craig_big

3/3

A light meter is really for when you have time to pose everybody, in which case you'll probably also have other gear on hand (lights, namely). If you spend the time to set up lights, you're packing enough gear and thinking ahead enough that a light meter can be a real boon to your productivity and consistency. However, if the light is rapidly changing, or if you are moving from one zone to another frequently, or if you are taking lots of candid shots, the light meter will only get in your way.

 

Another way to look at it: If you're setting up for a 1-off shot, then it will take the same amount of time to shoot 1 or 2 test shots and make some adjustments vs making reading with an incident-light meter. This is the beauty of instant-gratification digital workflow. If you're setting up for a session of maybe 50+ shots, and the lighting will be the same for every shot, then you might take the time to nail down your light reading and dial in the settings manually for the entire session. This will allow you to rapid-fire the entire session without having to ever chimp to make sure the exposure is right. You will know that each and every shot will look great.

Manual focus. For this kind of detail, it should be a simple matter to set the focus before-hand (camera is on a tri-pod, right?). Autofocus requires a sharp contrast at the exact focus point, or else it will always hunt focus. This doesn't always match up with the task at hand, and can require you to recompose simply to obtain focus. You'll also want to select an f/stop sufficiently to ensure the entire object is in focus. With macros, I routinely use f/11 all the way through f/32 if the lens has it.

Let's not ignore Mauro's post from Apr 18, 2010; 05:17 p.m. He demonstrates how much more clearly an Imacon scanner can pull detail from film vs a Nikon Coolscan. The Nikon is considered top-of-the-line for amateur and non-professional use, but produces unacceptable results for professional scanning. Really critical scans are done on a wet-mounted drum-scanner, which takes the Imacon scan 1 notch better. So yes, blur is a limitation in the (Nikon) scanner.

Defending digital on the basis of resolution is sort of foolish. Defending either system on an emotional basis is just as foolish. If people would get over these issues, the argument would have been over 10 years ago.

 

Mauro makes a good point when he says that most people adopted digital workflow back when the resolution was much worse than it is today. Most people bought their first digital cameras with resolutions like 2MP or 3MP. It was widely accepted at the time that digital didn't have the same resolution as film, but the improved workflow made up for the difference. Digital cameras also removed much of the mystery from photography for much of the general public. For the first time, casual users could see the REAL resolution of their photographs. With 1-hour film labs and 4x6 prints, beginners were never able to realize that before. Now, with better digital sensors, we've seen the gap narrow to the point where a test has to be very precise in order to prove what is still the reality: film flat out resolves better than any digital sensor yet to be invented. But the only people who notice anymore are medium format shooters. In 35mm at least, the gap is awfully narrow, and a bad film scan will skew the test in the wrong direction.

What is this situation where you're shooting individually alongside another photographer? Are you his second? Is he yours? Have you met? Will you be pooling your photos? Is he a professional? Is he getting paid? The whole thing is so strange, I couldn't possibly begin to offer advice. Wear black...always black. Grooms wear black, photographers wear black. That's just the way it is. If you don't want to look out of place, wear black. Black pants, white shirt. Black jacket if you're expected to wear a jacket.

I think the last two posts are just preaching to the choir. I believe photographers already understand that photography is a quality product, and doesn't come cheap. I never met a photographer that was eager to lower the value on his or her service.

If you charge insufficiently for your time, and plan to make up profit on prints, there is a solid reason why this is an inherently dishonest system. It is designed to persuade clients on the basis of low cost up front, while downplaying the other costs on the back end. But when it comes down to it, it will cost the customer more money before it's all said and done. They will have to shell out more money to get the complete package that they want. It is the GOAL of this type of marketing to get people to commit because the charge is only $500, when the competition wants $2000, but then you charge an extra $1500 for all the little extras, like the album which wasn't included, the family portrait, the B&G portrait, the night-shooting charge, etc. That's what it's about. It's about showing the customer a lower price up front. It's about confusing and dazzling the customer with a lot of math and fees and additional costs. It's about convincing a customer through numbers alone that they owe you every penny that you are asking. It is deceit at the very core. When it comes down to it, if the client decides to purchase no extras whatsoever, they are only obligated $500. You say that's ok, but if it really goes down like that, you are losing money. You know this. The client knows this. So in a way, the client is not really obligated to purchase extras, but really they are. Remember, the client is afraid (to a degree) of suffering your wrath, the same way you are afraid of theirs. They will feel like being nice and buying some extras, because they know that's how you plan to make your money. This may work for your marketing, especially when dealing with low-budget-minded people, but it's not a high-class, professional way to present your business. The classy pro knows that they customer wants to know the total cost up front, and is willing to accept the price. And they understand that once the deal is made, you never address money again. It ceases to be an issue. The job just gets done at that point.

