lee_richards2

July 19, 2010

I would get a D90 with an 18-200 lens. It will do just about everything and cost about $1500.00. How is that for a simple answer?

July 19, 2010

I would give her an SLR. I had an Argus C3 at that age. I quickly learned to read the light, select the correct film and rules of basic composition. A nine year old these days will find nothing difficult about a D40 or something like it.

A point and shoot will make it far more difficult to teach her control of light, apature and such. She really needs to understand the basics right away. The menus on point and shoot cameras confuse me and I am way over 9 years old.

July 19, 2010

First of all Shun is absolutely correct that changing camera position with a fixed focus lens is not the same as zooming. A 35 mm at 10 feet is not the same as a 70 mm at 20 feet.

Barry. You don't know what Shun knows about photography. Your comments are uncalled for. I read his post and he was quite clear.

40 years ago we didn't have zooms like we do today. Certainly they were not as common anyway. Many of us could not afford much in the ay of zooms so we had a couple of primes. I spent 3 years in Europe shooting with a 50 mm F1.4, a 135 F2.8 and a 200 F4. So I zoomed with my feet or did my work in the dark room. And I missed a lot of pictures I would have gotten had I been in possession of (35 mm speaking) a 27 to 160. Add to that three stops of VR and I would have killed for my 27-160 F2.0 or so..

Good primes are nice. And damned inconvenient. And in most photographs I defy the average viewer or even pro to tell me the difference from an 8 X 10. Much is made of "pro equipment. I just shot an assignment tonight and used the 18-105 AFS VR that he OP has. (On a D300.) The pictures are fine. The customer will like them. I had a 17-35 f2.8 available. A raft of Nikon primes and an ultrawide zoom. They were not what I prefered to use though I never go anywhaere without a 50mm F1.4 in my pocket. I also used a 70-200 AFS VR F2.8. on the D3. It is a wonderful lens but I wouldn't take it on vacation if you carried it for me.

July 18, 2010

I think you have what you need. You have the 50 1.4 for extreme low light (and it is easy to carry) and the 18-105 will be fine for about 90% of your pictures. The optics are fine and the range just about perfect. Remember how light this combination will be. Who wants to carry a ton of weight.

Before you buy so much as another lens buy an SB-600 if you don't have one. That is as good as a whole pocket full of lenses. Then take a seminar or two. Only when you can complete the following sentence:

I need a _______lens because I can't shoot ______________.

Should you buy another lens.

Even if you have the entire Nikon lineup with you and the entire bench of Bishops to give you advice, you should take the pictures you think are cool and that you will want to see in a few years. So go with what you have.

Have a great trip. Make the best pictures you can.

July 17, 2010

I am a Nikon guy but I suppose if I was shooting around a school, particularly sports" I might use my D300 more frequently than the D3. At worst either would be fine. For protraits either camera is just fine. Soooo. The guy is a jerk. He is not wrong, just rude. If he has carved out this little niche he falls into the category of professionals who are good at some things but not most things like a generalist would be.

Enjoy your big sensor. Most professionals gear-up for what they do. Most full-time folks I know have both.

July 14, 2010

First Congratulations!!!! What a great thing!

Aren't we all being a little smug with our "I only shoot manual mode with both eyes open and the flash bounced off a 3x5 card taped to my forhead" stuff? ;)

As a newspaper guy I am in the habit of setting my D2H in dummy mode, shoot like the wind and I-TTL everytime I walk away from a shoot 'just in case' the Pulitzer shot pops up. The D3 is on A mode, shoot as fast as you can, ITTL also. The Press photographer's motto. F8 and be there.

My first camera (A Petri VIII) did not have a meter so I also learned to shoot the easy way. When I got a Nikormat EL I got better not worse. That meter had a better eye than I did much of the time.

Nothing like doing the smart stuff ourselves when we have the time but Nikon has spent a lot of money making their cameras really-really smart. Often a lot smarter than I am.

July 13, 2010

Someone once said of Glen Beck..."Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking."

Finally a tripid for people who aren't thinking to think about.

