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Don't forget you can always just focus manually. For something like fireworks that are probably not close or a static subject for a portrait, there's no reason why you can't just set it yourself and use liveview to confirm sharpness (zoom in if needed). Not as easy as pressing a button, but it will still get you the shot instead of blurry focus hunting frames. But I agree, if your fastest lens is an f/4 you can't go wrong adding a 1.8 or faster prime, it'll open up a lot of new shots to you.
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Mar 16, 2024 20:46
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Bottom Liner posted:Don't forget you can always just focus manually. For something like fireworks that are probably not close or a static subject for a portrait, there's no reason why you can't just set it yourself and use liveview to confirm sharpness (zoom in if needed). Not as easy as pressing a button, but it will still get you the shot instead of blurry focus hunting frames. Here in Mexico you're amongst the fireworks 😅  DSC_0197 by
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Mar 16, 2024 20:49
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point stands. if you're actually in that chaos your camera is not going to be focusing well anyways just lock it at 2m and fire away. I do that for wedding dance floors and shoot at 5.6 and never have to worry about focusing on fast moving close subjects in dark spots
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Mar 16, 2024 20:51
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When you’re traveling with a camera, do you pack more or less? What I mean is I’m bringing my ME Super to California to shoot some film, and I can bring the 50mm 1.7, a 135mm prime and a 28-80 zoom. Is less more? I feel like the 50mm is a given? I can do the whole trip with that if i had to. Maybe also the zoom just to cover everything else, even though it’s not as nice as the 50mm or 135mm primes? What I don’t want to do is get analysis paralysis and have too much poo poo to choose from every day, I also don’t want to walk around with 3 lenses on me
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Mar 16, 2024 23:02
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I bring everything on the trip, but when I go out for the day I only have two or three. If I have no idea what I'm seeing or planning I'll bring my 18-50 and 50-230, plus a fast prime. I like telephoto a lot so my 50-230 became my default walking around lens.
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Mar 16, 2024 23:07
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Looking for advice on framing and hanging photos. I'm getting a big batch of my nature photos printed. About half are underwater shots (Florida springs), the other half mountain landscapes. The majority are 6x8, some 6x6, one 8x10, and a really big pano which is going to be expensive but probably the best landscape photo I've taken. The pano aside, I'm debating how to frame and hang these. I want to hang these up on the same wall in a collage of sorts and thought that 6x8 was a good compromise. 5x7 is too small to make out detail in a lanscape, and 8x10 is too big for multiple photos in one space. I've got white walls, and the photos are cool color dominated for the most part - sky, water, and plants being the primary elements. Given that, any suggestions on frame color? To mat or not to mat? I know it's all a matter of taste but hard to know where to start.
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Mar 17, 2024 00:26
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field balm posted:I use musicbee for bulk renaming and tagging etc, not sure if it will transcode stuff for ya (I use wavosaur plus lame enc for that) This looks like it fits my needs, thanks 😄 I have not seen this recommended elsewhere yet, which is what i was hoping for.
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Mar 17, 2024 01:47
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Beve Stuscemi posted:When you’re traveling with a camera, do you pack more or less? What I mean is I’m bringing my ME Super to California to shoot some film, and I can bring the 50mm 1.7, a 135mm prime and a 28-80 zoom. I err on the side of less. Either 28 mm, OR 40 mm, OR 28 + 90 mm. I enjoy zooming with my feet as it gets me into the thick of it (which to me is the whole point of travel), rather than sitting on my rear end in a comfortable air conditioned room and zooming with a lens. Minimizing lens changes also minimizes crap getting into the camera.
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Mar 17, 2024 20:25
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Beve Stuscemi posted:When you’re traveling with a camera, do you pack more or less? What I mean is I’m bringing my ME Super to California to shoot some film, and I can bring the 50mm 1.7, a 135mm prime and a 28-80 zoom. As someone that just finished 2 weeks on the road for work and fun shooting, I can tell you what worked for me. Had 2 bodies and a 16 2.8, 50 1.2, 24-70 2.8, and 70-200 2.8. For non-work stuff, I shot 90% on the 24-70 including a big hike at the Grand Canyon where weight considerations were key, and the remaining 10% on the 70-200. I could have shot most of it on the 50, which I do a lot at home, but it was heavier and the speed was unnecessary most of the time. I almost hate to fall back on 24-70 as a go to since it's just so easy, but when you're traveling and don't want to worry about bringing too much or being limited it's really unmatched. Since you're also bringing a film cam, definitely go with the 28-80. The versatility of range will outweigh everything else and not having to think about swapping lenses will keep you focused on your surroundings more than your gear.