 

Finally, and this is to Ilkka Nissila, I don't think anyone here (I hope) is really talking about a DVD of unedited photos as the sole product. That's the low-level churn-and-burn that we've all heard so much about, and dreaded in our nightmares. I'm talking about a complete package where the client gets a photo album at the very least, and probably an extensive set of proofs or some large prints. In this case, it would be the last step to put the archives on a disc and hand it over to the client, with final versions of all pictures from the proofs and album on the disc. Basically, it's a record of all the work you've done, and it preserves that work for the client's future use, at their option. I'm not even talking about RAW's here, just the final JPGs. The thing is, many people just want to be able to put some pictures on their blog, or Facebook, or email them to their friends, or put a slideshow up on the computer. They might even print a bunch of 4x6's and pass them around to their friends. Probably not, but maybe. None of these activities are perceived (by the customer) to have any monetary value. You should make sure you cover all your costs and make a buck with all your services leading up to this point, and let the digital files go.

Not a waste of time at all. There are already commercial "macro" mounts that put 2 flashs on the camera, at the 3:00 and 9:00 positions. Your idea just takes it 1/2 step farther. I would expect that you'll see some results not unlike the ring light.

I agree that it's up to you if you visit the venue ahead of time. Not that you shouldn't scout things out, especially for a wedding, but you can't directly charge that money to the customer. It would be like charging by the hour for the time you spend showering and dressing, then eating breakfast, loading up your car and putting gas in it. These are just things you do in preparation for a job. Your fee must be high enough to justify your efforts, and provide a living, but these scouting trips are not "extra". One could even argue that it's sufficient to show up 2 hours early and scout in the early morning. Use a compass and the Farmer's Almanac to figure out where the sun will be later in the day.

Here's a question: after you resize and save an image, does the copy look okay when you open it up in PS? How about if you open in Windows Gallery? If the copy looks good before uploading, then bad after uploading, you know it is Facebook's software reworking your image, and not something you are doing. Finally, check what size Facebook is outputting your images (I'm not sure, but they may only be 600 pixels wide) That's your target size.

Only the classic metal manual focus prime lenses had reliable infinity stops, and even then only if properly calibrated. On an AF lens, particularly a zoom, you can't just spin the focus ring to the end and shoot. Sometimes it focuses past infinity. Use your AF and AF confirmation light even in your infinity focus situations. Even then, you will be limited by the maxium resolution of the center portion of the lens when zoomed in all the way. The 28-105 AF-D is pretty sharp, though, so you should be able to eek good performance out of it once you figure it out.

It depends. If you've just accidentally smeared a big greasy fingerprint on the front of your lens, and you HAVE to get a shot off in the next 15 seconds, your shirt will be the easiest thing to reach for. Make sure you are wearing a soft, 100% cotton shirt, and keep it clean. Wash your shirts with a dryer sheet to keep down static, and make sure your dryer's lint filter is clear. You might follow it up with a lint roller if you are shooting an important event. This will give you the best shot for when you need to use your shirt. You should also carry a lens cloth in your front pocket, as that might make an even better resource in an emergency. This also applies for moments when you are shooting a pet closeup and he puts his nose on the glass. Also good for when a child reaches out and grabs your lens with sticky grape jelly fingers. These things happen too often to take 2-3 minutes out of your day each time for a proper cleaning. Obviously, the best way is to meticulously remove dust first with a blower, then apply lens cleaning solution, blah, blah, blah, we've heard it before. If contamination is a larger risk than lighting artifacts, then obviously you want to use a UV filter so that you aren't wiping your front element all the time, but the UV filter instead. One more thing: if you are shooting in the rain you will also have to wipe your lens frequently to clear water droplets. No dust blower is going to work in this situation.

 

One more point: condoms only work if you use them 100% of the time. Forget once, and it was all for nothing. Of course, you wouldn't wear a condom just to go to sleep, but you wouldn't need a UV filter on the lens if it's sitting in its case, either. Basically, you should always have a protective filter on your lens while you're shooting, unless you don't care if it contracts an STD.

