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Hi guys. A few days ago, I rented a 70-200 2.8 IS and a 1.4x teleconverter for my Rebel XT to take photos at a Cubs game, the first time I ever rented a lens. I took about 700 photos, and put the best 70 on facebook. Some of them came out really nicely. Today, a friend of a friend got in touch with me, telling me she really liked the photos, and was wondering if I would be willing to photograph a charity 5k this weekend with about 500 runners. I'm happy to do it for a friend and a good cause, so I'm not interested in making any money on it. I'd feel weird anyway, as I've never taken any photos "professionally" (but have been fairly active as a hobbyist, feel as though I have reasonable control over my camera, etc.) However, I've never ever been to a race before, and I really am not sure what lens(es?) would be most appropriate. I'm thinking I'm gonna tell her I'll do it, if she can get the organization to cover a rental fee for whatever lens is most appropriate. Can anyone give me any advice on what I should be looking for? Do I need a lot of reach, or would a wide angle be best? I only own the 18-55 IS kit lens (the decent one that comes with the newer Canons, not the one that originally came with the XT) and the 50 1.8 (plus a 430ex ii flash, which is a recent purchase I'm still figuring out). I don't really want to mess around with primes, and I'd rather keep lens switching to a minimum. This is what would be available for me to rent: EF 16-35mm f2.8L USM II EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM EF 17-40mm f4L USM EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM EF 24-105mm f/4 Race conditions should be early morning and sunny. What would you guys choose? What kinds of shots work best for these kinds of events (keeping in mind that this is more aimed at just generating event photos, not trying to sell photos to the runners or anything). Any other tips?
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Sep 3, 2009 22:37
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The Wensey posted:You'll want a wide angle for the race start, which for a charity 5k is probably going to be pretty drat huge. As for the race itself, I don't know how big of a lens you'd need as you can generally get very close to the runners. The problem is that once the runners pass you, you need to get to the next spot as fast as possible. Scout out the course and learn where they'll be. Thanks for the advice. I'm pretty sure it's on a track, so that will be going in my favor. I'm gonna experiment on Saturday morning with using a fill flash, just in case the sun is behind runners at the finish line. The organizer said I'll be able to get really close (basically standing right next to the track), so I'm gonna try to rent the EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM this afternoon.
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Sep 4, 2009 17:28
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Um, I wouldn't exactly describe that as a "required reading list." It's some pretty heady critical visual theory. It's more like a suggested reading list for photography MFAs. Philosophical, rather than practical. If anyone wants to plow ahead through the reading but is having difficulty tracking the critical arguments, Ashley la Grange's Basic Critical Theory for Photographers gives a decent commentary on some of the major photo theory out there.
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Jan 19, 2010 05:52
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Shmoogy posted:Is there a program similar to ExposurePlot that can analyze my lightroom catalog(or lightroom feature) and give me the same sort of information? It only works with Jpegs, and I don't really export jpegs of most of my stuff. Forgive me if I'm being stupid, but can't you do that with Lightroom's library filter metadata option? http://mbignell.com/images/lr_ir/lr-filter.jpg
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Mar 31, 2010 08:02
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Alright guys, I'm planning a Sock Hop, and I'd like to have a photo booth. I'd like to have a cool, 50s-ish backdrop for the photos, and I need to do it on the cheap. I was wondering if anyone has had any ideas. Here's what I've looked into: 1.) Buying some kind of 50s-ish fabric pattern, and taping it to the wall. The backdrop needs to be large enough to accommodate group shots, so I figure I need something in the range of 8 ft long by 8 ft wide (maybe a little less wide is fine). From doing some fabric math, it seems like I would need about 8 yards of fabric. Has anyone gone this route before? I'm a bit worried about stitching together separate pieces of fabric for this. Also, from a bit of looking around, it seems like all the patterns that looked decent were really expensive...like $15 bucks per yard. The max I can spend for this backdrop is maybe $50, which is already pushing it. If I can't think of anything else, I might just get a cheap solid colored fabric, and hang up some printed paper decorations on it. 2.) I thought wallpaper might be an alternative to look into, but it looks even more expensive, and I think the stitching problem would be even worse, with an added in rippling problem. I guess I could glue the wallpaper to large pieces of cardboard, but again, this seems even more expensive. Anyone have any other ideas? Or links to cheap fabric/wallpaper that looks vaguely 1950s America-ish?
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Apr 6, 2010 01:30
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8th-samurai posted:Maybe cheapish plastic table cloth with a pattern on it? Just be careful with using flash around shiny stuff. That's a good idea, thanks. Maybe I can even find a cloth one, which might work a bit better with the flash. I plan on diffusing the flash with a shoot-thru umbrella.