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Mar 17, 2024 21:15
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Oh man I didn’t even think about bringing 2 bodies. I could bring my 5D Classic but that’s a whole different set of lenses too. I’m thinking for the Pentax I might bring the 50mm 1.7 which will be good if I’m shooting in lower light and the 28-80 for versatility. I’ll also have my iPhone 15 Pro to act as a point’n’shoot as well
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Mar 17, 2024 21:53
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Yeah that sounds about right. I'd only take the 5D if you're skipping the zoom. When I've traveled with a second lens/camera, I expect to use it for only 5-10% of the shots, so it really depends on what I want those shots to be. I'm on a trip right now and I have a Canon Elan 7ne with a 40mm pancake and a Fuji GS645S, which both are very similar focal lengths. My primary camera is the Elan 7ne because it has AF, but I decided to take the GS645S instead of a second EF lens with a zoom because I figured that instead of extra reach/width, I would want to take photos with extra resolution on occasion.
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Mar 17, 2024 22:11
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Two new questions 1. My Lightroom library is 200+GB at this point. Which is pushing the limit of my Macbook with a 500GB hard drive. For a brief period of time I tried out Adobe's cloud. But in the first month I got an email, by accident, saying "your payment lapsed we're going to delete all your photos". And since then, I've lost complete faith in that service. I'd like to keep all my photos local and also backed up to the cloud since I travel full time. Curious if anyone has any solutions to this? 2. Every so often friends will tell me "you should put this stuff up in a gallery". I'm kind of lost on how to do this. Last year I tried submitting photos to various gallery themes where you pay ~$30 and submit 5 photos and you might get into the gallery. I got in a few times with one of my photos but honestly it just kind of felt like throwing money into the void. I'm wondering if yall have any wisdom on this. Beve Stuscemi posted:When you’re traveling with a camera, do you pack more or less? What I mean is I’m bringing my ME Super to California to shoot some film, and I can bring the 50mm 1.7, a 135mm prime and a 28-80 zoom. My DSLR broke back in 2015 when I was living abroad and I was about to go on a two month trip. I could not find a camera that would fit my lenses and so I ended up shipping everything back to the states and going with a Sony RX 100 v1. I think there was one time in the two months I wish I had a super zoom to photograph a monkey in a tree. Otherwise, that small little camera served me well for everything from street to people to landscapes. Super light. I'd definitely go with less. Also, enjoy a quote by Susan Sontag - quote:Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture. This gives shape to experience: stop, take a photograph, and move on. The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a ruthless work ethic-Germans, Japanese, and Americans. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.
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Mar 17, 2024 23:57
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I spend every moment trying to avoid work so that means I'm a TRUE ARTIST.
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Mar 18, 2024 00:05
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Yeah this doesn't really square with my utter lack of work ethic
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Mar 18, 2024 00:24
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big black turnout posted:Yeah this doesn't really square with my utter lack of work ethic Photography is the only thing that fuels any kind of work ethic for me. Long day of shooting followed by staying up all night editing? Give me a few cups of coffee and I’m happy as hell. Paperwork or an email I need to respond to? I’ll think about it next week. huhu posted:
Avoid any artistic endeavor that requires a submission fee.
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Mar 18, 2024 00:32
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huhu posted:1. My Lightroom library is 200+GB at this point. Which is pushing the limit of my Macbook with a 500GB hard drive. For a brief period of time I tried out Adobe's cloud. But in the first month I got an email, by accident, saying "your payment lapsed we're going to delete all your photos". And since then, I've lost complete faith in that service. I'd like to keep all my photos local and also backed up to the cloud since I travel full time. Curious if anyone has any solutions to this? I run my library entirely off of a synology drive that is backed up to an Unraid box.
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Mar 18, 2024 16:30
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Backup chat. I also have a Synology Nas. I keep RAWS that need editing on my pc for speed but with a back up taken that goes to the NAS, incase of drive failure. Then when edited they get moved full time to the nas. The nas gets backed up to backblaze 3 times a week which costs about $5 a month at my current usage and I also do a local back up using an external HDD once a month. When I travel I transfer my photos to my phone and send them to my nas using Synologys app.
