tangibleimages

<p>In some situations, depending on the focus/release priority settings in your camera VR can take some time to spool up and your camera might not release the shutter until the image is stabilized.</p>

<p>I'd recommend using the largest you have, though truth be told if I were doing a slideshow I'd either hook a laptop up to a digital projector, or setup a larger-sized digital picture frame (both of which I have).</p>

<p>I think your desire for a professional p&s are at odds with your desire to spend $100-150. Canon's G- series and the newer S90/95 come to mind, but they're over $400 each. Perhaps an older G series?</p>

<p>Simple: Be good enough and/or specialized enough that clients have no choice but to hire you.<br>

Digital is here, and with it comes ease of entry into the field. With this comes more competition, but then competition is nothing new. Sure micro-stock has put extra pressure on us all, but that too is here and not going away. You just have to be better than the competition in your own market.<br>

In a way, it's like that joke about outrunning bears; you don't have to be faster than the bear...just the other people it's chasing.</p>

<p>I'd say a combination of reflectors and/or strobes. The models are facing into the sun, so it wouldn't take a whole heck of a lot to fill in the few remaining shadows. It's not like the sun is shining on their backs and casting their entire faces into shadow.</p>

<p>If it is the case that you shoot in low light situations, the 70-200 2.8 lens is going to be far better than the 70-300 variable aperture lens by several stops.</p>

<p>As far as DX vs FX, I've seen stunning photos with either format. I imagine that you will see one or two stops of noise improvement between your D70 and the newer d300s. The D700 only really give you about one stop better noise characteristics over the DX format, at least in my experience. The new D3s is a different story.</p>

<p>I'd say you'd be fine with the D300s and faster lenses than you currently use (i.e. 70-200 2.8 vs the much slower 18-200). Plus, with the savings you could get some fast lenses.</p>

<p>At any rate, for lens choices I'd go with the 17-35 and the 70-200 instead of the 24-70 and 70-300. The difference between 35 and 70mm isn't that much (buy a fast 50mm if it is), but the difference between 17 and 24mm truly is. Also, the stop you'd gain over DX by going FX would be negated if you chose a slow lens like the 70-300 over the faster 70-200.</p>

<p>If your flash isn't popping at full power you should be able to get more than 1 flash per second. Also, you might look into using an external power pack to reduce the recycle time. After awhile, however, your flash will heat up and you will need to let it cool a bit. The rate at which it does this depends on the power of the pops and how many in a burst.</p>

<p>As someone who's had to learn the business side of things the hard way, I strongly recommend getting a business degree and an art minor. Sadly, roughly 90% of my time and energy are spent running my business, finding clients, working with clients, managing prices and client expectations, shipping things, coordinating, networking, etc. Only 10% of my time is spent photographing/editing photos.<br>

I know it's weird to hear, but if you aren't a good business person it doesn't matter how well you can photograph. Most photographers fail within the first year or two, not because of lack of quality (though that is an issue) but because of a lack of ability and knowledge when it comes to running a business. If, however, you are a good business person to some extent it doesn't matter how well you can photograph.<br>

The "how" of using a camera is something that is readily self-taught. If I were you I'd take courses in lighting, composition, and non-photographic arts such as drawing and painting. Much of the lighting setups we use today were championed by painters such as Vermeer and Rembrandt, and they have a lot more to teach us about portraiture, etc.</p>

<p>I would farm out my post production if my current time spent in post was keeping me from accepting other jobs. At the moment, it isn't and so I prefer to do my own. Furthermore, I have a hard enough time switching labs...I just don't know that I'd feel comfortable putting my work into someone else's hands..</p>

<p>It really depends on where you will be going with your camera gear, and how much you expect to carry at a time. My own gear for an event looks like two bodies, a 17-35 or 24-70 and a 70-200. For you this would mean the 17-50 and the 70-200, plus your body.<br>

Currently I'm in love with the Think Tank Steroid Speed Belt with the "digital holster" attachments. It gets the weight off of my back and my shoulders. I have two bags that attach to the belt as well, one for an extra lens (typically an 85mm), and one for extra batteries for my flashes. The gear is constantly available and not on my back where I can't get to it easily.</p>

<p>Hans, do you really think your comments are helpful to the OP's question? I'm going to go out on a limb and assume they meant that 1/500 is a higher speed than 1/320.</p>

<p>As to the David's question, you don't say how far away the birds are. If they're any sort of distance away it's going to take a huge amount of flash to freeze them unless they are relatively close to you. Flash power falls victim to the inverse square law, meaning that if you double the distance, you 1/4 the power of the flash. At 80 feet it's at 1/64th of the power it would have at 10 feet.</p>

<p>Also, because bird wings travel fast you should use front curtain sync. Without going into the huge and detailed explanations you can find elsewhere, I'll oversimplify it. Front curtain sync fires the flash at the beginning of the exposure and burns your illuminated subject into the sensor, freezing it. The subject may continue to move, but you've frozen it as it was when you first pressed the shutter release. For bright things and light sources this isn't the best, but you can read up on that later. Rear curtain sync records the subject moving (blur) and then burns it into the sensor at the end of the exposure time.</p>

<p>The old farmer's adage about "horses for courses" comes to mind here. While video might be a nice feature in an SLR, video cameras are designed for it and do it much better. I see, for example, that you bought a D300 for shooting photographs and not one of the myriad video cameras that take photos as well as video.<br /> I've tried video SLRs and found them much harder to hold steady while shooting video than actual video cameras.</p>

