jim_ducey

<p>If you trade that is one thing but if you discount be prepared for the next customer and past customers to come in wanting the same deal.</p>

<p>Jim</p>

<p>The canon 7D has a noise suppression option built into the camera that can be turned on in the custom options if you want the dynamic range of raw, I usually shoot with the raw and jpeg combination. It gets down to personal preferences and what type of shooting you are doing.<br>

Duce</p>

<p>The LensAlign Mark ll is a big improvement over previous ones<br>

Jim</p>

<p><a href="http://mtapesdesign.com/">http://mtapesdesign.com/</a> is the company that makes lens align and B&H stocks them<br>

Jim</p>

<p>The pros I am talking about are wildlife and travel photographers whos equipment travels by airline and car. I am sure a studeo photographer would have much less need. Usually with wildlife you are trying to focus on the eye of the animal and blur the background with a fast lens wide open and a fast shutter speed. If the autofocus is off at all it will show up in those conditions.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>This is why there are tools like lens align and Spyder to do the micro adjust for your lens and camera, If you travel and you camera and lens get bounced around a bit you will need to do it again. Some pros will check monthly or every 6 weeks. Zoom lens seem to need this a little more often than the fixed lens in my experience. The simple way is to buy the tool and do all your lens at the same time after you are set up like with the lens align ll.<br>

Duce</p>

<p>If you use your camera alot its easer to do the micro adjust yourself with a lens Align Mk ll or Spyder. If you travel and they get banged around a bit its a good idea to check micro adjustment for each camera and lens combination. Once you are set up it only takes a couple of minuets to check and adjust.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>For my own use I don't do much shooting in the dark with ISO above 1600 without supplemental light. The high frame rate is important for sports, air shows and wildlife shooting.Perhaps so do shoot with extremely high ISO but I am not one of them. The medium format cameras I have and have had don't go to extreme high ISO. One reason I like the Canon 7D is quick local repair. For me the Canon is a better tool.<br>

Jim</p>

<p> </p>

<p>You can turn on the noise reduction feature in the custom settings on the 7D, it is off by default if you are going to use very high iso<br>

Jim</p>

<p><a href="http://www.gimp.org/">http://www.gimp.org/</a> You may want to check out the website and the manual, I still use it occasionally even though I have PS 5. The big advantage of Gimp over other freeware is the layers feature. Have you posted your computer specs? Knowing what you have for a motherboard processor and memory would help us in making recommendations<br>

Jim</p>

<p>Put a clause in your contract for lateness, overtime and services in excess of agrement, then it is your option weather to charge them.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>Faster computer and Gimp 2.6 software, its free, read the detailed instructions, it does have a steep learning curve but it has layers. After using Gimp the transition to Photoshop will be easier. You do need a fast processor and considerable ram or a lot of patience. Solid state disk speed up computers a lot but they are expensive for the amount of storage. Many use a solid state disk as a working area and store their photos on a mechanical disk in your desktop computer. <a href="http://www.gimp.org/">http://www.gimp.org/</a> is the website<br>

Good luck<br>

Jim</p>

<p>The SSD disk have a very short time finding your information compared to mechanical disk. The slowest thing about modern computers is usually the mechanical hard disk, you will never be happy with mechanical disk after your have use good SSD. I have converted my desktop and laptop to SSD. Newegg has many listed with about 20 that are SATA 3. My desktop computers have a transferrer rate of 500+MB/sec measured with HD tune. The OCZ website has a lot of useful information on how to type things with SSD and you never need to defragment. Check warranty time before you buy Intel is usually 5 years where G skill is only 2 years.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>I should add if you are going the SSD in raid 0 you will need to use a raid card to take advantage of the SSD speed, the raid chips on the motherboards are way to slow. I use Acronis backup software and it works great.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>I don't think its possible to go overboard if you are doing photos and video editing. I went for an AMD X6 running at 3.7GH with a coolit liquid cooling an ASUS crossfire lV motherboard and 16 GB ram, a couple of 256GB SSD drives and a QNAP NAS box for storage with 8TB. I get around the slowness of the NAS with 30GB of cashe on the SSD. I have found with this I spend very little time waiting on the computer.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>If you are going to be photographing moving things, birds, sports airshows etc. the 7D is a great camera with a faster frame rate.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>I would look at the Giottos MTL 9360B or MTL9361B tripods and the Giottos ballhead the MH1301 with a MH656 quick release stays in your price range. I have a 9360B tripod and it is very good for macro shots. I have used it with a ball head and a gimble head with no problems<br>

Jim</p>

<p>You are not just doing your job, you are giving up your holiday time with your family to fit their schedule. I think a 50% charge would be reasonable, I do not know of any other profession that does not charge more on holidays.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>If you are doing some field sports or skiing or moter sports I think you could make good use of some longer lens.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>It would be nice to have a wide angle with IS say a 10- 24MM and a choice of macro lens with IS a bit less expensive than the present one.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>I just looked at the Nikon lens compatibility chart, surprising how many Nikon lens are incompatible with the Nikon teleconverter. Definitely a must check before buying list.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>Simple solution, if you don't like it don't do it.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>For your photographic needs the 7D should serve you well epically bird photos.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>You may want to learn more about the HDR technique, this is one of the websites with a lot of information and photos and a how to instruction <a href="http://www.stuckincustoms.com/">http://www.stuckincustoms.com/</a> It can be useful and sometime fun. a hint don't do HDR photos of your mother-in-law and let her or your wife see it.<br>

Jim</p>

<p>I do not have any experence with the 50-500MM lens perhaps some one else on the forum can answer that question.<br>

Jim</p>