There's a fine point that you are completely missing about the ring flash. From the camera's-eye view, the ring flash does not create any visible shadows. It fills in all the gaps and creases from every possible angle. True, it does this in a very in-your-face, harsh, non-diffuse way. Not too harsh, because the ring light is a little diffuse. But the effect it creates has sort of a "light source is everywhere, but nowhere all-at-once" feel to it. The real problem with direct strobe flash on-axis, bare-bulb, on top of your camera is that it creates visible, harsh, and ugly shadows under everyone's eyes, nose, and chin. But imagine if you had a matching flash mounted UNDER your camera to fill in all those shadows. All of a sudden the hot shoe mounted flash wouldn't be so bad. In fact it would be great. This is what the ring flash does, but from all 360° at the same time. It's like having a hundred lights from different angles all hitting your subject in the same place. It's pretty cool, really, but works best as a fill light, meaning that your main key light is still coming from off-axis somewhere. The ring light doesn't really work all that great as a 1-and-only light, because it creates a sense of incompleteness in the lighting scheme. The light source becomes so hard to identify that it looks unnatural. It also creates a halo around peoples' heads. Also, you wouldn't want to use it for event photography, where a bounce flash can really shine, as its effect is lost on the background elements. It's really for portraits and head-shots, that kind of thing.

I've noticed this trend, too. 4 years ago, digital cameras were getting better and CHEAPER by the day. Recently, the manufacturers have wised up, and are not letting them go for cheap anymore. As a result, consumers started looking at the best used cameras, like the A590 you mentioned, and any of the A600 or A700 series by Canon. Those cameras were as good as or better than most of the newer cameras being sold for much more money ($300-400). So the prices on used cameras has gone up. I suspect it might be due to a decrease in consumer interest in pocket cameras. Almost everyone has one by now, so there's not such a rush to go out and buy one. Also, alot of people are switching to their iPhone, and don't see a pocket camera as a necessity anymore. Finally, a huge segment of the amateur market has moved to dSLR's, and yet another segment has gone for the 4/3's cameras. I think the increase in prices you are seeing is due to a decreased demand. See, the law of Supply & Demand dictates that prices are raised by an increased demand or a decreased supply. Well, in reality, large corporations have so much clout that it's usually the Supply priving prices, not the Demand. Manufacturers anticipate demand (or lack of) and then they set the supply to best suit their purposes, and to best compete with each other. So what we see in the technology sector when demand drops, is that the suppliers hold back BIG TIME, limit their product lines, hike their prices, and try to make up the profit with higher prices to compensate for lower volume. Since fewer consumers are interested, noone notices the price hikes, except the shrinking population that still demands that particular product. These are fanatic consumers, who are just as likely to buy a great camera at $400 as they were at $200. Maybe I'm just full of it, but that's the way I see it.

After reading all the newest comments, I went back and reread the title of the thread. I think it is particularly fitting and hilarious: "Losing customers because everyone wants the images." Ha! What else would your customers want? It's like a retaurant owner complaining: "Losing customers because everyone wants hot food."

 

Seriously, I liked Leszek Scholz's recent post with real-world examples. It reminded me of picking a photographer. One of the biggest things that turns me off, as a customer, is package deals. "For $XXXX price you get so many hours, so many 8x10's, 5x7's, and 32 wallet prints." Who wants wallet prints? I see that as money totally wasted. So what would I want with a package deal? Screw that. Also, additional fees for things that are obviously going to be required, like staying for the duration of the event, or correcting photos. Duh! Or, in the most pertinent point of the day, getting the stupid DVD. "That'll be an extra $1000". Whatever. A DVD costs about 20¢. Don't try to hike prices based on print sales. We all know that's bull-oney. We hire a photographer to be a photographer, and take and produce photographs. We shouldn't have to pay extra money to the photographer to make profit off the prints. The printer is already doing that. I know full well that a good printer charges $50-$100 for an enlargement. The printer is covering all his costs + profit. What am I supposed to think when the photographer tells me that each 11x14" print will be an extra $150? Prints should always be at cost, because it's cost to the photographer, not cost to the printer. Photographer's cost means profit to the printer. I'm also not fool enough to believe that every pro photographer is also an accomplished printer, and I know you're not all making your own prints. Maybe a couple of you are, but by-and-large pro photographers are not doing their own printing.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but the answer is "wrong film". Use slide film, also known as E-6. You can cross-process it or not, and either way you will get the correct "positive" image on your film. Standard processing means E-6, which only special labs can do. Cross-processing means C-41, which is standard developer. All 1-hour photos have this stuff, but they won't usually cross-process for you, unless you convince the lab tech to break the rules. Usually you will have to go to a pro lab for the cross-processing as well, where they will know that cross-processing will not ruin their C-41 chemistry.

