Official Misc Photography Crew, Part IV "You're not close enough."

[Dominik]

They fixed the shutter. It's quiet and doesn't shake the camera. Also no AA filter. Expeed 4. Split screen live view. Better grip. ISO64 base... lots of small stuff.

I agree. Several small improvements that when combined make for a solid update.

Well it had better have a recipe for 4k somewhere on that list otherwise it will be like offering yesterday's technology. You will pardon me if I say Canon has nothing to fear from the new Nikon offer but it will most certainly be supplanted form top video DSLR by the likes of Sony and most certainly Panasonic if it doesn't do something soon.

The main issue they need to address is shadow noise and that's due to an old process used in their sensor production which is vastly inferior to Sony's.

While I always try to avoid shooting in a way that requires it, there are times where you've got no choice but to expose for the highlights and push the shadows in RAW to pull the maximum amount of DR from a single frame.

Jump to 15 minutes in for a comparison:

I know that was directed to FR, but I love its adoption of USB 3.0...finally! It seem like a small thing, but its one big annoyance of mine with all my cameras. Having to sit around and watch the snail slow acquisition bar as it transfer photos and/or video from camera to HDD. Either that or removing all the cards from the camera slots to the reader which is simply another level of annoyance.

Actually the D800 has a USB 3.0 port. I agree it's nice to have but I generally prefer using a card reader.

[pieceofdebri79]

Hey man, www.jclayphoto.com is the main site though I update www.********.com/jeremyclayphotography more regularly and my concert/portrait/creative stuff

'Liked.' Love your stuff. Also, watched FRep's promo video thing of ******** the other day. Was disappointed there wasn't any misc. lingo used.

[azurejer]

As a matter of fact I have my very first serious shoot this Tuesday and I'm terrified. So far, I've only done bits and pieces of portrait work during events and a lot of candid. I was also elected to do the staff photos for the GD school I attend, but those were pretty much driver license snapshots.

This is the first time that I will be running the full set-up with everything I own and with a creative outcome in mind. I'm not sure I'll remember how to coordinate it all. Its an open shoot in the middle of a downtown plaza so a lot of people will be watching.

Since I only have one of everything, my biggest fear is that something won't work, and I can't fix it and have to call the whole thing off. I have just two models but nothing says amateur (which I am) more than something like that happening. I hope I don't mess this up.

Try not to sweat it man - being amateur is a good thing, biggest problems will be over thinking as well as overcomplicating it. Did you arrange this for yourself or is it a client?

[Skunk]

Newest dog image. Jake took in a little too much grass...

[Avalanche3319]

Shot some ducks yesterday...

Love birds by -Avalanche3319-

Ducks by -Avalanche3319-

[KRANE]

Yes another rendition of the valley. This one sans hiker, for all you that like a little piece and quite.

[pieceofdebri79]

Is there a quick way to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio on a dslr? I think that's my favorite (probably because it fills up the screen on an iPhone.) I hate not being able to visualize the framing when I'm shooting. Pretty sure there's not a crop mode for it. I don't know...

Light check. Actually liked the picture though. Except for the black blob in the space between his arm. Dammit.

[Dominik]

Is there a quick way to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio on a dslr?

On a D800 the red area I highlighted is 16:9 so the gridlines get you pretty close.

[pieceofdebri79]

On a D800 the red area I highlighted is 16:9 so the gridlines get you pretty close.

Ah! I'd still have to crop later, right? That'd just give me something to frame with? Sweet! Thanks!

[Dominik]

#lightingtalk

Radiopopper has a new manual trigger system that has me mirin but I'm still happy with my old Paul C. Buff triggers which have never failed me.

Have no interest in TTL flash unless I'm indoors moving around and I'll usually bounce with a flash on the camera otherwise it's manual flash all day.

Anyway, there's one thing that has always bothered me about some of the PocketWizards and my CyberSync triggers. They mount vertically on the camera's hot shoe. When you're wearing a cap outdoors it's really annoying not to mention it can catch on stuff.

So I looked around online for a fancy adapter to mount it horizontally. Nothing. Then I had a MacGyver moment.

A $2 plastic hot shoe cover sanded flat and glued to the back with with some strong epoxy glue and a sync cable running into the camera would solve my problem.

Feels good man.

