All Forum Comments
Comment by Don posted on photography is not a crime at 18/07/2012 - 13:55
simonkit wrote:
I admit to not really considering the longer primes, I've mainly being trying to convince myself I need a 15 or 21 but neither seem to quite good enough to get me to replace/supplement my DA17-70/DA 12-24. The only prime I have now is the FA35mm F2 which I like but rarely use
Thanks
Simon
so use it. put it on, leave your zoom at home and use it..for a week or two... then examine your results and decide if you need or want another prime to go with it.. it will be easier to decide what to buy after you've tried using the 35 seriously... longer/shorter foal length, faster vs macro.. once you look at what you can do with the one you got, you'll know where to start looking for the next one..Pentaxophile wrote:
Simon, you'll find a DA70mm would compress perspective in the same way - it's a focal length thing, not a zoom vs prime thing. I do actually wonder if you'd be happier with a longer prime, as I think those longer, faster ones do offer more of a benefit over a zoom, in terms of nice OOF rendering etc.
Yes, I didn't explain my point well I suppose and thinking about it, it's not really much of one....I was thinking more about the framing choice that a zoom gives you from the same viewpoint and therefore the choice between wide or compressed (zoom)..but you can obvioualy do that with 2 primesSimon, you'll find a DA70mm would compress perspective in the same way - it's a focal length thing, not a zoom vs prime thing. I do actually wonder if you'd be happier with a longer prime, as I think those longer, faster ones do offer more of a benefit over a zoom, in terms of nice OOF rendering etc.
I admit to not really considering the longer primes, I've mainly being trying to convince myself I need a 15 or 21 but neither seem to quite good enough to get me to replace/supplement my DA17-70/DA 12-24. The only prime I have now is the FA35mm F2 which I like but rarely use
Thanks
Simon
Comment by Don posted on What is the use of a prime ? at 16/07/2012 - 14:01
johnriley wrote:
The whole point is, if you have a camera that fails it won't fail on the morning of the wedding so you can get a replacement in one or two hours. It will fail on the wedding and there will be no excuses for not having a backup.
You could shoot wedding photos on an *istDS with kit lens if you had to and provided you had two of them.
There's a misconception that to be a professional you must have particular kit, whereas it would be much better to simply know what you were doing and have the ability to use whatever is at hand. Onviously there is some very specialised stuff, but weddings don't fall into that category.
as a wedding shooter who has shot weddings with a ds2 I can second your reasoning...The whole point is, if you have a camera that fails it won't fail on the morning of the wedding so you can get a replacement in one or two hours. It will fail on the wedding and there will be no excuses for not having a backup.
You could shoot wedding photos on an *istDS with kit lens if you had to and provided you had two of them.
There's a misconception that to be a professional you must have particular kit, whereas it would be much better to simply know what you were doing and have the ability to use whatever is at hand. Onviously there is some very specialised stuff, but weddings don't fall into that category.
people hire a pro, they expect TWO things:
1) Photos, not excuses....
2)better photos than they could do themselves....
as a pro you need back-up gear... and you need to be able to go into places and get the shots where the other guy comes back with excuses...
Comment by Don posted on Dream Pentax Kit... at 15/07/2012 - 17:24
the closest Pentax digital to the k1000 would be the Pentax kx.
after that who knows?
after that who knows?
Comment by Don posted on K1000 of the digital world at 15/07/2012 - 17:20
is it my imagination or is there a number of pentax primes over tha years that have focal lengths that are also prime numbers?
Comment by Don posted on What is the use of a prime ? at 10/07/2012 - 13:09
truthfully, I find this filter useful, but not particularly pleasing in the way it is used here.
the plastic wrap filter does wonders when applied to parts of an image... for example when applied to text or objects you want to make to look like they are wet... it is also great for applying burned texture to skin when making monster or zombie effects... but to throw over an entire image, just doesn't do anything for me.. had you applied it to an area of sand to creat a quicksand/mud effect, yes... but this one, sorry... doesn't add anything to the story, does nothing to make the photo more interesting.
the plastic wrap filter does wonders when applied to parts of an image... for example when applied to text or objects you want to make to look like they are wet... it is also great for applying burned texture to skin when making monster or zombie effects... but to throw over an entire image, just doesn't do anything for me.. had you applied it to an area of sand to creat a quicksand/mud effect, yes... but this one, sorry... doesn't add anything to the story, does nothing to make the photo more interesting.
Comment by Don posted on Plastic Wrap at 07/07/2012 - 19:35
"Don't be THAT guy..." followed by an anecdote of some guy with a big canon and no brains...
Comment by Don posted on What are your quotes in photography? at 07/07/2012 - 14:00
I tried some experiments once with my k10 that might actually work for lightening...
I plugged the headphone out from a digital recorder to the cable release socket for sound activated firing..
I also tried using a photoelectric cell to activate the shutter by light...
seems to me that if you wired the electric photocell and microphone element to a double headded cord and used the 10 second shutter speed, either the flash (ideal) or the sound (would only work if lightening was up close or a multiburst) might trip your shutter...
easier to build than you might thingk, only set you back a couple bucks IF you scrounge parts from say an old nightlight and an old recorder...
I plugged the headphone out from a digital recorder to the cable release socket for sound activated firing..
I also tried using a photoelectric cell to activate the shutter by light...
seems to me that if you wired the electric photocell and microphone element to a double headded cord and used the 10 second shutter speed, either the flash (ideal) or the sound (would only work if lightening was up close or a multiburst) might trip your shutter...
easier to build than you might thingk, only set you back a couple bucks IF you scrounge parts from say an old nightlight and an old recorder...
Comment by Don posted on Lightning trigger at 07/07/2012 - 13:54
Algernon wrote:
Just put a coloured gel over the flashgun on the background
what if... your background is too big and or you do not have enough lights to pull it off?Just put a coloured gel over the flashgun on the background
this is where setting a custom light balance to discolor EVERYTHING then gelling the lights you do have on your subject to correct the color on the subject comes in handy..
in my example I mentioned vampires and day for night... in order to shoot my subjects in the evening, in a cemetary, I set up my cameras white balance to turn the whole scene BLUE, then used ONE portable flash unit to light my vampire, giving the illusion that my sole normal colored vampire was in a moonlit night scene...
it really works, however the cameras sometimes have trouble doing the white balance with the gel in front of the lens (using white paper to read off helps)...
Cokin used to have a balanced filter set you could use for this effect with film. you basically got two filters in the kit, one for your lens the other for your flash.. any two colors work as long as the colors are opposites on the color wheel...
Alas there is a gulf between what is :-
legal - photographing people (children are people) in a public place for, say historical record
and moral - photographing children in a public place for nefarious purposes.
Sadly there are too many people who assume that a photographer fits into the latter and equally sadly there are those who commit crimes against children. Regretably the connection between the two is being blurred by emotions and photographers are being used as a scapegoat.
regards
Bernard
you can't be polite with some of these people....
and the police want to treat you like a criminal when you film them breaking the law or violating peoples rights, yet when the riots happen and the police want help identifying suspects, they ask you for your footage!
the right to bear cameras should be specifically spelled out in the constitution because it is the best and least violent means of defending yours or somebody else's rights!