Master Photography

Questions of the Week:

Michael Urwin: So I am in a rut, I feel like I am losing my love for photography. I want to just take my camera everywhere with me like a little puppy, but I don’t end up taking any photos. Any advice?

Angela Sanchez: I’m getting extremely frustrated!!! My computer updated to Windows 10 a couple of months ago. I don’t know if that was the cause of all of this, but it happened around the same time. My Lightroom reverted back to the version before the dehaze option came out. I was having difficulty upgrading it to get it back…it kept failing. I deleted EVERYTHING and started over. At first I couldn’t get it to reinstall because it kept failing. But finally I was able to figure out that there were some folders that needed permissions changed. I was able to get it reinstalled, but now I’m having the same problem with Photoshop. The problem now though is that the folders it is telling me that it can not move to/from I can not find when I try to navigate to them to change permissions. They are not there. Any ideas on what is going on??? This is starting to drive me crazy! I’ve used the CC Cleaner tool too and cleaned everything and tried to start over, but still having the same problem. Help!!!!

Zev Steinhardt: Suggestion for a future podcast, if I may: photography contests. (How to enter, which one are good ones/which ones are scams, what to look out for, what judges might be looking for in a winning photograph, etc.) Thank you.

Connor’s Segment: Moving toward Mirrorless

Currently replacing my backup camera with the Sony A6000. It is not quite powerful enough in low light to be a total replacement for my Canon 6D, but it is a strong competitor.

After doing a great deal of research I decided to start my move to Sony. Both Fuji and Olympus have great options as well.

I really like the digital viewfinder. It allows for me to see a live view of my exposure before taking my shots as well as review the shots without taking my face away to “Chimp”

Focus peaking allows me to see exactly what is in focus when focusing manually.

I bought a fotodiox adapter to be able to use my current Canon Lenses. It works well for Canon brand, but I have to manually focus third party lenses which isn’t as much as an issue as it would have been in the past now that I am able to see what is in focus.

Sony’s lineup of lenses isn’t very prolific yet, but they seem to be making some great strides. Between their current lineup of lenses, their affiliation with Zeiss in the production of G series lenses, and having adapters that support my current Canon lenses I am confident I will be happy in this new camera system.

It has been much less expensive to start the transition than I would have ever predicted.

While I haven’t yet found a buyer for my 60D and some of my primes I do not need, but the market price for those items is a lot stronger than I would have ever predicted. The camera body is selling for about half of what I originally paid for it a few years ago, but the lenses have maintained most of their value and likely will for years to come.

I have yet to rely solely on the Sony for the entirety of my shooting, however I will be going on a trip to Seattle next week, and I think I am going to leave the Canon at home to push myself to really test the A6000 out.

While it appears that the market will eventually move towards the mirrorless market, but that seems to still be many years in the future. Have any of you made any serious considerations of switching to mirrorless? What would you have to see happen in the mirrorless markets to convince you to make a switch?

Laryssa’s Segment Renting Gear

Going on vacation and also thinking of transitioning to mirrorless.  Have been thinking for months.

I was looking into renting for our trip to St Maarten next week a...

Pre-Roll: Squarespace & Lightroom Steal Last Chance Sale!

Questions of the Week:

Justin Zaffarese: Can we talk about battery packs for speedlights ? I use Yongnuo 568 EX speedlights .I am starting to wonder if i am a photographer or a battery recharger who takes photos sometimes.

Janet Schill: Should I go full frame with the D750 or go with the D500 with the higher ISO and better and faster focusing? She shoots nature, wildlife, and landscape.

Brian Pex: When shooting small children (under 4 feet) using a normal light stand is just too tall. What do you all do for this situation?

Sandy’s Segment: Tethering Tips

I always tether if I can. This can be intimidating at first though.

Try to set-up beforehand and have a stand-in help you with lighting.

Helps yourself, and your subject, view what you are shooting, and make adjustments. I’ve found it particularly helpful when I’m photographing women. They can tell me right away what they are liking about a shot and what they aren’t loving.  

I also strongly recommend using TetherTools https://www.tethertools.com. They have “Jerkstoppers” that have saved my camera more than once when I, or someone else, trips over the cord.