[acrawlingchaos]

Where they really need to worry is from the new crop of cameras appearing on the horizon from Sony, Panasonic and even Blackmagic. And if Nikon and Canon don't wake up and realize that, they will both be losers in this new camera market. They're days of conservative camera manufacturing, are over.You'll need the 5Ds autofocus system if you intend to photograph fast moving wildlife like birds. Otherwise, you're correct, the 6D would be an acceptable alternative. But wait! What of the new 7D? It may in fact, be an even greater alternative depending on your balance between wildlife and portraits.

The AI servo is great on the 6D and tracks birds beautifully. The 6D also has much better low light ability than the 5D. The photos are still clean at 6400 with the 6D, and have gone as high as 10000. This means being able to shoot fast during cloudy days and later into the evening.

[acrawlingchaos]

Shot some ducks yesterday...

img]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3910/14948913031_b15054bd30_b.jpg[/img]Love birds by -Avalanche3319-

img]http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5594/14928997586_dfa5002011_b.jpg[/img]Ducks by -Avalanche3319-

Great shots... I think the top photo would be much better cropping out a lot of the dead space above their heads.

[KRANE]

Is there a quick way to shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio on a dslr?

Since that the video standard, I select it in the camera setup menu and just leave it. I figure I can just crop in post.

Light check. Actually liked the picture though. Except for the black blob in the space between his arm. Dammit.

Did you do raw? You should be able to recover much of that detail in post. Even the web version (below) showed some speck of promise before his face began to blow out.

The AI servo is great on the 6D and tracks birds beautifully. The 6D also has much better low light ability than the 5D. The photos are still clean at 6400 with the 6D, and have gone as high as 10000. This means being able to shoot fast during cloudy days and later into the evening.

I know you were going to say that. But I think you mean low light focus capability? In any event, its a good choice. At least until the new 7D is introduced?

#lightingtalk

Have no interest in TTL flash unless I'm indoors moving around and I'll usually bounce with a flash on the camera otherwise it's manual flash all day.

I gasp! I'm just beginning to experiment with this wonderful feature.

It would have been the perfect solution to throwing some light on this subject, don't you think?

[pieceofdebri79]

^ yeah, it was actually way overexposed. Well, the sky was. And then everything else was just washed out. Had to pull the exposure down about 2 stops and then push up the shadows to 80 just to get it looking decent. I don't know, I really hate shooting without an off camera flash. Me and ******t don't get along...

Haha Calvin is waaaaaay too ugly to bring him out the shadows that much! Wanted to bring a strobe, but I was just helping a friend shoot the school coaches, and didn't wanna look too..."here's my big ass soft box" when they were only expecting a simpler affair.

My friend had an on camera flash, so she did all the main shooting. I was just snapping pictures over her shoulder, way underexposed, and was hoping to pull something out of the shadows. I remember someone in here saying the D800 was pretty good at that. I was pretty impressed with a few I got, even though I was just half-assing it because we weren't gonna use my shots.

[Dominik]

I gasp! I'm just beginning to experiment with this wonderful feature. It would have been the perfect solution to throwing some light on this subject, don't you think?

TTL flash is great for moving subjects (i.e. action where the subject to flash distance will constantly be changing) is or situations where the light is always changing like moving around a room at an event but when you're working with a subject in consistent light like a portrait, manual flash is the way to go. Dial in your power level and fire away.

[LieutenantGains]

Latest upload


Man playing soprano sax - Cannes, France by garyhebding, on Flickr

Shot a huge local car meet today, should get some good blog and magazine exposure out of it.

[digitalchi]

Thank you sir. The struggle is always getting a setup that works, looks great, but is efficient enough in a wedding situation where I don't find myself taking 40 minutes for 1 shot. If I ever figure out something I am happy with, I'll let you know haha

pics of light gear plz

oh and

[Avalanche3319]

Great shots... I think the top photo would be much better cropping out a lot of the dead space above their heads.

Appreciate the input. This look better?

Ducks by -Avalanche3319-

[MYOFIBRAH]

from last night in the Bay. took me over an HOUR to drive two miles to get to this fukking bridge. was seriously like 5 minutes per stoplight. blood was boiling, but not more than my poor car.

by the time i got there the clouds and fog had rolled in and i couldn't get the sun like i wanted which made me more upset, so i waited a while for it to get darker. all's well that ends well.

[obmas]

glad i dont go to regular misc forum anymore. another misc psycho made it in the news for murder....

[mitch2147]

glad i dont go to regular misc forum anymore. another misc psycho made it in the news for murder....

