JamesFarabaugh

<p>Thom, love the sunrise through frost. Bravo!<br>

Richard, excellent macro shot on that lizard.</p>

<p>Sitting in my garage, awaiting some TLC.</p><div></div>

<p>If your situation has not changed, and you still cannot make long-term commitments, then I don't see how the relaunch of your business is going to change anything. In fact, it doesn't sound much like a "business" at all; more like side work or a self-sustaining hobby. You might want to market yourself differently. Rather than say "my business is wedding photography", gear it toward "emergency and back-up photographer for short-notice needs." When somebody needs a photographer on short notice, and all full-time professional photographers are booked, that's where you come in. An added benefit to this is you can market yourself to full-time pros as well as end-users. So if a pro can't take a booking due to short notice or has to cancel they can refer the client to you, or they can subcontract you as a back-up or 2nd shooter. Of course this means you have to prove yourself to the photography community. They won't want to tarnish their own reputation by referring people to a flaky or sub-par photographer. To prove yourself, pick up as many 2nd shooter and assistant gigs as you can.</p>

<p>Nancy, there are some articles in the Digital Post-Processing section under the Learning tab.</p>

<p><a href="../learn/digital-post-processing/">http://www.photo.net/learn/digital-post-processing/</a></p>

<p>Could it be ISO noise making the pixels more noticeable? What ISO setting were you on?</p>

<p>Buying an EF-S lens isn't a bad idea. Some of them have the glass and IQ of an "L" lens, but are just missing the weather sealing. These are the ones that MSRP above $800. If you can land one for a couple hundred dollars below retail value then you should be able to make your money back when you're ready to sell it and move up to FF (assuming you take good care of it during that time).</p>

<p>Here's a good site for lens reviews: <a href="http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/">http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/</a></p>

<p>We had a good soak on Valentine's day on the NW side. Snow dusted Wasson peak, almost coming down to the floor. Of course it had melted away before I got off work.</p>

<p>Not sure if these were mentioned before: Tohono Chul Park, and the Tucson Botanical Gardens.</p>

<p>Keep looking on Craigslist. If you are persistent you can sometimes grab a good lens for cheap. I managed to get a 17-55 f/2.8 for $500, whereas they usually sell for around $900, used.</p>

<p>Maybe first set it to shutter priority, set the shutter speed to 1/20 or faster, and set the ISO to auto. This way you are dictating that the shutter be fast enough to ensure no motion blur of your subjects, and letting the camera choose the ISO and aperture necessary for a correct exposure. Then you can note the settings the camera chose, and adjust those settings to get the exposure just the way you want (if the camera didn't get it right).</p>

<p>Sarah, I noticed what you were talking about in Geoff's pictures, where images 1,2, and 5 don't have as many straight lines while images 3 and 4 show more fence and light posts, which appear stretched and skewed.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I like to shoot everything, so I can't predict what I would be shooting. I suppose when doing looming foregrounds it would be mostly vehicles - cars, boats, planes, bikes, etc. I also like landscape shots that feature a prominent foreground object in conjunction with eye-catching scenery in the back (landscape shots where everything is at a distance can tend to be too flat). Or artistic shots where I want to manipulate proportions (such as the famous absurdly large dog nose pictures).</p>

<p>Ed, I prefer not to crop - it just feels like I'm not getting full use of all those pixels I bought. That is why I was leaning toward the 15mm in the fisheye group.</p>

<p>I'm not trying to highjack the thread, but I am curious now that a lot of people are recommending the NEC over the Dell. A couple of differences: 22" vs. 24", and PVA vs. IPS. Because the NEC is 22" and PVA I hadn't even considered it in my search.</p>

<p>1) Does anyone have a 22" monitor, wishing they had gone for a 24" instead? Does the NEC more than make up for its smaller size?</p>

<p>2) Obviously PVA is much better than TN, but is IPS noticeably better than PVA? Is it not a big deal since photo editing is done with the editor sitting directly in front of the screen?</p>

<p>Ah, yes. The Subie at 10mm looks like what I'm going for!</p>

<p>Looking for advice/opinions on choosing a lens that would give a wide angle on a 1.6 crop with moderate distortion for looming foregrounds. I'm thinking the right lens would either be a 15mm fisheye, or 10-22mm wide angle, but I'm not really sure. I'm not looking for extreme fisheye distortion, so that's why I discounted the 8mm and 10mm fisheyes, but I'm afraid the 15mm might still be too much. On the other hand, I'm afraid that the 10-22mm wide angles might not give enough distortion. As a baseline, I shot the below sample at 17mm, using my 17-55 (please ignore everything else that's wrong with the picture - it's just a snapshot for the sake of making an example). I would like a bit more exaggeration than this. I don't want the entire frame to be drastically warped, but I want the foreground to be a bit more prominent. What are your thoughts? Sample pictures would be very helpful, too!</p><div></div>

