional line of paper and it's thicker and sturdier than there consumer paper (I think there standard paper is called gold but not sure, I rarely use it). I'm not sure if prints from Kodak are dye sub or gelatin-silver prints. </p>

<p>Kent - I think it is all personal preference. I personally like metallic paper.</p>

<p>Photoshop or even photoshop elements can be a great way to create albums. You can create your own templates with all the freedom you'd like. Design ideas and font choices are almost unlimited. You can also find templates for sale and tweek/use them. Once you create your templates you can easily make them almost drag and drop convenient with the click of the ALT key. </p>

<p>My solution</p><div></div>

<p>I don't know if Bay Photo (<a href="http://www.bayphoto.com">www.bayphoto.com</a>) offers custom print sizes but to my knowledge they offer one of the widest selections of sizes. They offer over 100 sizes between 2"x2" to 30"x60".</p>

<p>In the next couple of weeks I plan to travel to the big apple to add images to my New York City Stock. I have only ever shot the amazing city from across the bay in Jersey City. I plan to visit Staten Island to get (probably cliched) images of the city with the verizona bridge in the foreground. Then I plan to park in a garage and hop a ferry over to NYC. When I was reading through the Staten Island Ferry website I saw that you had to get permission to shoot profesionally from the ferry I began to do some web research. This is where I fell down the rabit hole and found out that you need permission to shoot from the boat, you need a permit to shoot in the city, and you need permits to shoot in various city parks. I saw the permit to shoot still photography in NYC and it seemed pretty easy to get. My question is has anybody had experience with getting the required documents of do you just go and shoot and not worry about the red tape?</p>

<p>Here are my thoughts. First write a cease and desist letter to the offending websites. If a physical address is not available you are left with sending them an email. Most non photography people don't really understand the rules of copyright and assume that everything that they find on the web is fair game. Usually this will be enough for the owner to remove the image. Next I would add a small mark on the photos you post on the web along with a statement of copyright under the photograph (Copyright (your name), (year) Photograph may not be reproduced without permission). If the image you gave to other sites was for free a stipulation should be a logo on the image and copyright notice placed on the image. </p>

<p>If you are looking to get money from the offending websites good luck. Courts would be overflowing with this type of case if they were succesful. Also you would bear the burden of proving that you have lost income due to this situation.</p>

<p>Just my thoughts. </p>

<p>Photoshop elements gives you a lot of a features of photoshop at a lower price and you can create some great stuff.</p><div></div>

<p>I would probably take a handful of business cards with me. Make them simple, maybe just a name and email address so you can hand them out to people and tell them to email as to where they can find the images once posted. Maybe also include a website to market yourself as well.</p>

<p>Are you getting an L series lens for a reason? I know the 70-200 L f4 lens (which is an awesome lens imho) is one of the cheapest of the L series but you could probably find a non L series telephoto zoom and a wide angle for about the price of the L lens. When your shooting do you find yourself more wishing you had a closer view of a scene or do you find that you wish you could capture more of the scene. I'm usually looking to get closer so that I have less to crop when I'm in post production. I tend to avoid using wide angle lenses as I for some reason always shoot a tad crooked, add that with some perspective distortion and pretty soon it's hard to figure out which way is up.</p>

<p>The post production work done in lightroom is not saved to the RAW file. If you remove a file from lightroom and re import it the image will be converted back to it's original state becasue the file changes are saved in a lightroom file, not the RAW file.</p>

<p>I agree with Adorama, they give you the option of color correcting your files or printing as is. They also offer a wide variety of paper choices. The prices are good and ocasionally they offer 16x20 prints at 4 or 5 dollars. They can take a while to process and ship, but being in NYC you probably wouldn't notice as much. I use WHCC a lot as well. They offer fast turn around, free shipping to studio on file, and a welcome packet to help calibrate your monitor.</p>

<p>I usually try to find a piece of public land so that I don't have to worry about obtaining permission to shoot. After that I look for a place that holds a lot of versatility. I like to find things that can add interest to the photo but do not detract from the main subject. I've never been in a situation where I only had 5 minutes to find a location. I've been in situations where the location was scouted for me and I had 5 minutes to familiarize myself with it and that is not that difficult to do. Using the internet makes it so easy to find a place, the only thing I do if I have the time is explore the area at different times of the day to see how crowded it is and where the best lighting is.</p>

<p>I think the best way to learn in manual mode is to bracket the exposure when you can ,expose up to 1 or 2 stops above and below the the exposure you have set. Also for brightly lit outdoor landscape scenes I would avoid using an iso higher than 400. Are you familiar with the sunny 16 rule, it's a great thing to learn. A brief explination is that if it is a sunny day you can get an approximate exposure of 1/iso. So if you are shooting at ISO 400 at f16 you should use 1/400 shutter speed. There is some math involved but you can calculate the exposure from there with lower and higher f/stops. Google it if you would ike for a much more thorough explination. My two cents.</p>

<p>Awww Patrick beat me to a response, sorry for the repeat post. I do not have the same camera but I agree, I think most slr cameras operate this way.</p>

<p>Is your lens set to automatic or manual focus? If you lens is set to manual focus and your camera is set on manual the shutter should release. If your camera is in automatic focus mode there may not be enough light on the scene for the lens to find a proper focus point. Usually if the camera can't focus it won't fire. Just my two cents.</p>

<p>Are you looking to have a large amount of prints of the same thing or multiple prints of a few images or are you looking to have all these prints be of different images?</p>

<p>If you are looking for high quantities of the same image I would recommend WHCC (<a href="http://www.whcc.com">www.whcc.com</a>) as I know that they offer discounts on quantities as low as 6 prints of each image. Once you sign up for an account they send you 5 free prints to make sure your monitor is calibrated and their prices seem to be in the mid range.</p>

<p>Bay Photo (<a href="http://www.bayphoto.com">www.bayphoto.com</a>) offers good prices and products.</p>

<p>Both Bay Photo and WHCC have quick turn around time. Can't speak for bay photo but WHCC has excellent customer service.</p>

<p>Adorama (<a href="http://www.adoramapix.com">www.adoramapix.com</a>) is a great choice as well with multiple options for printing and they offer bulk discounts (even if the prints aren't of the same image). With them though you have to pay for shipping and sometimes it may take a few days before the order is processed. But the quality and options are great.</p>

<p>I have not used MPix before (<a href="http://www.mpix.com">www.mpix.com</a>) but have friends who recommend them and they offer additional items like key chains and magnets if you wanted to put a unique spin on things.</p>

<p>The only company I have used for Post Cards is PS Print (<a href="http://www.psprint.com">www.psprint.com</a>) prices are good and turnaround time is good. I would recommend look for a local post card printer as well. Prices may be higher but you save on shipping.</p>

<p>Would not reccomend a 1 hour photo place as they tend to not do a great job and the papers are less than professional.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>ISO is the camera sensor's (or film's) sensitivity to light. Digitally it usually starts at 50 or 100 and doubling it (200, 400, 800, etc. etc.) doubles the sensitivity of the sensor. For example if you were shooting something at f/4 with a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second at ISO 100 and you bump the ISO up to 200 it would either change to f/5.6 at 1/100th of a second or f/4 at 1/200th of a second. High speeds (800 and up) are usually used for low light situations and the lower end are usually used for outdoor or studio situations. With canon in automatic mode (green square) the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed are all set automatically. With the Program AE (P) mode the aperture and shutter speed are decided for you but you can select the ISO. Usually the higher the ISO the more noise you get. Unless it's a low light situation I usually keep my ISO at 400. I hope this helps.</p>