andresa

<p>Not a funny picture. Not an interesting picture. Not even a good picture. Does nothing for me at all.</p>

<p><strong>if you have the skill, backup equipment, and personality I think it ok to charge for a first wedding ... I do object to those who do not have the skill, judgment, and equipment doing that. The OP has been around for a while.</strong></p>

<p>The OP only said "I've been doing photography for a few years".</p>

<p>That doesn't mean much by itself. The same description covers almost every modern parent with a point and shoot who thinks over-exposure means too much sun tan.</p>

 

<p>The typography is too unsophisticated to carry any feeling of artistry. The photos would make me wonder why your best dress shot is underexposed and your best intimate moment is a grab shot in front of a vehicle.</p>

<p>Good photographers see light where it falls and can use it always. Where I studied photography no one was allowed to learn studio lighting until they had first mastered natural light. Too many people think the studio part is more important than the light part. They are usually easy to find because they spend all there time thinking about equipment so there pictures are empty and say nothing. Unfortunately many people also stay in the old days working in their old ways, and sometimes make no interesting pictures at all. Learning is always important but more so is the source of teacher. I guess there are not many wedding couples who care how anyone makes a picture as long as it is good. The result is the thing to care for.</p>

<p>Of course, excuse me. I only mean to express that she is a pretty girl and I don't think many of the interpretations have made her look better. Ghoul is maybe not the right word, but in that picture she has stopped looking like a normal person to me. My comments are not about the subject, they're about the unsuitable processing.</p>

<p>MP, MAK, RS - nice work.<br /> Everyone else - no cigar.<br /> DS - seriously, what were you thinking? You've killed her eyes, flashed her face and tortured her flowers. She looks like a ghoul. <br /> JB - is this a new business model? maybe people will pay you not to do that to their photos? <br /> Why are people doing plastic skin, hyper-real colors and weird halos in their retouching? It's called retouching, folks. Not reconstructing. Respect the real beauty. Or at least make it human.</p>

<p><em>I am a wedding photographer and need some help on what MUST have lenses to put in my bag! ... and what setting would be optimum for this situation???</em><strong>?</strong></p>

<p> </p>

<p >A wedding photographer wouldn't need to ask either of these questions.</p>

 

<p>Good grief! Way too many shots with fisheye. It makes you look like a one trick pony. Your selection of lenses needs variety. Otherwise what are you trying to say apart from here is another distorted vertical, and there is another extruded person.</p>

<p>Your engagements are incredibly dull. They're all exactly the same. You've been hired to record two people's love, and the only way you can think to express it is hug real tight, and I'll photograph you from behind? For every single couple, every single time? Where is your vision? What's special about your clients? And if you know the answer, why aren't you showing it? I see no people in love. I see only people who look awkward standing in a way that appears strange to them and even stranger to the person looking at the image.</p>

<p>Dropping an action on an average image does not make you a photographer. It makes you a polisher of average images. Do it too often (as you have) and your site drowns in the weight of its own cliche.</p>

<p>The main idea I get from it is how not to start a new post. Yawn.</p>

<p>Each year I cover about 30 weddings, and maybe another 8 or 12 magazine layouts. All of them are unassisted. I work with the light I find. Sometimes that happens to be the light on my camera. I have no doubt that flash, especially on camera, is one of the most misunderstood and abused tools ever to have left the workshop. I would guess over 90% of people using flash today have no idea how to get the most from it.</p>

<p>Good light depends on four things. Direction, diffusion, intensity and shadow. All of these can be produced with on camera flash, but not by aiming it at the subject. Reflection from other surfaces gives direction and diffusion. Controlling the power ratio and focusing the light gives intensity. Aiming the light source and adjusting its direction in relation to the lens gives the shadow. The expert uses the flash with another light source - either the sun, or ambient light - so they get a good light ratio in the picture.</p>

<p>All tools have potential. Frequently it is the user of the tool who does not.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>+1 for Profoto.</p>

<p>But they're both very good systems so choosing often becomes a factor of preference. Like Canon v Nikon.</p>

<p>You're missing nothing. That's what most people do. I haven't seen a monolight at a wedding for years. I also think you would not be allowed to connect one to the power supply in many places now.</p>

<p>I can recommend older Nikon speedlights (SB28 is ideal) or any of the Vivitar series. All you need is a unit with manual control that has +/- power buttons to set the ratios as you need them. Then you work them exactly the same as monolights.</p>

<p>Power output can be high enough. Most units have good guide numbers and will cover 100 ft easily. There are numerous umbrella/softbox/grid options you can use, and many ways to fix the lights - on tripods, from clamps, or from stands. See honlphoto.com for ideas.</p>

<p>For £100 you won't be in the market for any of the established album companies. But you could try blurb or photobox.</p>

<p>I've done this a few times. In fact I built my first portfolio this way.</p>

<p>Be aware that if you're male you'll immediately be open to misunderstanding. So you have to be utterly professional. Explain what, why and how you'll be shooting, and it helps if you have a book of previous work you can show. Give the prospect a card and with your web address and contact details and allow them to contact you later if they're interested. Explain that they should bring at least one friend with them. At the time of the shoot have at least three people there apart from you and the model - stylist, make-up artist and an assistant is ideal. Make sure at least two of them are female. Don't approach anyone you think is under 21, and get proof of age before the shoot. Ask them to sign a model release for the work, and pay them a rate that's appropriate.</p>