Look at it this way:

 

If I order a 1-gallon bucket of chicken at a fast-food chicken take-out, they give me 10 pieces of chicken in a bucket. It's advertised as a 1-gallon, because that makes it sound somehow like a never-ending well of chicken. But the reality is that the minimum-wage employee grabs 2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and 4 drumsticks, and puts them in a bucket. It's the same number every time. He knows this, I know this (now). He then shakes the bucket to settle the chicken pieces until he can get the lid on. It's not really 1 gallon of chicken. In fact, you can't even measure chicken by the gallon. Gallons are for liquids, and chicken is meat, skin, and bones. Even if you could, sometimes the 10 pieces would be a little more, and sometimes a little less. But every time, the one constant would be that you could pull those pieces of chicken out, 1 at a time, and count to 10. But they're not selling you a 10-piece bucket, it's a 1-gallon bucket.

 

There are only 3 ways to uncover the mystery of the chicken bucket, if you are not already in the know. 1) I can go and buy one myself and count the pieces. But that doesn't allow me to walk into the chicken restaurant for the first time prepared with the knowledge I need. 2) I can go to the chicken restaurant and ask somebody how many pieces of chicken are in the 1-gallon bucket. This works fine, of course, but there must be an easier way that doesn't involve driving. This could be embarassing, too, as there will be other customers in line. Also, the guy at the register might not know the answer. He will have to ask the manager, who will take long minutes deliberating before he comes to ask me if I want trouble. He might offer some weak explanation about 10 pieces or something, but mostly he will explain to his employee where the button is on the keyboard, and make sure he remembers to take my drink order. 3) A kind friend, neighbor, or knowledgeable acquaintance can just tell me, from his experience, how many pieces of chicken they put in the 1-gallon down at the Cluck-n-Pluck Chicken & Biscuits. Unfortunately, there is also a fourth way. 4) Some twerp who reads the menu too much, but has never actually bought chicken, can pretend like he knows and offer an explanation of how many cubic inches are in a gallon, and the apparent possibilities for the volume of a piece of chicken, and explain why there will be at least 6 pieces of chicken in that bucket, but certainly you can't expect as many as 20 pieces of chicken. That's not possible with digital chicken. I should just go and ask for a chicken bucket that will fill me up. And if it doesn't fill me, then I will know to get a larger bucket next time. But if I'm full, then I know the bucket will always be big enough, and sometimes I will have extra chicken.

Dan, one reason you might not be able to directly answer my question is that the information is not easily available to read on the internet. Believe me, I've searched several times. I was hoping to hear from an actual lab tech or someone with direct personal experience with professional scanners, who can explain why price quotes are always given in megabytes, instead of megapixels. Why not both? I'm desperately trying to simplify my question into the most concise language so that you can understand why you aren't addressing it. Here goes, "What is the maximum resolution of a typical professional lab film scanner?" See, if the charge is $30 per scan, I need to understand just how good that scan it. I understand bit depth, and I've seen samples. I understand the differences between film and a digital camera. I understand the differences between a film scan and a digital picture. I understand the implications of grain. I bought myself an Epson Perfection flatbed secondhand for about $60. That's the cost of only two (2) image scans from a pro lab. With that scanner, I have scanned literally thousands of my own slides. It will give me 16-bit, 32MP image from a 35mm slide with a filesize in the 100-200MB range. The scans don't look perfect, and I understand that there is some difference in quality between my flatbed and a professional's. And granted, if I downsample the image to about 8MP, there is little difference in true resolution. The question I am highly interested in, because it has huge ramifications in my own scanning experience, is what resolution are they scanning at? My scanner reads 4800dpi. Perhaps to learn the answer I will have to call up a few different lab techs and get their direct input, from their own experience. I guess you can't learn everything on Pnet. I wonder how Steven feels about how satisfactorily his question has been addressed? So far, the answers given have been 1037, 4450, 5000, and possibly as high as 8600. Surely there's some physical limitation based on the physical manufacturing limits of even the highest of high-end scanners. Do drum scanners have an even higher resolution?

