ed_nsb

<p>@Alan - Thank you but I have done that as well. Other than having more freedom it doesn’t solve the issues I face regarding light, color, focus etc. Honestly I've never found a more perfect storm of conditions. Being able to use a strobe would help a lot but that isn't available during a dress rehearsal. I have been able to shoot at the studios where there are no issues around light (I can stage and use remote flash as well as reflectors, etc) where my biggest problem is being able to get wide enough coverage as the studio floors are usually rectangular in shape with me shooting from the short side. </p>

<p>If you need a faster lens, renting one is a good solution. If you live in Southern California, Sammy's camera has a good rental program. There are online choices as well.</p>

<p>@wouter - most dance groups do not allow flash photography because it startles the performers. Professional set up strobes in the ceilings are usually OK.</p>

<p>If it is a gym, check to see if they have installed strobes and if you can rent (I assume you don't have them) a wireless controller that will trigger them and if you can get permission. Lots of gyms now have them up in the 4 corners of the gym for taking sports images.<br>

But since you brought up shoot Dance, I do have another question of the group. My daughter belongs to a Ballet Company. Even though I have shot sports photography for over 40 years I find it to be very difficult to get good still images or videos in the performance venues like theaters etc. because of low light, need to have a pretty fast shutter to catch motion, as well as the color gels off the spotlights and on the backdrop make the dancers glow and the background pulse. I have tried to get better by using manual focus, as much depth of field as possible by stopping the lens down, as fast an ISO possible without getting too much noise, fast prime lenses, and custom white balance. They are better but still not what I want.</p>

<p>I would look at how often you need a fast longs lens - for $500 you could rent a lens multiple times. Plus you are shooting outside. Remember you need faster shutters for movement perpendicular to than when it is coming toward you. L lens are great but very heavy and expensive. I have to use them for indoor shots without strobes so I rent the right one when I need it from Samy's Camera in Santa Barbara. Dont know where you live but you may have someone near you who rents. There are sites that rent lenses online but shipping cost kills the deal. Samy lets you pick up a lens on Friday to return by 11 am on Monday for a one day rental. </p>

<p>Wow, I couldn’t disagree more. Those are wonderful pictures. I can't imagine how obstructive a full lighting setup would do those images. Obstructive not to the photographs but to the subjects who don't want to look back at their wedding day as a studio shoot. Great job.<br>

And I don't have an answer for the question. </p>

<p>My understanding is that if you don't want it you just reload the Canon firmware? Is that right?<br>

and if it is what is the risk?</p>

<p>Honestly I said I would never buy another Epson printer due to 4 of them in a row stopped printing around 1 year of usage. I feel Epson is ripping off its clients so I moved to HP. I've never had a single head or cartridge issue with HP but I too feel they are moving away from the photo type of printers. </p>

<p>if you are putting Lightroom 3 on this list then Aperture 3 should be as well. And their primary function is a DAM as said before. What editing capability they can do directly is limited (but still powerful) but they are truly powerful when used with PhotoShop or plug-ins like Nik, etc.<br>

As editors only:<br>

Lightroom 3 - 8<br>

Aperture 3 - 8<br>

PhotoShop Elements 9 - 9<br>

PhotoShop CS5 - 10<br>

Nik Plugins - 10<br>

OnOne Plugins - 10<br>

Topaz - 9</p>

<p>With that said I do 90 percent of my editing in either Aperture or Lightroom then export those that need a plugin or PhotoShop for the other 10%</p>

<p>great forum subject and answers. My daughter does both ballet and modern dance. My biggest issues have been low light and being too close in some cases (at ballet studio or small stage) or a big venue. Unfortunately I am always in-house. I have found shooting with my 50mm 1.8 works well at the smaller venues. My 24 2.8 is a bit slow. In the large venues I rented a 2.8 70-200mm IS lens and used it with a monopod from about 1/3 back in the venue standing up in the side. I am glad I shot in RAW because there was terrible color shifts but they were really easily correctable in Aperture 3. </p>

<p>I've heard good things about ScanCafe.</p>

<p>shoot tri-x pushed to 1800 asa in the darkroom oh wait it isn't 1971 anymore!<br>

All good comments except for one missing one. Learn volleyball so you can anticipate where the action is going to be.<br>

I like center point focus rather than servo mode. <br>

If you are allowed get a smaller fast lenses (35mm to 50mm) and shoot up from the floor around the referees stand. <br>