July 6, 2010

No surprise here. The Obama administration has been protecting BP from the start. (When it did anything at all.) ((Note: I voted for him.))

This intrusion into freedom of the press has been going on for years and getting worse. The only solution is for the press to condemn the administration for stonewalling reporters and force the administration to tell that arrogant admiral who he works for. That would be the people. Few government employees remember that these days. The administration has obviously forgotten it. But the November elections are only 90 days away. I suspect they will wake up then.

July 3, 2010

Here is the part of the Adobe article that was not posted earlier. Adobe allows a minimum of 128 MB of video memory to operate all of the features of CS5. It recommends 256 mb of video ream. So I went to the Best Buy web site and looked up their cheapest AMD laptop at $349.00. The Machine has ATI's mobility graphics which accesses up to 893MB of memory. Far more than Adobe recommends. Then I looked at the cheapest Intel machine. $369.00. This machine has the Intel 4500m accellerator. It also accesses over 800 mb of video memory.

The machine that the OP is considering is a pretty high end machine. Best Buy's cheapest Core I7 machine has "NVIDIA GeForce 310M graphics With 512MB GDDR3 discrete graphics memory and up to 1755MB dynamically allocated shared memory (2267MB total) using NVIDIA TurboCache technology. " By far and away more than CS5 or lightroom will ever require.

So I am siding with Jeff. People who are going out to buy expensive video cards to run PS are wasting good money. You do need an accellerator but almost all of the ones on the market and anything the OP is likely to get on his core I7 machine will far exceed his requirements.

From personal experience I can tell you that my Sony Core duo laptop runs CS4 beautifully.

July 2, 2010

Andrew Lynn is absolutely right in both of his posts. I still use a desk top Core 2 Duo desktop with 4 gigs of ram and Lightroom runs like the wind. My Core I5 laptop is plenty fast for PS and Lightroom. There is no reason you will not be thrilled with that fast laptop you are considering.

Just about any video card will work fine for photo editing including the on-board solutions

A quick trip to Adobe's site will give you the information you need. Lightroom 3 will run as a 64 bit operation which will address your ram. As a 32 bit operation it will only address 1.7GB IIR. Adobe says that ram and processor speed are the two main performance enhancers. The Core I7 you are considering has 4 physical cores, 8 cores with hyperthreading, operates in turbo-boost mode at 2.8 ghz and has 6 mb of level three cache. It is faster than the Core 2 quad mobile running at 2Ghz. Almost 30% faster.

In other words go for it. You are considering a laptop that is way more powerful than you need. And it is far easier to carry on the airplane than a full tower and 30" monitor.

June 22, 2010

Elliot. I am not trying to be contrary but please tell me once circumstance where a D50 would perform better than a D300. It is just not going to happen. Having said that....

I do not like to begin with the assumption that I can fix stuff in Photoshop that need not be fixed at all. The physics of the chips in the D90 and D300 allow it to perform at high ISO much better than the D50. Relying on post processing to fix problems that need not occur in the first place is not a good plan. And we are talking about the OP who says that shooting in poor light is common for him.

He also is doing stage lighting. This is problematic to say the least. His D50 is lacking in white balance options. This could be something he finds handy on the D90+. The D90 shoots at 4.5 fps versus 2.5. Then there is 12 MP versus 6 MP which from the back of the auditorium with a 70-200 F2.8 is, for me, a deal breaker. What is the extra resolution worth? For him a whale of a lot. He will very much notice the difference.

Just for fun let's mention the movie mode at these concerts. Could be fun.

I am all about not replacing cameras when you both like and find adequate your current model. From what the OP said I think he is ripe for a D90 and 'perhaps' something more. My money is on the D90. It is a very impressive camera for not too much money. He could get a new one now for $846.00 shipped.

June 21, 2010

Rob I think you might consider sending your D300 to Nikon for a look-see. I have two of them and they are superb at 1600 ISO. They are miles better than the D50.