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Mar 19, 2024 08:35
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Mega Comrade posted:When I travel I transfer my photos to my phone and send them to my nas using Synologys app. How do you handle edits while traveling?
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Mar 19, 2024 16:05
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I'm not Mega Comrade but I do travel edits by plugging my camera into the ipad and importing images directly into LR mobile. It's not the slickest setup but it works added bonus is all those edits get synced to my PC when I get home. My at home setup also involves a synology nas, but it only functions as my first backup. I keep my entire catalog on a 4tb ssd in the PC and rsync it to the nas every so often. If I ever upgrade my home lan to 10gb I might revise that, the whole reason I don't edit off the nas is that gigabit is too sluggish for 46 mp files. LR is slow enough, I don't need to make it worse. Then the nas runs a service to backup to cloud. I've seen people export their nas so they can access all their files to a laptop which I think is a pretty cool idea, assuming you have good internet while traveling. I'd like to try that someday but I have no laptop.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:11
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FBS posted:How do you handle edits while traveling? Easy, I don't do it  But in theory any tablet/laptop could easily pull from my NAS as long as I have WiFi or phone signal to hotspot.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:24
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xzzy posted:My at home setup also involves a synology nas, but it only functions as my first backup. I keep my entire catalog on a 4tb ssd in the PC and rsync it to the nas every so often. If I ever upgrade my home lan to 10gb I might revise that, the whole reason I don't edit off the nas is that gigabit is too sluggish for 46 mp files. LR is slow enough, I don't need to make it worse. Then the nas runs a service to backup to cloud. Yeah ive been tempted, but to beat the speed of my pc I'd have to have the NAS all SSD which would be a LOT of $ for the TBs i have plus my current Nas only has 2x 1GbE ports so id have to upgrade that to as well as my network setup. It's a lot of money to overcome the tiny inconvenience of not having my entire back catalog at the click of a button to edit. So for now I'm just keeping an editing box on my pc of just a few thousand images which I'll definitely get through any day now ...
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Mar 19, 2024 17:33
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Would this be the right thread to ask advice for how to up my game somewhat in my regular work gig? I'm so seldom happy with the results I get under the stage lights, im either washing everything out with my flash or getting extremely black blacks in the shadows shooting available light, but that's not always a viable strategy as the lit area on the stage is very narrow. Generally shooting about 4000iso, 200 shutter and f5 or so on a Canon 5Dmk4 with a 24-70, and a 600ex2 flashgun, with a diffuser cap fitted, usually dialled down about 2-2&1/2 stop in exposure compensation and often this gives.. acceptable i guess results? On the occasion its someone still enough to shoot available light i half my shutter and ISO. When the performer on is a more static singer, its less of an issue, that's not the majority though, many are doing burlesque and are pretty high speed and ive only a couple of minutes to rattle off as many as possible, plus they are all over the stage where it is dramatically less bright. Nightmare mode is when there are 2 or more onstage as they will invariably be under different colours with wildly different intensities, or they move back against the curtain, and/or wearing extremely dark colours. On a rare occasion (usually for the hoop acts) the curtains open so im left with a trio of windows reflecting my flash back at me and messing up my metering even more. Heres some examples plus a shot and rough diagram of the space itself https://imgur.com/a/t0rvBBp And a rough diagram of the layout, the red x's being about the only spots i can stab without obstructing customers, the tables can be in slightly different configurations, meaning im often limited in how much i can shoot without peoples heads in frame. I *usually* have at least one of the light on white, but sometimes performers want something specific and i work within that but i feel my results are often kinda flat. Anyone have any tips/harsh language would be appreciated.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:17
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A couple things from the concert side come to mind: Try out a 24-70 F2.8 or a 1.8 prime in your favourite focal distance. Lets more light in (meaning you can lower your ISO), have more separation from the subject to your background (more dynamic photos) Have you experimented with shutter drag? You can also go wider and move to the back, tell the story of the whole venue. Audiences are part of the story too.