For Lightroom: Select: File->Tether Capture->Start Tether Capture. If you are using a grey card, you can use the eyedropper to set your temperature and tint, then from the tether capture screen, use the drop-down to set “Develop Settings” to “Same as Previous”.

I personally use a program called “Capture One”. I like it a lot, and they offer a free 30-day trial. https://www.phaseone.com/en/Products/Software/Capture-One-Pro/Highlights.aspx

Midroll: Squarespace and The Great Courses

Zelda’s Segment: What’s holding you back?

Your own thinking

Stephen Schwartz “Forgiveness’ Embrace”

My own struggles

Your weakness can be your strength

Jim’s Segment: A Poem by Longfellow

Doodads of the Week!

Zelda: YN RF-603 (can make Canon talk to Nikon)  

Sandy: Black velvet cloth

Jim: Zhiyun Z1 Smooth C 

Jim: Overcast Podcasting App for iOS

Jim wanted to give a shout out to Gavin Gatchalian. 8 year-old who listens to the show and has had a photo published in the newspaper.

Pre-Roll: Lightroom Steal Last Chance Sale!

Questions of the Week:

Jeff Kazules – Polarizer on bald dudes

Nick McDonald – I shot some photos for a magazine that are supposed to look summery – they were taken in bright overcast light – I’ve been playing with saturation, colour temp, graduated filters etc, but I’m having trouble – any tips?

Carol Pagliotti – I need help. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. All of my photos seem slanted or crooked. No matter what I do I cannot get my horizons straight in my Philadelphia photos.

Jesse Smith – I don’t have my monitor calibrated, but when I set my brightness on my Samsung to 0, it seems to look the same, or close enough to the print. Do I really need to edit with my brightness on my monitor at 0?

Jeff: I have seen this be the case with some monitors. The brightness in the menu of the monitor doesn’t seem to do anything.  I found that going to contrast seemed to have the effect I needed.  I assumed it was some kind of mistake where the two were swapped.

Connor: I will often edit with computer displays in mind first, editing all my shots at a medium/high monitor brightness, and then go back and dim my monitor to adjust for printing. Keep in mind not everyone viewing your images will have calibrated monitors.

Connor’s Segment: Tips for keeping gear clean and safe while shooting at the Sand dunes.

Plan focal Lengths beforehand, and be prepared to stick with the lens on your camera

I am going to be bringing two bodies, my 6D with a 24-70 and my 60D with a 70-300 (112-480 effective range). Once they are on they stay on.

Plan on not setting down a bag on the ground. Be careful because sand will get EVERYWHERE!

I am thinking I should probably get a tripod before I go out to do something like this again. Not only because it helps to get beautiful landscape shots (admittedly something I don’t often do) but also because it will be less than enjoyable to be walking around with 2 heavy bodies hanging off of me all afternoon and evening. (I know Jim, if I went mirrorless it wouldn’t be a problem. ;p

As an indoor cat, I am a little worried there is something I haven’t considered for a shoot like this. Do you guys have any other advice for shooting in environments with lots of dust/dirt/particles?

Midroll: The Great Courses & Video Blocks

Jim’s Segment: Testing long exposures

I did a 3 min exposure with lens cap on and tested noise.  Then I did a 5 and 8 min exposure and then went back to test the 3 min again.  The first 3 min exposure when the camera was cool had about 40% less noise than the 3 min exposure after shooting for several minutes when the camera was hot.

I didn’t realize there would be that big of a difference.

From now on when I’m doing long exposures, I’m gonna give the camera 2 mins to cool down between shots.

Jeff: The biggest thing that “astronomy” specific DLSRs do is cool the sensor.  The Canon 60Da for example.  A company called “Baader” will mod a number of Canon models to do this for much less: http://www.baader-planetarium.de/sektion/s45/canon_astroupgrade-english.htm

Jeff’s Segment: Best mouse for photo editing

Article coming soon to improvephotography.com.  I know I have said it is coming for a while, but it really is now that my boys soccer season has finally ended.

High DPI mice.  Gamers really seem to think it is super important.  Does it matter for photography?  In my testing it did not.  

Supposed to increase the ability to target something specific on the ...

Improve Photography Plus: Get every product Improve Photography makes in one place for just $19.95/month.  You’ll get dozens of hours of video training, but lots of websites offer that.  The unique selling point of Improve Photography Plus is the download center, with hundreds of Lightroom presets, photography contracts, sky replacements, and eBooks, and of course first crack at our free photography workshops all around the world.

