Messages

31

Software & Accessories / Re: What's your workflow for the Eye-fi Card ? Fun uses?

« on: December 18, 2012, 07:35:41 PM »

I was frustrated with mine at first with the 5D3. Here are a couple of hints that I've learned over the months that I've been using it. Now I love mine!

1) Use with small JPG.
2) You need to use the Eye-Fi app on your ipad/iphone for the initial setup. Afterwards, go to the homescreen and shut off the app. Next, download Shuttersnitch. You'll love it. The Eye-Fi app sucks, but Shuttersnitch is great.
3) BIG HINT: Most people don't know this, and I sure didn't when I started, but you DO NOT have to have your ipad or receiving device running while shooting. You can turn on Shuttersnitch AFTER all your shooting is done, pop off one shot, and the eyefi will send all of your pictures over to the ipad at once... That's huge for me, because it means that after a shoot, I can have my wife do the first proof on the way home in the car.

Eye-Fi solves several problems for me:
1) If i'm "out and about" and I take one snapshot for someone with my DSLR, maybe a friend, or stranger, and I want to send them that photo, I don't have to remember to do it later. I can just pop it over to the ipad, and email it to them right away in JPG form.
2) By looking over the JPGs before I get back to my computer, I already have an idea of what photos I like, and want to do work on. I also have an idea of a certain number of photos that look good already in JPG.
3) I like having those small JPG files. Even small JPG is enough for a lot of the web work I do, and I use those JPGs straight of of the camera, and straight off of the ipad in those situations. For my personal work, I still use all RAW, but having those small JPG work fine for the work that I am not so personally invested in.

32

Lenses / Re: Problem with EF-S 10-22mm Image Softness

« on: December 13, 2012, 07:31:19 AM »

I bought this lens brand new about two years ago, and soft corners have persisted ever since. Stopping down doesn't seem to help at all. So I don't think yours has any real hardware issues. Most probably just a general character of this lens.

Softness on one side is definitely not a characteristic of this lens, but a decentering issue, as Neuro mentioned. I personally find my 10-22 on a crop sensor to be MUCH sharper in the corners than every 16-35L I've used on a full frame...

33

Contests / Re: Gura Gear Giveaway!

« on: December 07, 2012, 12:21:20 AM »

I want to win!

34

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: 4K 15 FPS

« on: November 29, 2012, 07:22:21 PM »

It may be an option for people that want to set it up at an event on a tripod and pull stills from it? 4k is about the resolution point where I'd be thinking it's nice to have wide-angle stills that record a 'strategic angle' or position at an event. Especially if it's an angle or position that I won't have the chance to go near very often. (If that makes sense?)

35

Lenses / Re: Help me decide; keep my 35L or get a 50L?

« on: October 20, 2012, 05:43:27 AM »

It's quite a bit more, but in my opinion, with the 24-105, and the 50 1.8, and looking at the fact that you do portraits and weddings, you'd get that "magic" into your photos from an 85 1.2 more than the 50 or the 35. Just my 2c.

36

Lighting / Re: Question about color temp of strobes

« on: October 14, 2012, 09:17:58 PM »

The reason it works to use a cooling gel when you want to warm the background becomes clear only AFTER you white balance your subject. You make your subject more blue, then have either the camera or your software white balance. It looks at the scene and says "This subject is too blue," and pulls blue out of the entire scene, making the clouds more orange at the same time as it "adds orange" to your subjects skin tones.

37

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Renting 5DIII for a wedding, would like advice

« on: October 04, 2012, 01:40:15 AM »

I hear you, and I've heard that argument before... But I think it's way easier to lose a memory card during a rush of a wedding than it is to lose pictures from a faulty memory card. ESPECIALLY in a camera that already has two memory card slots. If you're that worried, just get a 32gb Compact Flash card, and a 32gb SD card, set the camera to record raw to both cards, and not worry about it. Obviously, you'll want to put a 32gb CF and SD in your backup camera as well. Then, bring dinky 8gb backups for if your 32s are 90% full. Again, WAY easier to drop and lose a CF card than have it corrupted, especially with a backup SD card.

38

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Advice needed: shooting at an animation festival (low light conditions)

« on: September 08, 2012, 10:54:57 PM »

Your biggest challenge to shooting during the show is that the audience will be really dark. The thing about renting camera bodies is that they are expensive, and it takes time to get used to the features. If you are used to a 5 year old entry level camera, it's going to take you a decent chunk of time (days or weeks) to get used to the 5d enough to reliably shoot. Now, knowing that this is just as a favor for a friend, maybe that's not that big a deal, but since you'd be paying money to rent a camera, you'd want the shots to be great. If I were in your situation, with your equipment, I would look at lenses rather than a body. I'd simply rent an 85mm 1.4 for reaction shots of your audience, and I'd rent a 15mm 2.8, and get permission to get as close to the screen as possible.

You have a camera body, and the odds are that you aren't going to go out and drop $7000 on a 1dx when you currently have an older entry level body. My advice is to use what you already have, rent a couple of lenses, and figure out how to take great shots with your equipment. Yes, you can get a 5d3 or a 1dx, and get great shots, but the next time you're in a difficult situation, you'll want to go out again and drop a few hundred dollars on renting a camera body too. You can do these shots with your 450d.