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Apr 6, 2010 04:56
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Renting a jukebox would be amazing (I'd love to own one someday, in fact), but I'm a poor grad student so that's pretty much out of the question for now. I have been scanning ebay for fabric, but what's tough is finding 4+ yards of it all together. I think I'm gonna go with this: http://www.fabricdirect.com/acatalog/Gingham-1-Inch-Check-lime-yard.html . That seems to vaguely connote the 1950s, and a 1" check should be visible in the photos. I'll also probably pick up some vinyl records from Goodwill, and hang them with fishing line. I'll also probably build this frame: http://www.lifeisaprayer.com/articles/photography/diy-greenscreen because it seems easy, and I can reuse it for other stuff afterward. With a gingham fabric, it's probably important to keep the background looking crisp and neat. A little earlier this evening I got the idea of looking for wrapping paper, but I honestly wasn't finding much in the way of patterns I liked, and I was a little worried about reflections. I don't think it's a terrible idea in general for lo-fi setups, but I don't think it would work here.
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Apr 6, 2010 06:58
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brad industry posted:Renting from prop houses is surprisingly cheap, you should look into it. This is a cool idea. I won't be able to do it this time, but I'll keep it in mind for the future. It'd sure be a lot of fun to rent a gigantic larger-than-life Big Boy statue. Cross_ posted:The difficult part will be finding something that's 8 ft wide. Fabric for consumers comes in 44" - 60" widths. Sources for cheap fabric: Wal-Mart and Jo-Ann, but you'd have to stitch it together. This is the truth. I might just go with a single width 45" yard (unless I can convince a friend to do some stitching for me). That will be big enough for single/couple shots, and as for the groups, I guess I'll just end up getting some of the side wall or whatever. This isn't professional or anything, just some drunken fun pretty much.
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Apr 7, 2010 05:16
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Hi guys, I have a little project. Every year, my friend throws a Victorian Gothick Christmas party--think A Christmas Carol and Charles Dickens and all that. Everyone dresses up, and there's meat pies and decorations and all that kind of stuff. I'm doing a photo booth this year, and would like to have the photos look like they came from the late 1800s. From looking around on Flickr, it looks like the general principles are: small aperture, crank the saturation and contrast down, and a surprising amount of sharpness. I can add scratches/distressing in photoshop, and get the right color tone I'm looking for. But I'm still trying to work some other stuff out though. In terms of focal length, what would best approximate that old look on a crop sensor camera? Here's a photo: http://www.flickr.com/groups/100_years_old/pool/with/5199965987/ . Is that a classic 85mm, which means I would want to shoot with a 50? I know this probably gets goofed up by the different size formats and all that. Any other tips? How about lighting? I've got a 430ex II, an umbrella, triggers, and some other modifiers, but I think that's a bit too techy. Did indoor portraits just use available lighting? Thanks guys.
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Nov 26, 2010 20:46
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Portraits were shot indoors with "available light", but they used windows, skylights, mirrors, and curtains to direct the sunlight. Probably a bit beyond what you want to do Thanks for the detailed advice. I don't think I'm gonna pick up a whole camera (I'm currently more interested in a MF Yashicamat from the 70s, which I'd get more use out of), but that Petzval stuff is super interesting. I'm gonna comb through ebay and craigslist and see what I can find.
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Nov 27, 2010 22:47
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At any rate: big and diffuse. 
Not everything is massive DoF,
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Hey guys, I posted a few pages back about photographing a 19th-century themed Christmas party. I'm still trying to figure out how to process this stuff, but I've got a preliminary image up: Victorian Gothick Christmas by TeaJayPea, on Flickr What do you guys think? Any processing advice? Basically, I just (in Lightroom) cropped the photo to an aspect ratio more common then (I think?), messed around with curves and exposure until the light looked suitably flat, made the image greyscale, messed around with split toning, and then (in Photoshop) went over it with a grunge brush for some scratches, and overlayed the whole thing on a coffee-stained paper texture. I'm not exactly happy with how the final exposure is looking (maybe I need to figure out how to boost the facial highlights?), and I don't know how I feel about the overall print/paper color. Maybe the print should be a different hue, and the paper maybe less yellow saturated? Do I need to do something more with grain/sharpness/some kind of blurring? Maybe I should decide more precisely than "19th century" what I want this to look like: daguerrotype, wet plate collodian, whatever. Oh, and I also had to clone out an electrical outlet. Haha. Sorry if this isn't in the right thread, I just thought I'd follow up on an earlier post. I'll take it away if there's complaint. Edit: PS, as someone recommended previously, I'm trying to track down an old brass lens that I can somehow modify to make an image circle on my Canon. http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?p=133996 would be like, the ideal outcome, but I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. Can anyone give me guidelines on, like, how to be sure a given lens will produce a large enough circle on my 50D? Do I just cross my fingers and hope for the best? That's kind of an expensive proposition, because all of this stuff seems to run at least $100. VermiciousKnid84 fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Dec 7, 2010 |
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Dec 7, 2010 23:37
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Thanks guys, that's helpful. Sometimes it's hard to see that stuff when you've been playing around so much with something. I'll keep at it.
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Dec 8, 2010 07:41
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Pompous Rhombus, that's helpful, thanks. I don't know what it is, but it's surprisingly difficult to find people doing this kind of stuff with vintage lenses on modern cameras. Maybe my google-fu just isn't hitting the right search terms. ThisQuietReverie, holy poo poo, what an awesome site. Glad to see my tax dollars paying for something. 
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Dec 9, 2010 00:40
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