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Mar 19, 2024 19:21
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Lighting is definitely workable there, biggest issue is how close they are to that curtain, leaving you no room for composition or separation. I agree with Ducks that the wide shots are going to do more for you considering the lack of stage space. Come check the concert thread for more ideas/examples of a variety of lighting/editing/spaces. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3092090&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=98 Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Mar 19, 2024 19:31
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FBS posted:How do you handle edits while traveling? Most NAS devices can run Tailscale these days. You run that on your laptop and its like you're on your home LAN (speed aside)
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Mar 19, 2024 20:42
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Bottom Liner posted:Lighting is definitely workable there, biggest issue is how close they are to that curtain, leaving you no room for composition or separation. I agree with Ducks that the wide shots are going to do more for you considering the lack of stage space. Come check the concert thread for more ideas/examples of a variety of lighting/editing/spaces. See, i find shooting wider tend to make things worse, as I think my meter is pulling in mor eof the curtain and it ends up sometimes flattening everything out, but every now and then gives me a good result. (also the sides of the stage are a bit of a mess). Also experimented a few times with spot metering and trying to keep it on someones face if they're in dark clothing but again this was all over the place in terms of results. Slotducks posted:A couple things from the concert side come to mind: I've a 50mm 1.8 ive used a few times (and an old lensbaby2.0 when i know someone's staying put and wearing something sparkly) By shutter drag do you mean longer exposure with flash on top? If so then yes, results have been inconsistent on the stage, but that's how i do most of my other shots in the venue, ie performers sometimes approach the stage coming through the crowd rather than the doorway right beside the stage, where i switch to ceiling bounce and shutter speed about /40th. I do occasionally go round to get a wide shot when all the tables and seating are filled, its not really a spot I can linger in though due to it being right between the main entrance and where the que for the bar tends to sprawl out. I should have added also, this is a regular fri-sat gig and they generally want en uploaded on the sunday/monday, so I'm really aiming to get better in camera shots than spending a long time editing (usually ending up with 250 images I deem suitable) Also thanks for the input, already digging through the concert thread now, and seeing use of the calibration tool in LR that I was fully unaware of till now
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Mar 20, 2024 17:29
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Shannow posted:See, i find shooting wider tend to make things worse, as I think my meter is pulling in mor eof the curtain and it ends up sometimes flattening everything out, but every now and then gives me a good result. (also the sides of the stage are a bit of a mess). I highly recommend keeping exposure compensation on an easy to flick dial when shooting live entertainment. Constantly changing and dynamic lighting is a nightmare for digital meters, so being able to over/under quickly as needed if a big help. I have it set to my lens ring on the RF system so I can flick it up and down quickly, and I use it a lot, usually in the -1 to -2 stops, but sometimes +1 or so too. And yeah, the calibration panel is huge for correcting color casts when combined with white balance. I'll post one of those examples here for folks that may not be aware of how much it can do  I love shooting concerts because they wildly swing from the best lighting and easiest to shoot scenes to absolute nightmares, and the on the fly adjustments you have to make to shoot them is really rewarding.
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Mar 20, 2024 17:51
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Bottom Liner posted:I highly recommend keeping exposure compensation on an easy to flick dial when shooting live entertainment. Constantly changing and dynamic lighting is a nightmare for digital meters, so being able to over/under quickly as needed if a big help. I have it set to my lens ring on the RF system so I can flick it up and down quickly, and I use it a lot, usually in the -1 to -2 stops, but sometimes +1 or so too. Yeah that image in particular i clocked in the other thread and my head kind of exploded, that all encompassing magenta is something i regularly encounter in my other regular gig when the lighting guy out of what i can only assume is intense hatred of me specifically turns the main white spotlight between performances to that colour , previously ive been using only the white balance and find that moving that at all gives everything else a particularly horrid green haze. I'm generally shooting manual on a couple of custom registered modes so i can flick between them swiftly if someone moves off the stage and into the crowd then back and dial up and down as neccesary when they move about the stage area, i feel like the times i think ive nailed it though its purely by accident.
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Mar 20, 2024 18:39
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Yeah I’m really impressed you turned that super magenta image into a normal looking one
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Mar 20, 2024 18:40
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Shannow posted:By shutter drag do you mean longer exposure with flash on top? If so then yes, results have been inconsistent on the stage, but that's how i do most of my other shots in the venue, ie performers sometimes approach the stage coming through the crowd rather than the doorway right beside the stage, where i switch to ceiling bounce and shutter speed about /40th. I mean going even slower - I'll post a few examples of what I mean: 26mm (on crop) 1/3 f3.5 ISO 400  24mm (on crop) 1/4 f4 ISO 800  24mm (on crop) 1/10 f4 ISO 400  Front Curtain flash freezes the subject then you can quickly move your camera body when the shutter is active and create light trails -- or you can leave the camera stationary and have the performer move and it shows a bit of dynamic movement. It came to mind when I saw those light up hoola hoops. If you don't like the result, that's totally cool; its a little bit dated in the concert world but I find it more fun and rewarding than standard performer + flash without shutter dragging. side note: Did you play a lot of MW2 on PC when it first came out? Your name feels familiar.
