JamesFarabaugh

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<p>Is the sun setting on fossil fuel-based energy?</p><div></div>

<p>Perhaps post a link to an example of what you are trying to accomplish and an example of what you got?</p>

<p>GIMP is a good powerful program. Yes, the learning curve is steep (I'm still toward the bottom of the curve myself), but there are a lot of tutorials and a whole community dedicated to GIMP. Other freeware I use includes Picasa, UFRaw for RAW-JPEG conversions, and Hugin for stitching.</p>

<p>I am pretty sure the OP is talking about exposure value (amount of light), not the color temperature or white balance.</p>

<p>I don't know the answer to the question, but I have an idea for an experiment. With the camera in auto meter, note the settings it chooses for a 0 exposure in candle light. Then, using artificial light, reduce the light in the room until the camera settings are 4 stops greater than the candle light settings, and theoretically that should be "weak artificial light" according to your source.</p>

<p>In August I got up at 2am to drive out into the middle of the desert during the Perseid meteor shower. I knew of an active open pit copper mine next to the highway, and I had this great vision of the lit-up pit and haul trucks making a good foreground for the starscape and meteors. Having driven by the pit before, my memory told me there was a lookout where motorists could pull off and gape the gap. The skies over my house when I left were mostly overcast, but I had faith that I would drive out from under the clouds by the time I got to the mine. I didn't. In fact, it started to drizzle as I approached. So shooting the meteors with my 6D and 14mm f/2.8 was not going to happen. But hey, cloud cover can do neat things when it traps and reflects terrestrial light sources, so maybe I could salvage the trip by shooting the pit, haul trucks, and glowing clouds. With that, I continued on, ever determined. I never found the lookout. I don't know if I couldn't see it in the darkness, and subsequently drove past it twice, or if my memory is wrong and said pullout does not exist. Either way, I drove well past the mine and back with no sighting of the pullout, or even of the pit for that matter. Shooting the pit, haul trucks, and clouds did not happen that night. On the way home the clouds did start to break up so I pulled over, set up the tripod, camera and intervalometer, aimed at the sky, and proceeded to not catch any meteors on film. When the sky started getting light I packed up and got back on the road to head home empty handed. But the clouds were now setting up for a decent sunrise. I kept an eye on the eastern sky as I made my way back toward town. The highway was cutting through desert landscape scarred with canyons and gulches. My dashed hopes started to resurrect with the coming sunrise. I found an acceptable place to pull off, got my camera out of my pack, and wandered beside the highway in search of the best vantage point I could get. It was a decent sunrise indeed.</p><div></div>

<p>I am blown away by pretty much every landscape Yan Zhang publishes. I also really like Scott Cromwell's quirky pets.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the responses! For the record, it is spec'd at 3000 lumens or "300W equivalent". But I guess I'll pass, anyway.</p>

<p>I happened across a discount code to get half off <a href="https://colorright.us/index.php/led-lighting/lumenator-super-bundle-pro-pre-order.html">this light kit</a>. I had not heard of the Lumenator before, or even the brand ColorRight. It looks like they are a crowdfunded startup. Has anyone else heard of, researched, or trialed this yet? $99 for this kit seems like a good deal, but I don't want to be buying junk. Ideally I would use it to shoot portraits of my baby, macro, cullinart, and things that fit in a tabletop lightbox.</p>

<p>Steven, IMHO the crew should be looking straight on - even in the air-air shot. In both situations the aircraft are obviously in motion. By having the people look at the camera, to me it seems like they are posing on/in a prop (no pun intended). In the air-air example I can imagine two guys sitting in a grounded plane in front of a green screen, posing for a photographer standing on a step ladder. Having them looking forward, on the other hand, conveys that they are in the action of operating the plane. To me that is a more powerful image.</p>

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<p>I am by no means anywhere close to a professional, especially when it comes to shooting/posing people, but I hope you can value my opinion even as a casual observer.</p>

<p>1. I too do not care for the "painterly" kind of effect here. I believe it makes the trees and rocks look unsharp and out of focus.</p>

<p>2. I like your "tighter crop" better.</p>

<p>3. It may not have been possible with that dress, but I think this composure is begging for a dress with a longish train that could sweep down from left to right and maybe splay out a little bit on the rock in front of them so that it mimics the waterfall.</p>

<p>4. Time constraints ignored, I think two exposures would have been fun - a fast exposure with the B&G in the frame and a long exposure without them to silken the water, then combine in post.</p>

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<p>By mid-morning the melt is very evident.</p><div></div>

<p>The Sonoran Desert around Tucson woke up New Year's morning to a dusting of snow. This usually happens once every few years, and melts away by the afternoon.</p><div></div>

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<p>I have had good luck stitching with Hugin.</p><div></div>

<p>Only use the fisheye if you particularly want the fisheye effect. If your sole reasoning is to get wider then I would follow Stephen's advice and start stitching.</p>

<p>I recently went from a 60D with 17-55 f/2.8 IS as my main lens to the 6D with 24-105 f/4L. The first thing I noticed was the far superior IQ. And the high ISO performance just can't be beat. If you were shooting action or wildlife I think the 7D would be the front runner, but otherwise I'd give the nod to the 6D. As someone else mentioned, that "kit" lens is no slouch, either!</p>

<p>I'll start by addressing the question that Robin and Lex touch on regarding what defines someone as a "photographer". I believe the line is drawn somewhere between the extremes - a person (or a monkey, perhaps?) may be able to push a shutter button and create photographs, but I wouldn't call them a photographer just for that. On the other hand, one does not have to be a professional income-earning camera operator to be considered a photographer. I prefer to reserve the term "photographer" for anybody who puts above-average thought and effort into creating above-average quality photographs. That may be a bit vague to some people, but the point is if you really care about trying to make high-quality photographs, above and beyond just moment-capturing snaps, then I would call you a photographer.</p>

<p>Anyway, on to the original topic. All of my hobbies tend to ebb and flow. Right now photography is capturing more of my attention than it was earlier this year, but still not as much as it was when I first joined this community. Meanwhile, my hobby of building classic custom cars has been simmering for some time (it takes a lot of motivation to spend more than 5 seconds in a hot uncirculated Arizona garage), but I feel a building urge to get back into it. Part hobby, part exercise regimen, I have an on again-off again relationship with cycling. I blew a tire a few weeks ago and it still goes untouched. I suppose if I was taking that hobby more seriously it would have been fixed within a day. Every year my wife and I vow to fit more camping and fishing into our leisure time. So far this year we've gone fishing a couple times, and the closest we've come to camping is when we moved into one of our guest rooms for a night due to a daunting pile of laundry waiting to be folded and hung up. At the end of June I picked up an aged 4-wheel drive as my first step into the offroading hobby. I've done a couple of woodworking projects, but I don't know if I would call it a hobby so much as a budding interest at this point. So I guess photography really is at the top of my hobby list - for now, anyway.</p>

<p>Bill, yes they do - here in Tucson, anyway. Last fall was my first time trying to photograph them. I'm hoping for better results this time around.</p>