Here is what Thom Hogan said:

So, for the main types of noise and high ISO values, the D90 is essentially a mimic of the D300. For critical work I'd want to be at no higher than ISO 800, though ISO 1600 is quite usable for most situations. It's only when we press on to ISO 3200 do we start getting the drabness and noise buildup that starts to make images tough to deal with. Go read what I wrote in my <a href="http://www.bythom.com/nikond300review.htm">D300 review</a> about noise handling; the D90 is nearly identical.

</blockquote>

I think he is a pretty good source.....Don't you?

He also said that the D700 will give another stop of useable range and 9 stops of dynamic range.

So. FWIW here is what I would say:

If you want to take picutres of concerts and you shoot from pretty far back then get the D90. It is exactly the same as the D300 in both high ISO performance and dynamic range. You will save enough pay for some excellent photo opportunities and perhaps some fun training. The crop factor will help you from the nose-bleed seats.

If you shoot up close and personal and the money is not an issue, get the D700.

I think I would go with the D90 for what you describe. It is far less than half the price of the D700 and for what you do will perform as well as the D300s for much less. It is really a nice camera. Not many years ago we all would have killed for it.

June 18, 2010

For the record. F-stop most certainly does matter. So does the apature of the lens. Check this out.

There is a device (I use it) called hyperstar. On a Schmidt Casagrain telescope there is a secondary mirror mounted on the corrector plate. This Hyperstar lens allows me to mount my CCD camera at the secondary mirror position on my 8" telescope. What does this do. It takes my F-10 scope and makes it an F2.0 scope. This is 25 times faster than the same scope at F10.

<tbody>

<tr>

<td>

Focal Ratio

</td>

<td>

Equal Exposure Times

</td>

<td>

Equal Exposure Times

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

f/10

</td>

<td>

15.4 minutes

</td>

<td>

30.9 minutes

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

f/6.3

</td>

<td>

6.1 minutes

</td>

<td>

12.3 minutes

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

f/5

</td>

<td>

3.9 minutes

</td>

<td>

7.7 minutes

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

f/3.3

</td>

<td>

1.7 minutes

</td>

<td>

3.4 minutes

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

f/1.8

</td>

<td>

30 seconds

</td>

<td>

60 seconds

</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

So it is like that. Larger apature gathers more light but the Fstop matters.

For what it is worth the Hyperstar can be used with Nikon and Canon DSLRs on hyperstar equipped Schmidt Casagrain telescopes.

If you want to see some breathtaking images shot from someone's back yard take a look at the accompaning pictures taken with hyperstar. They guy who invented this device is a good friend. His invention has revolutionized astrophotography allowing backyard photographers to get results that literally rival very large research telescopes.

Check out this site:

<a href="http://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/index.aspx">http://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/index.aspx</a>

So what can you do with a small backyard telescope and a hyperstar? Check out this image from the site:

<a href="http://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/c14_m8nb.aspx">http://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/c14_m8nb.aspx</a>

June 18, 2010

I like Nadine's approach too. Like Mr. Kaplan I was a newpaper/magazine PJ for a long time and we frequently posed shots. I don't fine the general idea of wedding photojournalism and some key posed shots inconsistent.

Its my opinion that a good wedding photographer should know how to do it all. Even though my preference is for a photojournalistic approach, I almost always take a few of the old classics.

The B & G hire us for our expertise and part of that expertise is anticipating what they will need. We need a few shots for the traditional folks who may be on the photo list. The one I see most often is a request by the father and mother of the bride or groom for a formal portrait of themselves and often with the B & G. In fact, I am surprised when it doesn't happen.

So. We take a wide range of shots and present these to the B & G. If they stick with their request for a PJ approach these other shots hit the cutting room floor. More often that not though I find that the B&G appreciate a few of those shots. Why not make them happy?

June 17, 2010

I think Leo has a great point and I do not blame him a bit for letting off steam. We all can tell him 'how he should have done it' but we can all learn from his experience.

I read Richard's thread and see how he was a help to the BG. However. A single event does not a trend make. He could just as easily been wasting his time 'backing up' a seasoned pro. And by backing up I mean annoying, getting in the way and violating his contract.