Your main limitation is that you're not going to be able to get a shot of the screen showing what's going on while ALSO showing reactions from the audience. Since this is just for fun, and to help a friend, I would recommend trying things you don't normally do, it's a license to play!

If it were me, I'd be looking at these shots:

• People reacting positively to the show, laughing, smiling, crying, especially two people together with a similar reaction.
• Shots from the back of the place with the screen exposed well, and rows of peoples heads
• Wide angle shots from close to the screen that are exposed for the screen. (the rows of people will be pitch black)
• Wide angle shots with the screen AND some of the people in the front rows. (Same perspective as before) Later, you can composite shots of people watching with shots of things on the screen.
• Any sort of detail shots that are pertinent to the situation. Tickets, popcorn, heads on the shoulder of their date, etc.
• And most importantly, talk to your friend, and figure out what shots he's hoping for and expecting.

39

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5D3 Second Curtain Sync - Design Flaw?

« on: September 08, 2012, 10:40:08 PM »

This isn't so much related to the 5d3, as just a workaround to the shot you're wanting. The point of the second curtain is to fire right before the shutter closes. Since this is a long-exposure shot that you're wanting to stage, and it will be in bulb mode, you know when the shutter is going to close. You could always just manually fire your flashes right before you end the exposure.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Upgrading from Canon 60D to 5D MkII: Help me decide!

« on: September 05, 2012, 11:49:22 PM »

I went from a 60D to a 5D3, but only after extensively testing the 5D2. The 5D2 is a great camera, but with the price of the 5D3 dropping (You can often find it for under $3k), I'd just recommend waiting until you can afford the 5D3. I still have my 60D to use as a backup camera, but wow, it feels like a toy when compared to the 5D3. I find myself not wanting to use it.

Another advantage of the 5D3 is that, while you say you rarely use over 800ISO, with the 5D3, you can easily use 12,800 ISO. You mentioned that you do street shots. I can't stress enough how this will change your life for street photography. I have an 85L 1.2, and with 12,800 ISO, I can shoot photos in any condition that I've yet come across. You can handhold star pictures... (Not that you'd want to, but it will change the way you think about photography)

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 1DX Owners: Read This Warning!

« on: September 05, 2012, 11:43:49 PM »

Yeah, I could see this being a big issue. A very easy fix in a firmware update would be to just make it so that it doesn't "wrap around" when messing with file sizes. Much like ISO does on most DSLRs, scrolling to the left will take you down to Auto, but not up to 100k etc. This would make it so that if you DID bump it, you'd only knock it down to Raw M or something at least. It should be several spins of the wheel to get from Raw to SJPG...

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Software & Accessories / Re: another Gitzo question

« on: September 03, 2012, 10:38:28 PM »

I debated this exact thing, and went with the Benro Travel Angel, after extensively playing with both. If my Benro broke, I'd buy another one. I've had it a year now, and never had a single issue.

43

Canon General / Re: Do you feel your photos have improved proportionally to the cost of your gear?

« on: August 31, 2012, 10:26:33 AM »

I find that almost exclusively the people that claim that "gear doesn't matter" are people that have expensive gear, and for whatever reason, claim that, though gear doesn't matter, for their specific purpose, they need it. I think people mostly do this to justify themselves spending money on expensive gear by 'setting themselves apart from hobbyists who just spend money on expensive gear'.

For my part, I'm an amateur. My father has been a magazine photographer for more than 30 years, and I understand now why he always used to say: "If gear didn't matter, I wouldn't cart 30-40 pounds of equipment around for two weeks in Africa."

44

Portrait / Re: getting terrible reflections in eyeglasses - suggestions please

« on: August 07, 2012, 01:52:26 AM »

I know it's too late to help the original poster, but for anyone else that has this problem and stumbles across this...

If you think about the flash, the lens, and the camera as having a relationship, it becomes an easy problem to solve. The glasses are a mirror. If the flash hits the glasses in a way that bounce into the camera, you'll get a bad reflection. If not, you're fine.

So, straight on? Bad reflection. Flash high, camera low? Bad reflection. Flash right, camera left? Bad reflection, etc. Think of the light from your flash as a ball on a pool table, shot from the direction of the flash. The glasses are the wall of the table, and as long as your camera isn't in a place that the "ball" (light) hits, you're fine.

45

Portrait / Re: Need some Photoshop/Editing help

« on: August 07, 2012, 12:40:42 AM »

Just to chime in, one of the biggest mistakes I see people making when trying to clean things up is using a brush that's 100% hardness, and using it at 100% flow. There's very little margin for error there. Instead, try using a 50% hardness brush at 40% flow or so and go over mistake areas a little bit at a time. If you're more patient, you can make it look even better by dropping the flow of the brush to 20% or so, and just going over it a little at a time with brush strokes. Fixing mistakes like this quickly will only make it look bad in the end.

As the previous poster said, catching things like stray hair during the shoot will always save you time in the end. Hope that helps and was a clear explanation.