The Photographers Q&A

[Rag_It]

Tempted to give you my thoughts, but there is too much talk of Canon going on in this thread

(real men use Nikon )

Aye, what the pro master wedding photographer said!!

[Fluoxetine]

Ha! I have two friends down here who also earn a living through photography (albeit media stuff), and use 5D Mk2's...Another friend is about to pull the trigger on a 7D, so in terms of lens swapping / borrowing I'd better stick to a Canon body.

After a lot of research and a good play in Jessops, I've reached the conclusion that a 7D is the sensible way to go. Not 100% sure (haven't got my hands on a 1D yet! ), but drawing near to a purchasing decision.

With that in mind, I'm thinking glass - I hear good things about the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens? (IS takes it to an f2 equivalency, and it's basically an 'L' lens without the red ring).

The Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD sounds rather good too.

Worth acquiring both? Or too much overlap?

[graeme]

18-270? No way. The bigger the zoom range, the bigger the compromise on quality. It's a trade-off... zooms give you the flexibility to only carry one lens, but quality goes to hell with that sort of range. Also, personally I'd never again buy a lens with a variable max aperture. PITA in manual mode, and unpredictable in semi-auto modes.

Never used the 17-55, but crikey it's not cheap... it's darned near 24-105 L / 24-70 L price territory!

[Fluoxetine]

Fair do's - You don't get nothing for nothing as they say...

The advantage of the 17-55 over the L lenses is near identical build plus IS.

(And I really want something with IS, as I suffer from essential tremor and would like to use a slower shutter speed than 1/500 for a change... )

Just noticed you can get a battery grip for the 7D, which sees it take a similar form to the 1D - One of the 1D attractions was the body form for getting a hold of the thing. Looks like I can achieve that with the 7D also.

[David Bryce]

If you are not bothered about full frame then the 7D is a good choice, as is the 17-55 f2.8, which basically becomes a 27-88mm due to the 1.6 crop factor of the 7D. Combined with the grip, which makes vertical shooting much more comfortable more than anything else, you would be on to a winner.

I.S. does not make it equivalent to f2 though, I.S. gives you a stop or two advantage to minimum shutter speed, there is more to aperture value than the amount of light, depth of field control is much more important. To be honest though, I do not think I.S. (or V.R. in Nikon terms) is that useful on small zoom lenses, but bloody useful on a 70-200mm etc (but I.S. is bugger all use for fast moving stuff though, slow moving in low light is what it is there for)

and I would not touch the Tamron, as Graeme said, far too much of a compromise, something like one of the Canon 70-200mm lenses would be a much better choice if you can justify the cost.

[vxc]

got a question on what settings to use.

layout is sunny day clear sky,
when i take a picture using the auto option on my 500d it just seems to bright, so i tried a few things but could only ever get the picture to be either bright or dull.
looking to capture as much colour as possible as well....

any help

[graeme]

In the picture mode (the down arrow on the rear of the camera), you could select landscape (L). That should boost the blues and greens a bit.

As for the exposure there's nothing you can do in full auto mode. It disables exposure lock, Av compensation and anything else which might help.

Change to P mode... it's the next easiest to use. Take a picture as normal, then if it's too bright hold down the AV+/- button on the back, and turn the finger dial down. If you look at the screen on the back while you do this you'll see the exposure compensation gauge moving, and it should move in the viewfinder too. Moving the marker to the left will darken the shot, and to the right will brighten it. Take a look and adjust a bit more or less.

Don't forget to move it back to the middle when you're finished with that scene, or your next shots of the next scene might be too dark!!

There's another way... using the * (star) key on the back. Take the shot as normal. If it's too bright, compose the same shot again, but tilt the camera upwards slighty (so there's more sky in the frame). Press the * (star) button on the back to lock the exposure. The star should appear in the viewfinder when you do this. Now take the shot again and it should come out darker. This isn't magic... you're just fooled the camera into thinking the scene is going to be brighter by pointing it at the sky, so the camera will underexpose when you point at the real scene again.

Both methods will require experimentation, and may produce confusing results unless you're willing to study exposer a bit more, but theses are the easiest ways I can think of for somebody who is used to auto mode.

Good luck, and ask again if you need more help.

[flat-planedCrank]

Okay - Sold my Olympus D-SLR...Enjoyed using it, and learnt a fair bit - But its low light performance / lack of options for glass were starting to become slightly limiting.

Moving mainstream, with a Canon or a Nikon body - Had a play with a friends 5D Mk2, which was awesome. But too expensive.

Budgeting £700-1000 for the body - Narrowed it down to either:

5D Mk1 - Full frame, but perhaps not so good for low light /track day photography

or

1D Mk3 - Cropped, but 11fps and mega fast at focusing

Any opinions?

The 7D discussed sounds an ideal compromise

I bought a 5D mk1 last year - decided I wanted a full-frame camera body and the 5D2 and 1ds options were just too much. I've used it once for motorsports, its not bad, but the lack of 'crop factor' makes even 300mm lenses feel pretty short at Knockhill. I totally love my 5D though, for image quality and the scope it gives for using dof creatively it's hard to beat a ff body. In terms of design and feel its certainly an older camera, the 7D feels a generation newer.

