kvon

<p>Thanks for the info Luay -- It sounds like maybe I'm doing this differently than is customary... There's been no talk about what specifically he'll do with the image(s) - size, how many, distribution, etc. The agreement was that I'd deliver a full-res digital copy for his unlimited use. Is that a no-no? And/or what are the pricing guidelines, or price range for that? I checked out the price calculator you linked to, it doesn't really seem to cover this situation.<br>

Thanks again!</p>

<p>Hello,<br>

Looking for info for a total newbie to the business of photography... Just arranged a deal to hang a nice canvas print in the gift shop at the B&B on whose property it was shot - to sell on consignment. The innkeeper asked me off-the-cuff if I'd be interested in getting some shots of their "manor house" for them to use in some advertising - either printed brochures, or DVD slide shows or both. Kinda caught me off guard, but I said sure. Totally new situation for me, didn't do any written contracts or agreements, but we did agree that he'd buy the shots from me if he likes what he sees. I have the shots ready to go now, and absolutely no clue as to how to price them. I'm thinking that I would probably deliver a full-resolution digital copy of whatever shots he wants - but how do you price such a thing? For something this informal (i.e. verbal agreement), I'm thinking of a "per-shot" price. But any feedback would be welcome....<br>

Thanks!</p>

<p>I've run into this exact same situation in a different industry (my day job), here's how I look at it. Much as you might like to think so, you just can't change another persons behavior. However, it's possible that this (fellow flickr user) isn't aware of this issue - the other side of the story. So what you CAN do, is just make her aware of it. Beyond that, you can <em>hope </em> that she does the "right thing", but don't get too worked up about if she doesn't - nothing you can do about it.<br>

<br /> You could say to her something like -- "I understand that as a person who doesn't make their living in photography, that getting compensated for your work isn't critical. But you might consider the fact that there's lots of people who DO depend on the income from selling photographs for their living, and that by giving your work away, you may be devaluing their work. Just something to consider..."</p>

<p> </p>

<p>(Disregard previous message - instead, I would like to say:)<br>

Do I understand this correctly - if I'm using multiple flashes, in any number and/or any configuration, I can't mix TTL & manual sync flashes? It's gotta be all of the same type?</p>

<p>I think this is making sense, but not sure...<br>

So I can't really expect that this setup will work, is what I think NK Guy is saying? And Gerry, is your suggestion to use both flashes in manual mode? Because based on NK Guy's statement, if I were to use the 580 EX on camera, E-TTL, and trigger the 2nd flash through the PW, it would essentially be the same thing as what I'm attempting now - yes?<br>

Thanks for your patience - I'm pretty new to this stuff.</p>

<p>So I've got a Speelite 580EXII, triggered remotely with a pair of pocket wizards. For (temporary) budget reasons, would like to use this WITH the built-in flash for a multiple flash setup. Seems like a slam dunk, the speedlite/PW trigger works, but when I turn on the built-in flash the speedlite stops working. More specifically, the speedlite goes off but it appears to be a preflash and isn't actually showing up in the shot.<br>

Is this a configuration issue, or is this disabled by "design"?<br>

Any help appreciated!</p>

<p>Just ran into another issue with the PW & Speedlite combination that has me confused... With a limited budget, I'd like to use the remote speedlite in combination with the 40d's built-in flash, but it doesn't seem to work. Both flashes fire, but the speedlite is firing on the pre-flash ONLY, and not firing after the shutter opens. When I turn off the built-in, then it works normally. Is this a configuration issue or setting that I haven't found?<br>

thanks!</p>

<p>Just got a P/W setup, having a few issues & questions, wonder if anyone could help.<br>

Gear: Canon 40d, Speedlite 580EX-II, PocketWizard Plus II<br>

1) Bad connection - at first the setup just wasn't working at all, traced it to a connection that's unreliable at best, at the connection of the receiver's PC cable into the flash head. My procedure now is to fire the Test button on the receiver PW, wiggle the cable connection, repeat until it fires, then DON'T TOUCH IT. Is this a known issue, or do I have maybe a bad cable?<br>

2) 2 things that I'd like to be able to have with this setup are 2nd curtain sync, and high-speed synch. I've got the transmitter PW mounted in the hot shoe, and of course the camera doesn't recognize it as a compatible flash. Any way to trick the system to get this to happen? (I'm guessing the answer is probably "no" for the high-speed sync, but it doesn't seem to me like the camera would need to know anything about the attached flash to fire it off of 2nd curtain...?)<br>

Thanks!</p>

Clarification after some experimenting:

I uploaded another updated version of the image, this time 800 pixels wide again. It now looks much better with regards to resolution, but still does NOT show the edits made to the image (still the old version).

I'm new to this whole process, so hopefully this is an easy one...