Questions of the Week:

Andrew Zaragoza:  I’m going on a roadtrip and need something to edit photos on the go.  Nothing too serious, just something so I can post updates while I’m shooting.  Is there a better option than a laptop, like an iPad?  I need something that won’t kill the bank account.

Jeff: Dell XPS 9350-1340SLV 13.3 Inch Laptop (Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, Silver) Microsoft Signature Image $790

Kathy Nemec-Lucas: What is a good online sales method for prints and image file downloads? Looking to not spend a lot to do it since I don’t sell that way very often, but want to offer a few print sizes and digital file download sales.

Jeff: Super easy through Zenfolio.  $60/yr for printing to work, have to go $240/yr for digital products

Nathan Whitworth: I just picked up a new 27 inch iMac (base model – 3.2 GHz i5, 8GB MHz ram) While its a huge upgrade over what I’ve been using I’m still noticing a little lag in lightroom when adjusting sliders and using brushes.

Jeff: Try disabling graphics acceleration.  Moving between pictures it is the SSD that is critical.  Too little RAM can make the sliders and adjustment brushes slow.  So can too little CPU.  The bigger CPU in the highest model of the 27” iMac would have been better, but I don’t think it would have been a massive difference.  It probably is just the way Lr is today, which is the reason we keep complaining and telling Adobe they have to fix it.  Should run like butter with a sparkling new computer and it just doesn’t.

Brian’s Segment: Shooting bald people?  Event photography w/ Indy500

Josh’s Segment: SBDC and business development tools

Video Blocks – Get your subscription today for only $99 at www.videoblocks.com/x/improve. That’s w-w-w dot v-i-d-eo-b-l-o-c-k-s dot com slash x slash improve

Jeff’s Segment:  3 quick things I feel are my responsibility as the nerdiest nerd on the network:

Windows 10 upgrade.  

Been running it since August 2016 on my editing PC, have had NO issues.  Have upgraded 5 other machines in my house (they don’t run Lr or Ps) but also no issues.  

Was a little noise in the forums about issues initially, but been relatively quiet for some time now.  

Prepare to upgrade before July 29th, after which time it may not be free.

Along the same lines, OS X El Capitan is also proven enough that everyone using a Mac should be upgraded if you haven’t taken that step yet.  Same story as Windows 10.

Adjustment brush amount slider.  Am I the only one who missed that?  Talked about it on Photo Taco this week.

On1 Photo RAW.  New product supposed to be available this fall.  Looks really exciting to me for a very specific reason – using the graphics processor to make editing HUGE RAW files super fast.  I hope this forces Adobe to make my 2016 prediction from last December come true where I said Adobe would make graphics processing actually work and it would make a huge difference in Lr.

Jim’s Segment:

A question for the group: Am I safer backing up my Drobo every 3 weeks and leaving the backup at my parents house, or putting the backup in another area of the house and turning on versioning so it’s backed up every night?

Doodads of the Week!

Brian:

Improve Photography Plus: Get every product Improve Photography makes in one place for just $19.95/month.  You’ll get dozens of hours of video training, but lots of websites offer that.  The unique selling point of Improve Photography Plus is the download center, with hundreds of Lightroom presets, photography contracts, sky replacements, and eBooks, and of course first crack at our free photography workshops all around the world.

Questions of the Week:

What is the correct DPI that I should be using to save my photos?  It seems like some places want 300, some 150, and others 72.

Tom Gifford: Should I learn Photoshop? I just converted to Lightroom CC and Photoshop is included. I have never used Photoshop. I have been perfectly content editing my photos in Lightroom.  What common edits do you do in Photoshop that would get me excited about using it?

Justin Gill: Maybe a possible podcast topic; I have a 7dMii and have never used the extra memory card slot. What are some benefits and uses of the extra slot?

Tim Evans: Just curious if anyone has stopped purchasing with B&H due to the recent allegations against them?

Steven: Hotel Photography

Jim: Revisiting Photo Locations and Getting New Results

Doodads of the Week!

Get all the doodads in one place from any episode at http://improvephotography.com/doodads

Jim: Lapel wind screen 

Steven: Pen and paper