On the lenses, it could be argued that the 7D is actually more likely to need more expensive gear than the 5D mk1 - its 'sensor density' is much higher than the 5D, it'll 'ask more' from the lenses it uses. iirc, the 5D is around 1.5 megapixels per cm², the 7D over 5 megapixels per cm². Used non-L lenses on my 5D with no problems - not to say that it doesn't shine when using nice primes though

The 17-55 looks like a good bet - basically a 24-70 for crop-body cameras - always seems to get a good write-up. For tele-zooms, I'd look at getting a used 70-200 f2.8 mk1, the mk2 is out now so you might be able to find a bargain mk1. I'd look at getting at least one prime lens as well, even if its only the 50mm f1.8. Gives you more options in terms of dof and low light.

If you are doing gig photography then you may want to budget for a decent flash as well? (...or not depending on what venues / bands you are photographing)


I'm looking at a 2nd body as well now, pretty much decided on the 7D - probably pick one up before summer
(though if I see a decent used 1ds mk2 i'd probably grab that instead )

[Fluoxetine]

Recently sold an Olympus 24mm f2 on the 'bay, so just about have the 7D funds together.

Cheers for the advice - Hope I can do it justice!!

[flat-planedCrank]

Recently sold an Olympus 24mm f2 on the 'bay, so just about have the 7D funds together.

Cheers for the advice - Hope I can do it justice!!

If you like primes then there are loads of options (£!!! ) but even if they aren't a priority I'd still grab a 50mm f1.8, only £85 new - they are a lot of image quality for not much money

I hear there is a little bit of a learning curve for the 7D - the af settings especially look to be extensive and really customisable. I'm glad to see Canon finally putting remote flash firing in the body as well, been a long time coming! (no comments from Nikon users please )

[smee]

Adobe Lightroom 3 - should I get it?

Special offer now means it is £76 plus vat rather than £240 untill June 6th.
Question is what does it do and do I need it? I use elements 9.0 mostly but am looking for a better raw converter. CS5 allows you to work sections on RAW rather than entire image, does lightroom allow you to do this?
Is it designed as an organiser workflow took rather than an editor?

Thanks

[flat-planedCrank]

Adobe Lightroom 3 - should I get it?

Special offer now means it is £76 plus vat rather than £240 untill June 6th.
Question is what does it do and do I need it? I use elements 9.0 mostly but am looking for a better raw converter. CS5 allows you to work sections on RAW rather than entire image, does lightroom allow you to do this?
Is it designed as an organiser workflow took rather than an editor?

Thanks

Its a organisational and processing tool, so it allows some editing - cropping, contrast, exposure, curves, even some brushed effects (iirc), etc. You don't get the level of control that photoshop provides, but for many photos you may find that lightroom does everything you need. Photoshop and lightroom are meant to be used alongside each other.

I don't use LR but i've used demos in the past... I need a workflow tool to sort through photos once I've taken them - can sift through, rating each shot as I go, highlighting the best. Once done I can then view only the shots I want to see, and do multiple revisions of the final processing for the image. What's more keywords can be assigned to each image so its easy to quickly identify which images, for example, were taken last summer at knockhill on SIDC trackdays. Lightroom is a good tool for this job

If you have a few days to make a decision then why not download the demo? - http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
Also plenty of video explanations and tutorials on Adobe.tv - http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/

£76 for LR3? sounds like a bargain.

[graeme]

I bought LR1 for full price. It was a shambles. When LR2 came out, Adobe would not let me upgrade my perfectly legal copy of LR1, so I really fell out with Adobe and stopped using LR completely. Then, I tried the demo of LR3. It's awesome. I paid full price and don't regret it.

For £76 I'd snap it up. It's only real rival is Aperture, which I liked (demo available too), but it is one step too removed from the rest of the Adobe family for my liking. LR produces better images IMO, and integrates better with PS.

The demo will tell you if LR3 will suit your workflow. If I'm honest, there are a few things it didn't fit when I tried it and I still don't love the Library/Develop separation.. I'd prefer to be able to do a few more library things within Develop, and vice versa. It's not serious, just irritating once in a while. I decided to change my workflow to fit LR3 because the benefits far outweighed the niggles.

Also, once you've used LR3 for a while, do some googling for LR3 tutorials. There are loads of shortcuts and features that you just won't find from playing with it yourself. Some of them are just timesaving, but others are full-on features which you'd never know existed.

[smee]

useful advice from both of you, thanks. It seems to fit into an odd place in the Adobe range and it seems that the merge of lightroom with photoshop would be a sensible one surely?

thanks again.

[graeme]

I don't think a LR/PS merge makes sense. LR is basically everything you would do in a darkroom in the days of film. Photoshop is more like a complete art and design studio. I don't think every darkroom needs a complete set of oils and watercolours, nor does every artist need a darkroom. Sure, there are some creative photographers (fine art, glossy glamour etc) who need both, but they're not the majority.

As for where it fits in the Adobe range, if you try LR you should see that it's a complete replacement for Bridge and the Adobe Camera Raw user interface, plus more. It doesn't really attempt to take anything away from PS. It's just that in the past if you wanted a graduated exposure from a raw file or a water mark, or a border etc etc et, you had to open PS. Adobe are trying to package up all the techniques that photographers use in PS and make tools for them in LR. PS isn't redundant yet, as the tools in LR are somewhat limited, but they are good enough for 99% of holiday snaps, and will improve with each version, and over time the occasions when a photographer needs PS will reduce. If you're doing any sort of fine art or magazine photography, you're still going to do all your touching up in PS for sure.

A merge of LR and PS would assume that all PS users are photographs, and all photographers need to do some serious layer work or airbrushing on each photo. At a big magazine the photographer won't be the guy who does the retouching, so the logical separation between packages makes sense in terms of professional workflow when you get beyond a 1-man team.