<p>The main reason for this is that video cameras are designed with video in mind and SLRs are designed with stills in mind. Another major problem with using a DSLR to shoot video is that they limit how long you can shoot, which suggests that they really aren't designed for video. A video camera will allow you to shoot continuously for <strong>hours</strong>, while the 5d will only let you shoot for only <strong>30 minutes</strong>.</p>

<p>Sure, last year the television show <em>House</em> was shot with a 5dmkII, but do you really have thousands of dollars to spend building a custom stabilization rig? Also, to quote Greg Yaitanes, the director of <em>House</em>, "focus was hard with these (Canon L series) lenses". Something that Greg doesn't mention is that for shooting movies, there is a specific job of "focus puller" in addition to cameraman. The focus puller's entire job is to focus the lens while the cameraman controls the rest of the camera. I don't know about you, but I don't normally go to shoots with one of those.</p>

<p>If you're looking for 1080p video you can get it in a mini video camera for as little as $100 USD...and it comes with a zoom lens. You can get a professional Canon XLH1A video camera with a 28-600mm lens for the same price as a Canon 5d MkII with a 28-300mm lens.</p>

<p>If I were you, I'd buy a decent hd video camera that you could carry when you need video. They come small enough that you can stuff it in a bag, and they are designed to be held during video.</p>

<p>Sounds like it might not be their photo. of course they could have done a "save for web" or equiv.<br>

Request a full resolution copy sent. If you get it, it's probably theirs.</p>

<p>You're probably going to see lots of distortion like with Nikon's previous 24-120 lenses. I'm no engineer, but I don't see any real way around this with such a wide zoom range (especially in a smallish lens).</p>

<p>I may be out of line on this, but hasn't camera gear always been expensive? I seem to remember the Nikon F5 selling for several thousand dollars (US), and pro lenses always being expensive. Sure the cycle for new camera bodies has sped up, but that's because the "film" is permanently fixed inside the cameras now days.</p>

<p>As has been mentioned before, many professional photographers don't own their own gear. The AP and other news organizations, for example, often issue gear to their photographers. Others who are in business for themselves rent, make do with what they have, or build it into their operating expenses. Furthermore, many do not buy the latest and greatest if they don't have to. Just because Nikon/Canon/Whoever release a new professional body every 2 years doesn't mean the other ones stop working. I own the old Nikon 70-200 and have no plans to upgrade to the newest 70-200. I'm also using the "ancient" D3s I bought in 2007 and have no real plans to replace them for quite some time. Nikon will have a D4 out soon enough, and a D4 successor thereafter. It's only when my gear cannot supply me with the edge or abilities that I need that I replace or upgrade it.<br>

To get into photography, all you really need is a camera that is adequate for your needs. Landscape and portraiture don't usually require cameras that shoot at 1,000,000 ISO and 20 fps, and even sports can be shot happily at the relatively modest 5 fps that most cameras do now days. Keep in mind that only a short time ago sports were shot at 3 fps on cameras that had to be reloaded with film every 36 exposures and whose maximum ISO was 1600.</p>

<p>I've had good luck taking my gear to customs before I depart with all of the gear in cases and printed copies of the inventory. I then have customs check, clear and sign off on my gear. That way I know it will make it to my destination. I also have insurance to cover theft/loss etc.<br>

Pelican cases are great for packing gear. I usually remove the cube foam insert and throw a towel or something in to keep the gear from whacking together.<br>

I usually carry my camera bodies, a mid-range and a tele zoom, and cards in a thinktank belt system as my "personal" item, and a daypack with two flashes, a laptop, chargers, and a card reader and 1 set of clothing as my "carry on". Everything else gets checked as mentioned above. I want everything essential to my work to be with me and not delayed/lost.<br>

Your mileage might vary.</p>

<p>"a problem if I am relying on the smarts of matrix metering"</p>

<p>Don't forget that you are driving your camera. No matter how "smart" it is, check the output and adjust the camera (EV, Shutter, Aperture, etc) .</p>

<p>I think primarily what you're seeing is your camera's metering system exposing for different things. In the second shot you've got a lot more dirt/rock than you do in the first.</p>

<p>When I was beginning, the instructors swore by Pentax K1000s. Other good cameras are Canon F, Canon AE-1, Nikon FM2N and Nikon FE</p>

<p>I usually do each specific edit in a new layer and use masks instead of selecting things and then editing. Masks are easy to selectively apply, and new layers are much easier to delete and play with than trying to do it all in one.</p>

<p>As far as two of your sitters being softer, you should try Smart Sharpen's "remove lens blur" option. It doesn't make as many halos as remove gaussian blur in my experience.</p>

<p>In the future, you might try a smaller aperture if it is the case that their softness is due to distance from plane of focus.</p>

<p>Really don't use the transform tool. That's bad practice IMHO.</p>

<p>+1 Vote for Liquify.</p>

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<p>If the on-camera flash is set to "--" it doesn't really contribute to the exposure. The flash it gives off is the command to the other flashes to fire and what level to fire at.</p>

<p>It's hard to address any issues without knowing what camera and lens you are talking about, but usually the lens and the camera sync that information pretty closely since the f number is determined by the ratio of aperture diameter and lens focal length (ex: 50mm lens and ~28mm diameter = f/1.8).<br>

It may be that your camera isn't reading the aperture correctly.</p>

<p>One thing I've found is to dial in -2/3 EV on the camera most of the time to better protect those highlights.<br>

As for bit depth, Canon isn't saying but I suspect it's 8 due to RAW file size.</p>