I was a newspaper photographer for years and know how annoying it can be for someone to horn in on your shots. You have a job to do and they are making it much harder not only on me but my subject as well. In this case there is the very real possibility that this yahoo impacted on the quality of the shots Leo got. We have all seen the fading smiles and careless expressions that people get after the 10th flash goes off in thier face. Couple that with some peoples natural aversion to being photographed and this guy could certainly have caused Leo to achieve less than his usual product.

It was easy as a newspaper guy to deal with these interlopers. Sometimes I could and would simply say, "Look. If you want this event in the paper you have to get out of my way." I became fairly adept in dealing with the Frances Ford Cousin Jacks I often encountered.

Certainly it would have been fine to have a word with the guy and even enlist his aid by giving him assignments. That being said we put the single shooter clauses in our contracts for a reason. I probably would have been nice at first and not so nice to this guy if necessary.

One of the learning points for all of us is that in the pre-wedding briefing I hope we all have with the interested parties we make this point politely and firmly. In this day of cell phone cameras everyone is a photographer. Nevertheless we can head-off some of the probleems like this by nipping it in the bud.

June 14, 2010

When are we going to just eyeroll at these threads. They are simply useless. I am a confirmed Nikon user. I am a confirmed Nikon user becase when I started buying serious gear in 1973 there were only two choices and Paul Simon was singing about Nikon. I still have that F/1.4 mentioned above and sometimes use it. Canon's decision to change lens mounts did not bother me at all as I was a Nikon guy. Why change? Had I been a Canon user I probably wouldn't have changed anyway. I am a loyal guy.

So the unpopular rant is this. No one who has posted on this thread takes any better pictures because they are a Canon/Nikon user. Myself included. Maybe Canon makes a lens that shoots around corners and Nikon doesn't but none of us really give a damn. Perhaps the autofocus system of a D700 is a convenience and maybe the Canon 1DS MARK zillion runs on earwax but none of that makes a bit of difference in the long run. If we are good photographers then we can take great pictures with an Argus C-3. If we suck we can't take good pictures with a Hasselblad CFV-39 39 Megapixel Digital Back on a CM500 backed up by a personal assistant carrying an array of Hasse's best glass. (Though we will look very cool, particularly if we have a nice vest and avaitor glasses.)

These threads are oh so tiring. We all know that we can't buy a game and that 50% of our equipment spending beyond a Rebel or D40 would be better spent on training.

Which is better? Nikon or Canon? Well. For wedding photography maybe it is Denis Reggie and he shoots Canon. Or maybe you need a nice portrait. You might consider Gene Martin and he shoots Nikon. They both seem to have done fairly well. Maybe even that Sony shooter Nigel Barker has a shot at success. Unless he reads this thread and gets nervous.

June 10, 2010

Most everything has been covered. I would make sure the contract has a clause that hold you harmless for liability. You don't need the bride's family after you because the primary or this intermediary has kludged up the editing.

I don't think $500.00 is so bad as long as it doesn't affect your personal branding. You don't want this lady telling others that she can "buy" you for $500.00.

If I were offered $500 to second someone, with no post required, and on a day where I could spare the time I would probably do it. But I would have a good contract.

I wonder.....If you are getting $2-3K for weddings what does this primary shooter normally earn? I wonder is you are second shooting because the contractor hired a bargain basement primary then got scared.

June 7, 2010

I can't imagine why someone would sign this. It offers absolutely no protection for the photographer. None.

I find myself endlessly saying it but "you can't buy a game". Big lenses, a googleplex MP camera will not make one a better photograper and there is no easy road to success.

I would much prefer to go the craigslist way than risk so much with these bozos. There is no substitute for effective prospecting and the hardest work that a new photog does is hunt for new business.

June 5, 2010

This is a question and not an observation. Are women better at making women look beautiful and men better at making them look sexy? If so does this color the pictures we take at weddings?

