Topic 1: Connor – Photographing Dozens of Headshots in 2 hours time

Make sure you plan out the set ahead of time and only bring the gear you need with 1 or 2 backup items for things that may fail.

Leave an obvious space for people to easily get in and out of the setup.

Can be useful to have 2 lighting setups on 2 different channels to be able to get multiple looks

You Need a lot of energy for this type of shoot.

Tether if you can so people can choose their preferred headshot.

Even though I am only using about 3 minutes per person to get a shot they will love, I take a minute to talk to the person and warm them up.

BE GOOFY

Topic 2: Mark Connors – Loving the new Fuji xt-2 but I find the x-trans files are a bit trickier to work with in Lightroom. I find that sometimes presets don’t look right when first applied.  Would you mind talking about this on one of your podcasts, maybe comparing how you process Fuji raf files to canon/nikon raw files.

Most likely just a change in how things look.  

Sharpness on a Fuji RAW is less punchy than in most raw files

I haven’t really had trouble with color, but blacks are an issue that makes color look different

Camera profile is the fix

Topic 3: Sandy is moving

I’m moving to Dallas!!!!! Part of me is terrified to start over in a new city, but from a commercial photography standpoint, I think it will be huge for my career. Las Vegas is great, but Dallas is huge by comparison.

Midroll: Casper Mattress  www.casper.com/IMPROVE

esteemcommercial.com/workshops/lighting-for-portraiture/

Topic 4: What’s the Hot Camera System Today?

Fuji likely has a boring year unless you are prepared to spend $9,000 on a new medium format

Canon likely to release a FF mirrorless

What will the new Sony FF mirrorless look like?  A9?

Nikon has been pretty quiet for a while…  D820?

DL has 1” sensor and seems to be delayed

D5600 modest improvement

Micro 4/3 still isn’t taking off with pros/advanced amateurs

Hasselblad sold to DJI?

Topic 5: Sandy – Finding inspiration in a totally new way.

I’ve hit the point that most photographers that consider going professional dread: it’s becoming a job. I still have passion for photography, but I just shoot the same thing day in and day out.

Problem is, I don’t think I have time to take on any new projects right at this time, so instead I am going to make it my mission to re-decorate my home and office with works of art. I’m so inspired by the photographers I am around that do amazing landscape and I want to showcase them in an extraordinary way.

I also realized that I have NO photos on my walls.

Connor – Think of something I don’t know how to do and try to figure it out.

Jim – STEP AWAY!  Disappear for a month or so.

Travel

Gear therapy

Get a photo critique

Learn something new

Top 10

Doodads of the Week!

Connor: Muslin Backdrop

Jim: RadarScope

Sandy: Shortcuts Keyboard Skin

Connor: Tripad