Nick v Jim

* Vote for the theme at improvephotography.com/vote.  You can see the first episode of Nick v Jim here on Youtube.

Question of the Week

* Bob L. asked: I’ve been shooting high school sports for a local paper and have been having an issue with my Nikon D7000 paired with a Tamron 70-200 f2.8 vc. When the background contains a high contrast sign (like on the boards in hockey) the camera will frequently miss focus on the background instead of the subject. Suggestions?

What mistakes in your photography do you want to rectify?

Jeff: Biggest mistake was oversharpening earlier in the year

Nick: Trying to offer both photo and video at weddings… sooo done

Brian: Shoot more variety.

Jim: Post-processing rut

Eureka moment while taking a pic

Jeff: Help my portrait backgrounds by properly lighting the subject, and replacing the sky if it isn’t great

Jim: Street photography with flash

Nick: Luminosity masks and exposure blending

Brian: Live view shooting and manual focus for sharper images. (Detroit)

Products mentioned

* Creativelive.com/improve (Advertisement for online training)

Goal for the future

Brian: Shoot for fun & practice new techniques (panos and photostacking)

Nick: Focus more on being original

Jeff: Nail large group lighting and hike somewhere to get a shot nobody else is getting

Jim: Learn to make frames.  I’m tired of canvases

Industry predictions

Nick:  5d iv.. will be underwhelming, but just good enough to keep me a canon shooter

Jeff: Adobe is going to make graphics acceleration work in Lightroom

Jim: 5dIV will have 4k

Brian: Mine deals w/ Jeff

Doodads of the Week

* Jim – Canon Vixia G20 or G30

* Nick – Spyder lens calibration tool

* Brian – Pocket Projector AAXA LED Pico Projector

* Jeff: Been using the Apple Magic Mouse a little.  HATED it at first, but grew on me.  Wanted to see if there was anything similar for PC.  Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse T630 for Windows (T631 for Mac, only the color is different).