michaelchadwickphotography

Painting an entire profession with a broad paintbrush is like treating any group with a broad paintbrush. Assigning the intent and actions of one person to everyone who is in that same group isn't fair to the group. There are a lot of awful people out there who chose to become lawyers and who screw over the little guy all the time. But to Fred's point, there are good lawyers out there. Best to say "SOME" lawyers are bottom-feeding scumbags, and that is definitely true. Let's keep the paintbrushes small and remember the following: There are no problems in this world caused by race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or any other condition based on what we are. All problems stem from who people choose to be and the choices they make with relation to others. They come from that one group of people common to every one of the aforementioned groups. They are the people who act either purposefully against others, or act so selfishly as to completely ignore the adverse effects of their actions upon others. In other words, a** holes. ;)

Just one of the many, many reasons I have disdain and even contempt for the majority of humanity. That and their utter and inexplicable inability to use you're and your correctly. There are so many crooks, and at the very least, unethical people out there. Just this morning some d-bag in Thailand hacked my wife's Microsoft account. It's hard sometimes to give people the benefit of the doubt when so many people show they instinctively lean toward screwing others over.

Seconding the infinity focus and manual from chazfenn. Also, being at 300mm is going to give you focusing problems with a fast-moving object like that. You might need an even faster shutter speed to boot.

Oh, and a little on storage. Yes, RAW takes much more room, but you can post-process it to jpg and then delete the RAW files. The good news is, external hard drives are getting cheaper and cheaper, and it's a very small cost of doing business to have one or two 1 or 2TB hard drives available to you. Plus, you can dictate a better dpi (resolution) with a RAW editor. Most straight-to-jpg images will be 72dpi which isn't great. You can set that as high as you wish in the RAW editor.

What William said. When I'm shooting events (mostly wedding) in churches I tell my second shooters and myself that 1/80 is minimum speed for still things, and anything with motion such as walking down the aisle there is a minimum of 1/100 with flash, 1/150 without. That's where a camera body with better ISO (unfortunately this is more expensive) comes into play. In a situation like yours I would have likely been at 1600 and using a lens that either opened up to 2.8, or better, 1.4. I would then reduce grain in post. Thankfully on my 5D Mark III there isn't much at ISO 1600. Welcome to the fun of the "Big Three Balancing Act"!

The motion blur is consistent throughout the image and everything is blurry in the same direction. If it were an AF problem, the wrong thing would be in focus but there wouldn't likely be motion blur. This happened because the user's shutter speed was too slow and the entire camera moved either through shutter button clicking or (more likely) because the photograph was snapped while the photographer was following the person walking and the shutter speed wasn't fast enough to freeze the action.

Shooting in RAW isn't a very advanced technique, and it's good advice to get early on. RAW allows for much alteration later, and with much more flexibility than trying to work with a .jpg. If the OP doesn't know about RAW yet, this is an excellent opportunity to be introduced to it.

I suppose it depends on what is important to the photographer's end product. As a photographer who primarily covers weddings, unless I am actually trying for motion blur for a specific effect, having any motion blur (to me, anyway) is a mistake. Someone walking down an aisle at a church doesn't, in most cases, call for any sort of artistic use of motion blur. Using Manual gives you control over both aperture and shutter settings quickly, and doesn't allow the camera to make any assumptions about either. If you know using Av even at 2.8 or wider, that your camera will make the right decision about shutter speed on its own, then great. Av would be fine. If you know using Tv will not cause underexposure at the widest aperture the lens can handle, great. Tv would be fine. Of course ISO figures into this "Big Three" balancing act as well. I guess being the control freak that I am, I don't typically trust the camera to make any assumptions for me. I also don't know that we have to choose between the lesser of two evils if we have the equipment necessary to allow us an acceptable aperture and shutter speed in difficult lighting situations. That's one of the reasons professionals use higher end equipment and get paid to know how to use it.

I shoot weddings frequently in dark churches and the way I overcome it is: 1) Shooting in RAW so that I can adjust white balance later, or setting the K temperature to get proper white balance in camera 2) Aperture priority will NOT solve the problem with motion blur. Only your shutter speed will do that. If you don't want to shoot in manual completely, try Shutter Priority instead. But, manual is always best. 3) Fast lenses and a slightly higher ISO. Fast lenses (1.2 or 1.4) will get you more light, but your depth of field is going to be pretty narrow. It's a balancing act. 4) A better body will give you less grain in the higher ISOs.

I would treat it as an event and use my online photo hosting/ordering service (Zenfolio in my case) to "tag" the images and have it send out invitation emails to the customers inviting them to view the photos online and order print products. IF, however, you feel you would lose sales by not having them order packages right there, then I don't imagine there is a better way. There might be a software package out there, but it's not going to do much different than having your assistant put in some sort of identifier and tie the customer's order to the image(s) taken. In other words, pretty much what you're doing now anyway. If you're worried about killing trees, use an iPad or tablet or something and have them fill that out instead.

You can get it through photo.net and also through PPA for pretty good rates.

It depends upon your needs. Look at a side-by-side comparison of the two and see how they differ. Whatever the difference is that works more in your favor to fit your needs, go with that one. Reading product reviews on each is also helpful.

Too general a question, and you seem to want us to provide you with a free education. It doesn't work that way. I will be happy to educate you properly on post-processing workflow and how to run a photography business. My fee is $1200 per day and you can have up to eight hours of my time. You may message me privately if you are interested.

You can educate yourself through online correspondence courses, online classes, actually going to school for it, reading books on the subject, apprenticing with experienced photographers, or through just practice. The last one I don't recommend as learning from experienced photographers will allow you to avoid a multitude of hard lessons through mistakes.

Hey everyone, I don't know if I was just somehow under a rock, but I just found out that New Jersey State Sales Tax dropped as of January 1st. It is now 6.875% and will drop again January 1, 2018 to 6.625% For those of you who invoice payments far in advance, this should be helpful. I didn't get anything from the state telling me about this change, I just happened upon it. I don't know how I missed it, but I hope this helps someone. If this is in the wrong forum, please do move it to the appropriate location.

Performing arts photography is frequently (if not most of the time) done at dress rehearsals and from a closer distance. That will provide you with a better technical environment than the back of the theater during a performance. A monopod or tripod is very helpful, if not essential.

Agreed with previous posters. Don't worry. They have no case, no ground for legal action, and don't need your lawyer's name. Cease communications with them. Do not respond. If they will not stop, send them a Cease and Desist letter. If they still will not leave you alone, file harassment charges against them.

Furthering what Michael Mowery said, you might want to see if they will do a different time of day. If you have sun directly overhead it's going to be potentially uncomfortable for your subjects, plus you'll be fighting shadows. Doing it at a time of day when the sun is blocked by a stadium wall might provide you with a more consistent lighting situation. Then again, you could just pray for a cloudy day. :-)