Just one more point to add to everything else being discussed: When pros used to shoot on film, there was exactly 1 negative in existence for each shot from the wedding. Prints had to be made from that negative, meaning that only 1 party could possess the ability to create prints. Now, with digital technology, the digital negative is easily replicable. This means there is no particular reason why only one party should retain the rights to print, especially when the most interested party is the client, not the photographer. Both parties can easier possess their own copy of the negative, and this is now abundantly clear, given that every single person in the world has their own digital camera, and is very familiar with the concept of file sharing.

 

The antiquated idea of, "There's only 1 copy of the negative, and I'm the photographer, so I'll keep the negative. I'll always keep it in a fire-proof and water-proof safe, so you can always come to me for professional prints in the future." is far behind us. In the new world, that argument doesn't fly. The new view is, "All it takes is 3 minutes for an unattended computer to create a permament archival copy of everything related to the job. At the very least, as the client, I expect a copy of that disc."

 

Pro photographers who are trying to withhold digital copies had better come up with really sound reasons why the client shouldn't be able to replicate their photographs years down the road, after the contract is long expired.

Haha, I only said in passing that it's a pity you had to drop the 50mm out of the running. It's not a necessity. No lens is a necessity, after you have your first one. One camera + one lens + creative vision = magic. After that, most of the talk we have around here is just nit-picking the details. You've already got a lens that will do the 35mm and 50mm, so the only thing you would gain by darting out to buy one of the primes are the apertures from f/1.8 to about f/3.5. If you can't afford to spend more, then don't put yourself into debt for the sake of one more lens. You've already got plenty to keep yourself occupied for years. Incidentally, it's also a pity that you didn't get the 14-24mm f/2.8 and the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II, but that doesn't mean you should buy those, either. Some people have hundreds of lenses, and some people have the most expensive and collectible lenses ever made, but that's not what makes them great photographers.

It seems like we're dancing around the answer, and giving all the information that we know about the topic, without actually saying it. How many megapixels do you get from a 35mm frame 100MB scan on a professional wet-mounted drum scan? How about from an Imacon-type dedicated film scanner like the one my local lab probably uses? Is 200MB at 16-bit going to represent 100 megapixels? Does that mean they are scanning at a resolution of 8600 lines per inch?

Hey! It sounds like you're now getting a much better pair of lenses from a great dealer for almost exactly the same price! Those other stupid accesories are really just trash filler to make you think you're getting a better deal than you are. They'll throw in a cheap tripod, cheap wide angle adapter, cheap lens cloth, cheap memory card, and cheap camera bag, and pretend the whole mess is an additional $99 value, when you're better off without such cheap garbage. Now you're liberated of all that junk, and you have two terrific lenses instead. Congratulations. Pity that the 50mm doesn't fit in your budget anymore, though. That's always a great go-to lens for dark places and close-up portraits.

Ditto. The 18-55 is already a G lens, and obviously DX. You shouldn't have bought the 70-300, though. You might regret it. The 55-200 VR is really a better lens for the same price, unless you make the leap to the 70-300 VR, which is a substantially better lens than either, but at three times the price. They are all G lenses (not that that matters), but only the 55-200 VR and the 70-300 VR have AF-S (as Nikon's internal focusing is properly denoted).

 

Are you sure the soliciting email came from the seller and not some third party? There are unscrupulous companies that gather up recent purchase information and target the new customers with these scams, but those offers don't come directly from the seller. One last word of advice, from someone with over 15 years of experience buying things online: If it smells like a scam, it's always a scam. Honest vendors are very transparent and precise in the language they use to offer you deals. An honest vendor wouldn't have made these mistakes. Only a scam phishing website with unscrupulous phishing bots would have sent you that email.

I am also interested in this issue. I elected to buy a scanner myself after seeing the prices for scans at my local lab. They offered services like: "Nikon Coolscan: $20; Up to 50MB: $30; Up to 100MB: $40; 100MB+: $50". Having no point of reference, I still to this day have no idea what the difference is, in their mind, between a 50MB scan and a 100MB scan. I've heard of other scanners offering services up to a 500MB scan. Is there anybody out there with actual pro scanning experience that can explain why the services are always given in MB, instead of PPI or MP, which are more understandable to photographers? And just how many pixels equate to a megabyte? In my experience, JPG compression can yield widely varying results. Even my uncompressed TIFFs, NEFs, and CR2s have widely varying ratios of pixels to actual storage size.