Shoot at 250 to get blurs on arms and balls and 500 and above for sharp stop action. <br>

May get some disagreement on this but go ahead and shoot at a high ISO then post process with dfine plug-in from Nik Software. I have even taken old pushed tri-x shoots with huge grain and gotten great results. <br>

Ed (UCSB 1971 Volleyball team) , Volleyball Magazine.</p><div></div>

<p>How is $200 inexpensive?</p>

<p>Any mac solutions?</p>

<p>Roger<br>

"I looked at this a few months ago but for the size files photographers deal with (I have about 100GB of data) it literally would take me days and days to upload it and cost more than I'm willing to pay."<br>

What cost? I use backblaze and it is unlimited for $5/month. Also they will do a recovery on a usb hd for a very reasonable cost. <br>

Zander: <br>

"I looked at this a few months ago but for the size files photographers deal with (I have about 100GB of data) it literally would take me days and days to upload it and cost more than I'm willing to pay."<br>

Actually it is a pretty mature product IF you use the right company. I am an Apple user and I first started with Mozy. But looking at the resources Mozy (continually used disk resources and memory. They said it was fixed in next version but I didn’t want to wait to see if it would cause my internal hd to fail sooner). I went to BackBlaze because they are very MAC experienced. Their program puts very little stress on my system.<br>

I am very religious about backups. I run a 2 tb usb drive using time machine continually. I backup a full clone using superduper every week to 1 tb firewire 800 drive and I continually back up to backblaze. I am backing up over 250 gb of data to the cloud. <br>

On my photos I also backup a dvd for each month of pictures. </p>

 

<p>Nikon actually made decision to drop the line because of the number of repairs to the auto feeder. This was and is a great scanner for 35mm. You may have software version issues but they can be fixed by purchasing vuescan. </p>

<p>I saw an interesting idea for a DIY slide scanner using an old slide projector. Basically you remove the lense, put a defuser in front of the mirror, aim the dslr through where the lens was with a macro lens and shoot the picture. This guy also did some electronic work to sync the slide projector and fire the camera so that he could just shoot picture after picture automatically.<br>

If it works good a great idea for shooting the thousands of slides I have but doesn’t solve the issue of how I do my negatives. There are other diy projects using shoe boxes etc to shoot negatives and slides. I am worried the DOF is so small that getting a focused picture this way won't work due the curve on most slides and negatives.<br>

Ideas or Thoughts?</p>

<p>I am glad Studio brought up this method because I was wondering if it would work..</p>

<p><em>“Or, the best, fastest and easiest way - obtain a old 35mm slide duplicator, (Nikon PB-4 or PB-6) along with the slide mount holder. Use lightbox as continuous light source. Nikon Camera Control 2 software allows for tethered control. A full frame camera is necessary BTW. You can shoot RAW, and even HDR under or overexposed negatives or slides. Color correction is easy. In 1/15 of a second you get 25mb files or larger. With Photoshop ACR and Nik software, you'll get astonishing results.“</em></p>

<p>Why does it have to be a full frame camera? And don't I have to use a macro lens to use a slide duplicator. Also there are a lot of slide duplicators out there why Nikon (especially since I am a canon shooter). And lastly why do I need to tether it? Can I just use LiveView and a remote release?</p>

 

<p>I would agree with William about the 35 f2.0. Another choice depending on lighting would be a 24 f2.8. Lose a whole stop but you get a realistic focal length of 38 with crop factor. Considering for years I shot a 50 1.8 with tri-x pushed to 800 or even 1600 being able to shoot digitally these days is a wonder.<br>

If you go with a longer lens I suggest you zoom using your feet. Move to corner of court and shoot cross court to the rim vertically. Remember you are going to need to have a shutter speed of at least 350 to stop action.</p>

<p>One suggestion I might make is that when you are trying to decide between lens, rent them and try them first. In Southern California we can rent from Samys for 20 to 35 for an entire weekend. I just rented a EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS to shoot my daughters performance of the Nutcracker. Very tough conditions (worse than shooting in a well lit gym) but it pulled it off. I don't have 2k plus to buy this lens but renting it for $35 from 3 pm on a Friday to 11 am on Monday is a great deal.<br>

Next time I will try something like a prime lens in the 1.x range instead and zoom with my feet.</p>