the photo messinger

<p>Hello all,<br>

I have the great good fortune of being able to travel to Budapest this March for about a week and am completely ecstatic about it. I'm trying to plan ahead just a little and was wondering if anyone had favorite locations to shoot within Budapest? Or perhaps suggestions for a day-long trip to the country? I look forward to your responses and to sharing my photos with you!<br>

Thanks,<br>

Hannah Messinger</p>

 

<a href="http://www.physorg.com/news144343006.html"> "'Digital Dark Age' may doom some data" </a>

 

<p> I was never a huge fan of the web lab, but I have to say, this makes me reconsider my affection for shooting

digital. McDonough is probably taking the notion of losing information to the extreme, but he has a valid point:

it could happen. Digital Dark Age aside, I'm pretty concerned about about the life-span and staying power of the

digital images being stored on my external hard drive right now. </p>

 

<p>"To avoid a digital dark age, McDonough says that we need to figure out the best way to keep valuable data

alive and accessible by using a multi-prong approach of migrating data to new formats, devising methods of

getting old software to work on existing platforms, using open-source file formats and software, and creating

data that's "media-independent."" </p>

Hi Ben,

<br>

read first:

<br>

http://www.photo.net/learn/concerts/mirarchi/concer_i

<br>

http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00Ih6K

<br>

It would also be helpful to know what kind of venues we're talking about here. Are we talking...large theaters, small cafes...your friends' basements? And what kind of access will you have to the band while they are playing?

<br>

The short and sweet (*and very general) answer:

<br>

You want something that will shoot fast while very wide open like a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS.

All fixable in Photoshop.

<br>

First, while working in layers, right click the thumbnail of your image and choose "Convert to Smart Object."

Go to Filter--> Blur--> Surface Blur.

<br>

You want your threshold to be something small, I'd say start at 5 and don't go above 10.

<br>

The Radius is the intensity of the blurring. Start somewhere around 50 and take it up until you notice that you are losing detail.

<br>

If the overall image looks good, but there are a few areas that went too far, do this:

<br>

Select the layer mask and then the brush tool. Paint over the areas (with black) that you want to "unblur."

<br>

Start with a low opacity(like 50%) for the brush, and take it up as you see fit. And don't forget: if you do too much, you can always fix it with control + z or in your History panel.

<br>

If this method doesn't work, let me know. It is only one (and one of the more basic) ways of fixing noise.

Your photo doesn't look that bad, but if this is something that continues to concern you, don't forget: you should almost always meter off of something that is 18% gray. Dead and alive grass are 18% gray. Blue jeans are 18% gray. Most "jewel" toned sweatshirts are 18% gray. This will ensure that your whites are the correct tone.

If you're really really concerned about it, you can always bracket.

I also would think that you were set on Tungsten. Make sure that you are on AWB. If you still have problems with a professional-sized flash, you can buy different colored diffusers that may solve the problem. A cheaper solution is to put a bit of blue cellophane over your flash.

 

As for the pictures at hand, they are easily fixed in Photoshop. Go to Image--> Adjustments--> Color Balance.

Anytime you reduce the yellow (slide it to the left), increase the red (slide it to the right). Start with something very small like +5 and -5 and go from there. Also notice that you can adjust the color in Shadows, Midtones and Highlights.

I organized my portfolio with one of my professors who has been in the business since the '60s. For a general-use portfolio, here are the tips he gave me:

1. Group your photos. Put all of your portraits together, all of your landscapes together, etc. Don't jump around.

2. You want your photos to be at least 8x10, but ideally 11x14 or larger. This will show that your photos are of a high enough quality and sharpness to enlarge.

3. Have someone else look at the photos to determine their "interestingness" before you put them in. Photographers tend to have an sentimental attachment to their photos, sometimes regardless of quality. You dont want this to get in the way of your judgment.

4. Try to have a good range of photos. Once again, ideally you would want to have something like 2 portraits, 2 news pictures, 2 fashion photos, 2 pictorials, 2 features, etc.