<p>Frans, I have done a lot of research on monitors around $500, and have determined that the Dell U2410 seems to be the best you can get around that price. A couple others you might want to look at are the Asus PA246Q and the HP ZR24W. But to be honest with you, I have eliminated those from my own search and plan on buying the Dell when I have the money. Cheers!</p>

<p>Vincent, I absolutely love the piano!<br>

I also really like Nathan's ice macro, Jan's kaleidoscope, and Arie's panoramic.</p>

<p>Well done everyone!</p>

<p>A good "do it all" lens would be a 8-600mm f/1.4L AF IS USM Macro. Come on Canon, get on it!</p>

<p>If your issue really is about focal range, then perhaps the 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 would be a good inexpensive choice. The 24-105mm f/4L might be just the ticket, if it's within your budget.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if you want a faster lens for more control over your depth of field, then one of the f/2.8 zooms are probably the way to go. I recently bought a used 17-55 f/2.8. I have occasionally felt limited by its zoom, but the wider aperture has been nice to have. I don't think it's quite right for portrait photography, however. Body shots, furniture/props, etc., sure - but head shots and close-ups, no.</p>

<p>Robin, you say "winter leaves", but it sure looks like it's sticking around to me! (yuk yuk).</p>

<p>Here is a remote shutter capture while I breathed into the beam of a flashlight on a chilly evening last night. Just for fun.</p><div></div>

<p>Jeremy, thanks for sharing. It is unfortunate that everywhere on earth there are people willing to deface and vandalize property (a la the graffiti in the first frame). Nonetheless, excellent photos!</p>

<p>Mark and Lupe, those gears are found inside heavy industrial gear boxes. They are used in the operation of a number of machines, including shakers, crushers, ball mills, flotation cells, slurry pumps, etc. The machines are driven by an electric motor or diesel engine, and these gear boxes reduce the shaft speed down to whatever the machine needs to operate at. In the case of slurry pumps (my expertise), they take a motor speed of 1200rpm or 1800rpm and reduce it to somewhere around 250-450rpm. These equipment are behemoths - weighing multiple tons, consuming power well in excess of 1000hp!</p>

<p>I too look forward to the Wednesday Nikon thread each week even though I cannot participate. Amazing work! But it is disheartening to see them get 6 pages of material by 9am, whereas we struggle to hit 6 pages at all. Why is that?</p>

<p>I have precisely zip that I'm proud of this week, so I'm cheating and going to the archives (gotta help keep our numbers up somehow).</p><div></div>

<p>Dennis, is that old Ford pickup still around? That's the grille I'm looking for. Haha!</p>

<p>Wow William! That sounds like a great route! I'd be stopping so much it would take two days!</p>

<p>Kristy, William is right, I-8 from Casa Grande through Gila Bend, Yuma, El Centro, and on to San Diego is pretty blah. Especially through Arizona. You won't have anything worth shooting until you get to the dunes just inside California. There you can get some cool lines and textures, as long as the sun is at a good angle (early morning or late afternoon). Then there's nothing again until you get into those rocky, craggy hills, which are neat, but not all that photogenic if I recall. After that you'll climb up to Pine Valley and Cleveland National Forest, which will be, in my opinion, the most scenic area. And that's about it.</p>

<p>When in SD make sure you go to World Famous (in Pacific Beach) for lunch, and have their lobster tacos. Yum!</p><div></div>

<p>David, You might not be too early for wildflowers. <a href="http://azstarnet.com/news/local/wildflowers-get-early-start-due-to-rain-warmer-january/article_24f17e09-92e9-5cdb-b459-dac13ccd8eea.html">Here</a> is a link to an article posted by the local paper just today. For birding, Aravaipa, Arivaca, and Madera Canyons are highly recommended. Sabino Canyon is beautiful landscape and a very popular hiking destination, but not much in the way of wildlife. I would still go if I were you. All of these canyons will hopefully have running creeks from mountain snow melt, but I'll stop short of promising that because our winter precipitation has been minimal this year. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum will put you in wildlife overload, but it is a zoo - live, enclosed, native species. Still recommended. There's also Agua Caliente park, though it's more urban than wilderness. As mentioned, the San Xavier del Bac is a photogenic spanish mission - especially when the skies are partly cloudy, and at sunset. As for other historical sites, nothing else is really coming to mind right now, but I'll keep thinking...</p>

<p>Inspiration from a rubber band.</p><div></div>

<p>Snow isn't much of a concern this year. Snowfall in AZ is way down this winter.</p>