It's just those Australians you need to be careful of.

[azurejer]

from last night in the Bay. took me over an HOUR to drive two miles to get to this fukking bridge. was seriously like 5 minutes per stoplight. blood was boiling, but not more than my poor car.

by the time i got there the clouds and fog had rolled in and i couldn't get the sun like i wanted which made me more upset, so i waited a while for it to get darker. all's well that ends well.

Pretty cool shot though. The fog is a nice touch.

[G200]

Bought a new roller bag for my international travels. Not a cheap buy clocking in at $375 of your human dollars. But after comparing the think tank and lowepro options I settled with the manfrotto roller bag 50. Really deep bag, can almost fit the 70-200 standing up, the padding far exceeded the quality in the lowepro. Had so much left over space I just filled the empty space with left over dividing pads.

The lid of the bag has space for an Ipad and laptop. Neither of which I have that will fit. But handy to have.

[digitalchi]

^^ damn...Pretty much every useful lens i would want besides a fisheye. You can always strap some flash stands to the side of it.

Say something went down at the airport and you wanted to pull your camera out to get some great news article photos, do you think you would be fumbling to get your camera out and setup?

[G200]

^^ damn...Pretty much every useful lens i would want besides a fisheye. You can always strap some flash stands to the side of it.

Say something went down at the airport and you wanted to pull your camera out to get some great news article photos, do you think you would be fumbling to get your camera out and setup?

I don't believe so. The bag has one main circumferential zipper which opens with great ease, the zipper tags are roughly 2 inches in size with a bend 1/3rd the way along at the zipper end making the zipper quick to find and easy to grab. So I guess your ability to drop trou and shoot quickly depends on whether you've attached the right lens for your emergency situation while packing. If I needed to get a shot off asap and the 70-200 was the lens needed. Then I could easily have the camera out and firing within 10-15 seconds.

[VmissileX]

glad i dont go to regular misc forum anymore. another misc psycho made it in the news for murder....

me neither.

Misc is scary.

[azurejer]

pics of light gear plz

oh and

Oh man...don't think I have all of it in one spot for pics, a lot I keep in storage for shoots as they take up too much space. Here's a run down of what is mine (as opposed to rental stuff):

Light:
2 Alien Bee 800
1 Alien Bee 1600
1 Alien Bee ringflash
3 580ex/exII's
2 Lumopro LP160's

Modifiers:
1 PCB Large parabolic umbrella
1 PCB Large folding softbox
1 36 (32?) inch Softliter, 1 46 inch softliter (haven't recieved it yet)
1 PCB stripbox (long, narrow softbox essentially)
4 cheapass umbrellas of various sizes
1 PCB beauty dish/grid/diffuser
Tons of stands and accessories - hotshoe mounts, booms, blah blah
1 Vagabond Mini w/ 2 batteries

Alien Bee stuff is dirty dirty cheap, yet I have owned this ever since I shot full time, which is..7? years now - and it still works like a champ, haven't even replaced a flash tube yet. I absolutely abuse the crap out of my lighting stuff, and PCB has given me no reason to ever go with someone else (besides light consistency, 'prestige' of using a big name like Elinchrom or Profoto)...their modifiers are cheap, do an amazing job, you name it. Here's some pics I could find:

The small Softliter, PCB large softbox, a 580 on a stand for hair light:


Large softbox, AB1600:


One of the cheapo brollies


More 1600


Shooting a riot with my on-location lightstand backpack mounted (tv screengrab lulz)



The stripbox used for a musician:




**edit**

This shows two bare 580 ex's taped together (behind the scenes trash the dress and resulting shots)

http://vimeo.com/6180036

[EatingPancakes]

me neither.

Misc is scary.

This thread is pretty much the last bastion of stability that I've seen. Not even Science & Tech made it and that used to be a nice place before all the console/pc-samsung/android/apple nonsense.

I haven't gone out and taken any pictures lately, but here is a picture of a manhole cover. Don't know what it is, but I just like how all the elements came together shape-wise.

[VmissileX]

Went to B&H yesterday.

Mane, it was interesting to see everything. I may attend a workshop there in the upcoming two weeks. The amount they teach their is phenomenal.

[digitalchi]

Went to B&H yesterday.

Mane, it was interesting to see everything. I may attend a workshop there in the upcoming two weeks. The amount they teach their is phenomenal.

maybe they will teach you when to your there and their...