Topics

1

Software & Accessories / Screen calibration frustration!

« on: April 28, 2013, 01:56:36 PM »

Aaaarrrgghh!!! My laptop screen is driving me insane! I tried calibrating it with i1 display 2 on easy four times and advanced twice and each time it looks worse. I finally gave up and loaded an older profile that looked OK.

My issue is this - there are no contrast or gamma controls for my laptop only brightness. You can change gamma using windows built in calibration program but that resets everything. Is there any way around this? I want to manually change the gamma to 2.2 and color temp to 6500K, the closest I got through i1 was 2.0 and 6600K but it looked a bit blue. The advanced mode doesn't give me an RGB choice it just goes from luminance to flashing square mode.

Also the luminance only goes up to 24 and the recommended is 90. I cranked the brightness to the max and it made no difference.

Am I doing something wrong or do I just have a rubbish screen? Using a Sony VAIO VPC-F13WFX/B 16.4-Inch With 1600 by 900 screen resolution.

2

EOS Bodies - For Video / Saving video straight to laptop?

« on: March 16, 2013, 02:49:37 AM »

Hey does anyone know if there is a way to shoot video with a 5D II and instead of saving the video on the memory card, have it save directly to your laptop?

Also is there a more technical name for this? Sorry I'm new to video. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

3

Lenses / Sigma 35 or 135L??

« on: February 15, 2013, 11:59:37 AM »

Hey guys, I always get great advice on CR and I feel like I learn so much every time I'm on here! Anyways, down to biznass -

I'm going to be shooting a wedding in May. My first paid job really. I am thinking wether or not to buy another good prime lens to add to my kit.

I think I'll shoot most of the wedding with the zooms I have. But for some artistic shots and some particular shots after the wedding I'm thinking shallow dof stuff maybe outdoors. I actually want both these lenses but I have a feeling I'm just being silly.

My question is this - If you had to pick one, which would you say would prove more useful for wedding / portraits? Bare in mind I can acheive 35mm f/4 and 135 f/4 with what I have.

I'm leaning towards the 35 as I think in tight spaces and indoors it will come in handy (seems a lot of events end up in poorly lit places). Also I need a wide fast prime, got nothing fast that end.

Is this wise thinking or should I just man up and buy both?

Thank you in advance, any help will be greatly appreciated!!

4

Technical Support / Printing large images - help needed!!

« on: December 29, 2012, 11:56:02 AM »

Hey guys, I need your combined wisdom and expertise on this issue - I've been asked to provide two images to a client who wants to put them between 2 panes of glass for a wall mount. The size of the images would be as follows

bathroom : 210 cm x 185 cm

corridor : 263 cm x 198 cm and 247 cm x 198 cm (its in two pieces).

See pictures that I was sent.

I mostly have images taken with 18 MP cameras (550D and 7D), and a few with a 21 MP (5D II).

What resolution is best for this type of thing? Is it even possible to print something that big with 21 MP?? I assume there must be a way. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

5

Lenses / 35mm f/2 IS USM available in Japan

« on: December 08, 2012, 12:14:53 PM »

Amazon.jp has this lens showing as in stock as of yesterday. Selling for ¥66,000 which is $800, it's on my wish list. Should I just get it and end the suspense? It took 6 months for the price to drop on the similar 24 / 28 , seems like an ok deal to me. I thought about the sigma but for me size, weight and IS are more important. Think I might do it.

6

Lenses / Canon 6D + 24-70 f/4 IS kit price

« on: November 11, 2012, 11:11:41 PM »

Hey there, I was just on Amazon.jp and noticed the 6D kit is now available for pre-order. see price list below (the USD prices are just a straight conversion to make it easier to see the difference and is not the price of the kit in the US) -

6D body only = ¥178,201 ($2,242)

6D + 24-70 f/4 IS = ¥328,997 ($4,139)


The 24-70 f/4 IS on it's own is ¥146,526 ($1,843) pre-order so the discount there is non-existent! In fact at the moment it's cheaper to buy them separately!

For comparison the 6D + 24-105 kit = ¥268,200 ($3,375)

And also the 5D mk II + 25-105 kit = ¥224,341 ($2,823)

Interesting. 

7

Canon General / Would you rather . . .

« on: October 21, 2012, 02:10:30 AM »

Would you rather be a photographer that is known for producing thousands of 'good' images (but never produced a masterpiece)

OR

Be famous for producing only ONE masterpiece ever (all your other work was mediocre at best)?

8

Canon General / Blown out reds

« on: October 18, 2012, 09:28:20 AM »

I recently shot some images using a Canon 7D with the 85mm 1.8 and anytime there was anything red or pink in the shot it just kept blowing it out. See the image for what I mean. I know it can be fixed easily in LR etc but is there any way to prevent it in camera? under-expose all shots with red? I already use the faithful picture style so the colors don't run too vibrant but is it just this lens or is it the camera? I also shot some pics today with my 50mm 1.8 and it did the same thing with pink in the shot. What am I doing wrong?

9

Software & Accessories / Resizing and exporting in LR

« on: October 02, 2012, 11:06:42 AM »

Hi there, I've been looking around online but can't get a satisfactory answer. The issue is this -

I use Lightroom and I export images as jpegs at 100% (I know 95% saves space etc but I have terabytes to spare not an issue). I also know dpi means squat for web. Now, when I first started out I wasn't resizing mainly because I wasn't aware I had to. I'm still not sure! I always upload to flickr and facebook, never print
. I understand facebook applies some kind of compression to the images and modifies them to fit. I don't know what flickr does.  I've been experimenting with the megapixel resizing and even 2mp looks fine. My question is this - Should I just upload full size and let facebook and flickr deal with it? Or is there a way to calculate the optimum resize setting (1280 x 720 etc). What do you guys do?

I shoot RAW with a 7D / 5D mkII.

I appreciate any light shed on this, thanks!