I just uploaded a gallery of 5 photos and submitted 1 for critique. Based on 1 response, I tweaked the photo and

went to re-submit it to my gallery. I also increased the size from 800 (wide) to 1000. I did the "re-upload" by

going to photo admin -> edit image info -> file to upload. I also cleared the browser cache, per the

instructions AND restarted the browser.

The problem now is that the photo looks TERRIBLE.

http://www.photo.net/photo/8115719

It appears as if a smaller low res version (thumbnail or midsize?) was increased in size. It's very very lacking

in detail - unsharp and blurred. AND, the tweaks I made aren't there. Funny thing is that when you click on the

photo to get the full size, it IS the 1000 pixel wide version, but without the recent edits.

HELP!? People looking at this image will choke!

Thanks Jim - I checked out Willmore's tutorial, definitely one of the best I've seen. I tried the PS masking

technique to tune down the reflections in the water, that worked quite well. (If I worked in PhotoShop more I'd

probably have thought of that on my own). FWIW I just upgraded to Lightroom 2.0, which with its

adjustments brush, sort of makes this particular function in Photoshop obsolete.

I've put up some other HDR test shots on my website, would welcome any feedback at all:

http://kwvv.net/Galleries/index.php

This is all great info - I appreciate everyone's feedback.

I've tried some of these things, again with mixed results. (This is maddening - you tweak one thing, and another

feature is thrown out of whack. Kinda like trying to hover a helicopter...)

Good point about the reflection lighter than the sky - I hadn't noticed that. Not so easy to fix it turns out.

I've compared the 3 different methods available in Photomatix, and TuFuse Pro as well. I guess this is an

example of where the global tonal hierarchy is violated... and I've read that it's a known caveat with the local

adaptation method (which was indeed the method used to generate this image). If I understand it correctly, the

only way to assure this doesn't happen is to use a global tone compression algorithm. So I tried this in

Photomatix, and it worked - except that the nice local contrast between the clouds & the sky suffered. So like

everything else I guess -- it seems to be a matter of compromise. Drat.

Rob - about the lenses, artifacts & stopping down: I don't have a lot of lenses to choose from, but I thought my

primary was a pretty decent lens (Canon EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM). At any rate, I stopped down from f8 to

f16, and the results were indeed way better - with regards to the artifact around the windows. However it

introduced some pretty bad lens flare. Maybe I can play around with the viewing angle to get rid of that...?

Roger - I tried the blending method in Photomatix, but ran into a major problem that I was unable to fix... With

such a high DR of this particular scene (brightly lit sky outside the window to shadows inside the room), I

couldn't get the sky to not appear washed out. Looking for some saturation there & just coudn't get it. The

other 2 tonemapping approaches didn't seem to have that problem.

Samples of the bad PhotoMatix result (with 6 input images) are here:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=857014

(Couldn't see how to get multiple images uploaded in a single message)

Hello,

I’ve been playing around with HDR, evaluating the software tools that are out there. Have played with Photomatix

& TuFuse Pro so far. Have had some frustrations, because I sort of expected that there would be a magic bullet

regarding how to get these tools to produce a presentable result. In reality of course, it seems that you just

gotta diddle with the knobs until it looks right. I’ve had mixed results with this, and will need more

experimentation before I decide if one or both of these can consistently give me results that I like. In the

meantime, I’d sure appreciate some insights from anyone who’s experienced with this software & techniques. A few

questions regarding specific problems I’ve had:

1) Regarding the clarity of the final resulting image, assuming that I do everything correctly: begin with crisp

clear images that have alignment differences that are slight enough that PhotoMatix’s native alignment correction

algorithm can handle it – if I do all this should I expect that the clarity of the resulting image will be

comparable to the clarity of the originals?

2) Is it pretty much expected that you’ll have to do some post-processing with the PM result to tweak the

contrast, sharpening, etc, or should I be able to get a “deliverable” right out of PhotoMatix?

3) Should I expect PM to “cry uncle” and give a degraded result if I push the limits with a) number of images

used, or b) dynamic range of those originals? I ask this because I tried an indoor scene with sunlight windows –

had a dynamic range of about 1000:1 (exposure range 2 sec – 1/500), which I covered with 6 images. Had a

terrible result – ghosting, exaggerated chromatic aberration & other funky artifacts. (Sample shown somewhere

here, if I can get this to work). Also couldn’t get the sky visible out the windows to look right at all (very

high end of the dynamic range). Did another scene with only 3 exposures (+/- 2EV) and got a very satisfactory

result.

4) Here’s a sample of a 3-exposure scene. Would like some objective feedback as to how “real” this looks… One

of the challenges with this stuff is balancing the local contrast & global contrast so that the image is

appealing but still realistic (not “overcooked”). I’m still developing an eye for that sort of thing, would

appreciate hearing some perspective…

Thanks, looking forward to some good info...<div></div>