5. Don't have more than 20 pictures in there at once, but have more than 12. Make sure you have some very recent work.

6. Most importantly: a portfolio is like a play. It must have an exceptionally strong beginning, middle and end, otherwise the audience will get bored and leave.

I almost always start at 400 ISO at an aperture of 5.6 and try to stay over 1/100 shutter speed. You also need to remember that you loose 1/3 of the depth of field in front of the sharp area and 2/3 of it behind the sharp area. So when shooting the leaves, it is also possible that you were standing too close with your lens too wide open. A good website to help you understand this is:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I would also use the 50mm since you will be able to move around and shouldn't need to zoom in or out.

I also have to agree that you should take the photo around sunset, but if for some horrible reason that doesnt work out, you can also take it shortly after sunrise.

However, I pretty much ALWAYS shoot on manual at 400 ISO. I know this can be tricky, but it really is your best chance at getting everyone in focus. Before you go, you might want to practice focusing manually by just following a pet or a moving toy around with your camera.

I also like to start at an aperture of 5.6 and move up or down from there depending on how the first few shots come out.

I also find that when shooting people, it's a really good idea to talk to them while you shoot. Ask them questions like-- What's your kid's favorite toy and why does he/she like to play with it? They will often have amusing anecdotes and will laugh and interact with each other instead of rigidly and awkwardly looking at you while you shoot.

A quick tutorial on how to save for the web:

first and foremost, make sure that your image is the proper size- smaller than 1024x768 pixels (or 800x600 if you want to play it safe.)

Next, go to Edit--> Convert to Profile. *This is very important: CHOOSE sRGB and hit OK.

Go File--> Save for Web. In the "Optimized" tab, make sure your image is being saved as a JPEG.

Play around with the image quality slider. Start with something like 50 and go down until you see a noticeable change in the quality of your photo. Notice that on the bottom left hand corner of your image, the size of the file goes down.

Check the "Optimized" box. Hit Save.

Always remember that your resolution should be 72 when you're saving for the web AND that you should not save this image over your original because JPEG is a compressed file and you will therefore lose information.

Finally, you can open your web browser and drag the image into it, just to make sure it looks okay.

Personally, I don't use Photoshop plugins, but I read this article on Digg a while back and thought it did a good job of explaining 10 Free Plugins:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1981062,00.asp

Mendel is correct about hard drives.

I also use Lexar and SanDisk and I never shoot on anything bigger than 2GB. It is better to shoot on more than one small card so that if one fails, you have not wasted your time shooting.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT BUY A MICRODRIVE CARD. These have tiny hard drives inside of them, and if you drop them a couple of times it will jolt the drive out of place and you will not be able to get your photos off. Do not be tempted by their lower price.

You should also be aware that it is not just contests. If you post your work on sites like Facebook, Flickr and Blogspot you will also be waiving Copyrights. If you are working with digital, it is a good idea to tag your Copyright to the image. You can do this by going to File-->File Info and filling out the Copyright and Notes Sections.

Absolutely do not buy a book. The better and more comprehensive choice is to subscribe to a site called Lynda.com. It has Quicktime video tutorials that look like you are watching the a computer screen while someone explains to you how to use programs. It has everything from "Essentials" to "Beyond the Basics," each video is about 5 minutes long and it is updated regularly. It has tutorials for CS4 before it even came out. There is more than one subscription plan, but I believe I pay something like $23/month for unlimited access.

well...if you're going to be making a print, first make sure that your image resolution is at least 200 pixels/inch (but ideally 220 or higher). You also need to find out the resolution of the screen you are working on because it may be (and probably is) lower than the resolution of the image. If you are using Photoshop, you can go to Image --> Duplicate and name the copy something like "actual." Once "actual" is open, go to Image--> Image Size and change your resolution to the resolution of your screen and click okay. Bring that image up to 100%. If that looks sharp, then you are good to go.