<p>I don't think either of these are strong examples.</p>

<p>The first has too much shadow due to placement of beauty dish. Ideally you want the beauty dish closer and lower; it needs to fill in not only the shadows beneath the models chin, but also open the compressed shadows inside her hair line which are too dark to be successful.</p>

<p>In the second you've over lit the model's eyeline. The hat has proved difficult and you've compensated with more light, but it's bleached her features at camera right. What would have been better is changing the angle of her head to camera. Not only would it have softened the light on her eyes (you would get nice diffusion from brim of her hat), but it would have made her look more natural - a softer, relaxed expression rather than looking like she's just sat on a pin. Direct face to camera with eye line at lens axis is always very difficult to make work properly. Few people manage it.</p>

<p>I think there was some on camera flash but only on low power - there are very small catch lights in the eyes. Everything else seems like normal processing in lightroom: increase vibrancy, decrease saturation, increase contrast, increase black point, adjust highlight/shadow sliders to compress tonal range. Use brightness brush to paint soft highlights into skin areas. The final effect reminds me of bleaching a dye transfer.</p>

<p>A 16" tripod may be too much. On a recent flight from Gothenburg to London I was asked to check in my 7" table top tripod.</p>

<p>Most MA's (certainly in Europe) have a strong focus on the critical appreciation of the history of photography and current trends. It's usually a very academic study route, where by the student is expected to develop a robust appreciation of influences from all major photographers who have come before. Don't expect it to be about learning to use your camera.</p>

<p>In most European schools, the student is expect to learn technical elements by themselves. The schools may provide advanced technical tutorials, but these will be supplementary to the core of the curriculum. The focus of an MA is not in learning <em>how </em> to take a photograph, but in learning <em>what </em> to photograph.</p>

<p>If you're looking for a grounding in basic photography techniques you may want to consider a foundation course, which will be oriented to basic skills in lighting, digital processing, film and darkroom.</p>

<p>The difference between sRGB and Abobe 1998 RGB is the depth and breadth of the color space. The Adobe space is larger - much larger than any web browser can support, and larger than most consumer grade printers can support. If you want an image to look consistent between different browsers when viewed on the web you have to target if for the smallest colour space, not the largest.</p>

<p>sRGB is supported by most major browsers. Adobe RGB is not.</p>

<p>There's nothing wrong with the image at all. Far from being soft it's actually very sharp - at least at the point of focus (look at shirt buttons). The depth of field of a 2.8 lens on 6x6 format is very shallow - only a few millimeters at that subject to camera distance. The softness you describe is expected gradation of depth of field before and behind the point of focus. It also seems to be a very nice lens - bokeh is very gradual and pleasing.</p>

<p>If you want pin sharp front to back you'll need to use a tripod and shoot at f16 or lower.</p>

<p>Hand-held meters are more accurate if used well. The problem is a lot of people don't know how to use them properly. If you buy a used one make the only advice I have is look for one that does both incident and center or spot metering, and don't buy one that has a selenium cell in it. Selenium cells haven't been made for a long time and they expire over time. So any meter that uses one is almost certainly inaccurate by now.</p>

<p>Everyone who starts in photography is faced with the same problem. No one is interested in hiring someone who doesn't have any work to show their skills. So what's the solution?</p>

<p>Easy. You need to produce some personal work.</p>

<p>Make a portfolio from two personal projects. It doesn't matter what they are - just choose something interesting and accessible to you. Then invest some time in producing an engaging body of work. Treat it seriously, exactly as you would a paying job. Show how you can interpret a brief, how you can make something great from something ordinary.</p>

<p>Then edit and sequence your portfolio, and show it to people you want to work for. Doors that were formerly closed will become magically opened. The reason? Because you demonstrated initiative, conviction, stamina and personal resolve - the exact attributes that anyone wants from an intern or associate.</p>

<p>There are thousands of people who own cameras who want to be a professional photographer. Offering your bag carrying skills isn't going to impress anyone. But using your imagination will.....</p>

<p>$50 is too optimistic. Zoom lenses are hard to repair.</p>

<p>The process is to disassemble the entire lens and remove all the elements. Then clean everything with alcohol and soak all parts in fungicide. Then reassemble and recalibrate focus at all distances for all parts of the zoom. It's a lot of work - a couple of days labor. Not likely for $50.</p>

<p>Far cheaper to buy a new lens.</p>

<p>Small diffusers and reflectors are designed to be used close up to the subject. You won't see shadows on the ground since they will fall outside the image area. A 24" reflector is very small - good for head shots only. If you want to do full body or group shots you'll need a much larger one - several feet across. Something like a California Sunbounce is 6 feet wide. This is why people prefer to use flash in many cases. It's a more powerful light source with better control of spread.</p>

<p>The left image also depends on over-exposure. The subject is back lit and around 2 stops over-exposed. This creates the diffusion and loss of contrast. The color shift can be done with a cross-processing action or with a HSV adjustment layer as described already.</p>