May 31, 2010

Get the 80-200 AF-D. It is sharp as can be and gives you so much more flexability. I am not a huge fan of primes as opposed to good zooms. Most all working professionals use zooms. I would not be without my 70-200 AFS VR f2.8 though the 80-200 f2.8 remains a favorite.

Unless you like tacking charts to the wall you will not, in practice, see any advantage to a fixed focus lens when compared to good zooms.

May 30, 2010

Did you catch what Vail said? Do you realize that your location is not on your web site? Do you realize that your phone number is not on your web site?

You have posted way too many wedding pics on your site. You need to cull the herd a bit.

I think that, in the Denver market, and advertizing on Craigslist you are about right with the $125.00 per hour. If you want to move to the next level you need to really up the ante on your advertizing, clean up your web site, tell people where you work and get out and sell.

Your ability as a salesman will result in higher prices. You simply have to find people who can pay more and convince them that you are worth it. Your work is good but you can't wait for people to find you. You have to find them. And Craigslist won't land too many $2K gigs.

May 30, 2010

Leave the cameras home out of respect for your sister. Be a professional family member for a change. You are walking her down the aisle so you are replacing her father for one day. It won't kill you to not take pictures. Besides. You will be in all of the ceremony shots. The only thing you could possibly shoot is the reception.

Your wife is wise. Try limiting your load to a bow tie, a gift and her.

May 30, 2010

Read what Richard posted very carefully. It is good advice.

I think you have too much money and I fear you are trying to buy a game. Your photography is very nice. You do not need all of that equipment right now. The learning curge will be like trying to sip through a fire hose.

So here is the deal. Your portfolio is very nice and quite colorful. Obviously you are meticulous in your camera work. But out of 200 pictures there are exactly 13 that are people. You are putting together an equipment set that is aimed right at photographing people. The Fair shots are nice but they are not particularly commercial. How about the formal portraits and other studio work that you seem to be equipping for? Perhaps you just chose not to post them. My question is, what have you budgeted for training? Will there be money left over for you to attend seminars and workshops? I have been doing this for oiver 30 years and every seminar I attend teaches and inspires me.

If you are buying Nikon USA lenses they come with a 5 year warranty. I would not spend extra on lens warrantees. It is unlikely that they will break anyway and after 5 years you can decide what to do. It appears that money is no object so why not enjoy all that nice equipment.

May 23, 2010

"direct as much attention toward technique as to what lenses to buy – IMO you need to acquire the control; composure; compassion; and rapport to get in tight and to make that personal space of the subject, yours – and capture that in the image."

</blockquote>

Right on William!

Of course, you're right. But I have plateaued some in the development of technique and that's because, I think I've coaxed what I can out of the gear I've got.

</blockquote>

What gear do you have? It would be helpful to know. I respectfully beg to disagree with part of what you say. I have never known a photographer who has "plateaued in the development of technique". There is always room for improvement. After 40 years of camera work I still take seminars and workshops and rarely come away without new ideas and techniques. And usually the motivation to try them.

You do realize that you possess a camera (and even if what you have is the 18-55 kit lens) a lens that would be the envy of any professional not that many years ago. You know that some of the iconic images of all time were shot with cameras and lenses that were toys compared to what you have. And the digital darkroom you have even with freeware.......I would have killed for that capability in the 1970's.

There is a very good chance that the new gear motivates you but I doubt its inherent capability makes much difference in your final product. Question. Why have you ruled out zooms? For the price of an 85 f1.8 you can get a Tamron AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF). This gives you considerably more flexability. It is discrete, sharp, fast, gives you slightly more range than either of the two lenses you mention and (image quality wise) would be diffucult to tell from the primes.

May 23, 2010

All someone has to do is say Canon.......and some reactionary says, "oh yea....Nikon!" Sigh.

I have had marvelous service from Nikon repair centers. Fast, professional and fairly (though not cheaply) priced. I say this not to start a flame war but only to give credit where it is due. On one occasion they were kind enough to turn around what amounted to a complete rebuild of a D2H in a week. And they paid the overnight return shipping.

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Posts posted by lee_richards2