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Mar 20, 2024 18:53
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Slotducks posted:I mean going even slower - I'll post a few examples of what I mean: A long time ago when i used to shoot live bands that is in fact how i used to do it (though admittedly less well than that), it's not the vibe my regular gig is looking for though Side Note: yes, yes indeed, i think im stil part of that goon mw2 group
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Mar 20, 2024 20:25
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Shannow posted:A long time ago when i used to shoot live bands that is in fact how i used to do it (though admittedly less well than that), it's not the vibe my regular gig is looking for though Ahhh yeah, that's a tough one then yeah. It's hard to work in tight quarters with restrictions on expression and stuff like that. Shame. Side notes continued: That's wild, I was part of that group for a while, those days were a blast. Duncan breaking the game with ease. Good to see ya.
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Mar 20, 2024 20:45
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Any advice on portrait stuff? I've never done it before, but my partner and some of her friends are doing shave for a cure on the weekend and I'd like to take some nice photos for them. I'll probably use an olympus m43 mirrorless with a yashica 50mm f1.9 (for 100mm full frame equivalent). I also have the option of a nikon dslr but would probably have to use kit lens or a zoom. I assume I'll use the fastest aperture for solo shots and maybe stop down a little for group shots? I don't have anything other than the on camera flashes, so will try and take them in daylight. I will definitely use a tripod because i've no idea what the light will be like at the place they're doing it at. I also have a black mist filter I'm considering using. Any tips?
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Mar 21, 2024 06:39
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I’ll be photographing low light street with movement stuff again with my Nikon Z5, 24-120 f4. I’ve had two problems in the past 1. I end with a shot that’s at like 1/2000s and ISO 12000 2. A blurry shot at 1/30s What I’m thinking of doing is - turning on IBIS - Holding the camera as still as possible - firing off a few shots in rapid succession for each scene - Use auto aperture with a min shutter speed and max iso - Shoot aperture priority - underexpose by 1 stop and bring up in post Does this all make sense? Anything else to do?
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Mar 22, 2024 01:06
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That's a prime situation to just shoot manual and dial in your the exposure yourself. If you have image stabilization in the body/lens, you should be able to get 1/10 shutter at f4. That would be pushing it at 120mm, but for 24 to like 50/70ish it should handle it fine.
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Mar 22, 2024 01:23
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The problem's the subject is moving too, right? I think underexposing a lot is the way to go, you can recover a good amount from that with a modern camera. 6400 ISO is usually fine too, the noise reduction in editors nowadays is real good. I dunno how bad the Z5 gets above that.
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Mar 22, 2024 01:48
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The scene will probably me walking along a street, as a parade/gathering goes on, with scattered street lights. So it’ll go from super bright to quite dark in a few steps.
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Mar 22, 2024 02:17
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I stick to aperture priority when I do night photography in varying light like that. I have a few different settings for max ISO/minimum shutter speed and pick one of those, let the camera handle it from there. My camera will ignore the minimum shutter speed if you push too hard, which is annoying. If it's doing that and you're dealing with movement set it to like 1/125 and auto ISO capped at whatever the max reasonable setting is for the camera. If it's still struggling you can probably set exposure compensation down to like -3 without totally losing the dark parts of the image. I might use exposure bracketing if you're having to go that far, just in case. F4 with moving subjects in the dark is going to be tough whatever you do.
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Mar 22, 2024 02:40
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Is there a good guide to doing repair on lenses? I know the main advice would be "don't" but I got an old manual lens for with the aperture stuck open for $4 just to play with.
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Apr 5, 2024 08:08
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Grand Fromage posted:Is there a good guide to doing repair on lenses? I know the main advice would be "don't" but I got an old manual lens for with the aperture stuck open for $4 just to play with. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3868955&pagenumber=5&perpage=40
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Apr 5, 2024 08:31
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