Ashanali

We bought the lens you wanted today. It's purdy.

We have been putting off buying new lenses (they were going to be christmas presents to ourselves)... been keeping an eye on price. In the last TWO DAYS the price of the lenses we were after has increased from 100 - $500!!! So I quickly did some super-sleuthing and found a Canon 70-200 2.8 IS for $2188 online. We called up as we are going to collect it and pay for it when we got there tomorrow. The guy on the phone said the price is going up in the morning to $2700!!! He recommended paying online so that we got the web price. ( camerasdirect.com.au) I then found the lens that I wanted. With postage and insurance it was $475 (50mm 1.4). Have been looking everywhere online and most places have it over $580. (quickshop.com.au) If you want your camera gear, I suggest you get onto asap. Either that or wait out the financial crisis for the next year before committing to bigger gear. I just wish I had a little bit extra so I could grab an 85mm 1.8 I will just have to wait for that one.

Lots of wildlife photographers will have monopods to steady gear. Either that or they spend tens of thousands on super fast lenses. :rolleyes:

yep... what luke said. With the lenses... unless you have steady hands, you will need IS over about 100mm ("either IS or a monopod - IS is less cumbersome though :rolleyes: ). while our $ is crap, look at purchasing through photobuff.com.au - works out around the same as importing.

Abbey - you can buy 'actions' or you can create your own. As anyone can tell you with PS - there are countless ways to do any one thing. Personally, I haven't really liked any of the 'antique' actions that I have found so I ended up writing my own which is very simple. first, creat a colour layer. click the shadows box and boost the red and the yellow. ( cyan - red to about +18, yellow - blue to about -18 ) Next, open a hue/saturation layer. Click on the colourise box Make the 'hue' 25 Make the saturation '25' then click ok. Now on the layers table, change to opacity of the hue/saturation layer so that you can just start to see the colours come through underneath. Adjust it to acheive the look you want. done. As I said, countless ways to do any single thing. You may like this recipe, you may not. You might find it will work well for some photos but not for others. It won't hurt to give it a try.

Since you have done the reading and found it useful, here is a great little photoshop trick that you can use in levels. Open an image and create a levels layer You will now have that little levels graph in front of you with the needles that can be moved in the shadows, midtones and highlights. If you press the alt key while moving the shadow and highlight needles, it will show you the pixels it is altering. You will now see exactly which pixels will be black and which will be white. The more black, the less detail that can be seen in the shadows, the more white, the more over exposed the image will look.

pretty much. When I was selling cameras, I would explain it this way: You could go out and buy the most awesome fantastical super mega pixelled camera and still take crap photos because giving a newbie a top of the line camera is like giving a learner driver a Mac Truck. Sure you could probably do a few things with it but there is no way you'd really get a grasp on it straight away. Start out on something basic (the ones they call 'entry level' ) learn little bit by little bit, then when your skill outgrows the camera - upgrade. Some people never outgrow the entry level gear, others are ready to upgrade within a few months. However the 'entry level' gear is a good (and cheap) way to find out where you are headed with your photography.

There are lots of step by step tutorials online that range from beginner to advance. Just google them and you will have a whole new world at your fingertips.

Rocco - yep, that graph thing Just as Ruthless said... you read it the same way you read the levels graph. (if you need more info, start another thread and I'll explain it to you.) also, if you want to get rid of it from the back of your camera, view an image and then press the 'info' button. It will take the image to full screen and get rid of the graph.

Rocco - you can shoot on a high ISO and not have a lot of noise if your image is correctly exposed. We often shoot weddings on as high as 6400 ISO without much noise at all (flashes in churches look icky). Start looking at histograms on the back of your camera and learn how to read them (if you don't already). Reading the histograms makes a HUGE difference when you are shooting.

tadpole... I was going to play around with an idea similar to yours. :D I still might give it a try. Who knows?

I like pre madonna better. It reminds me of Pixel. Two chai was another beauty ;)

Nah Rocco, I was jesting... I wasn't picking on your technique, was just saying that you reminded me of the conversation. Obviously not everyone who uses it (or requests it) is a bogan, just that 'bogans' seem to be the ones who just drool over it. We too have a few images hidden away that we have done spot colouring and it has worked. (we just try not to show them to clients ) Spot colouring has brought tears to my eyes in the past. I had a client last year that went on and on about having a certain photo with spot colouring (rose petals thrown up in the air). There were so many rose petals it took me three hours to do it right. I also did up another version of the same image that I thought was better and only took me five minutes. After all her carry on, which image do you think she chose? it wasn't the spot coloured one. The fad now is with desaturated colour rather than spot colouring. Like all things, this fad will be sure to pass also. As I brought up in the conversation with the other photographers... In the industry we are sick of spot colouring because we have seen it done over and over, however clients haven't and they think it is wonderful. Give the people what they want

Was with a group of photographers the other night and the conversation turned to spot colouring and how much it is loathed in wedding photos... we have now officially called it 'bogan colouring' because you can be certain that bogans will always go, "wow! That looks awesome! How'd ya do that? Can you do that to my photos too?" Sorry Rocco, your photo just reminded me of the conversation. (your sister is gorgeous btw)

kja - I'll be in that. Will PM you.

Okay... the spiel from my sales days... The 400D, 450D, 300D and so on are the consumer range The 20D, 30D, 40D and so on are the pro-sumer range The 5D and going up to the 1DS MarkIII (*drool*) and so on are the professional range The consumer range have plastic chassis and are a great intro to the DSLR. The prosumer range is for serious hobbyists up to professionals. Metal chassis, a few more little features, better quality parts. Not huge differences from the consumer range but for those that know what they want to do with the images, the differences are worth it. The professional range. Awesome quality. Unfortunately, different lens mounts from the rest of the range. It is expected that when shooting at this level you are prepared to pay for all the extras like specific lenses and top quality flash guns. Ahhh... wouldn't it be nice? We stick with prosumer. It is hardy and does what we need it to do without costing a fortune... and yes, if we are suddenly caught without a flash for some reason, we can use the pop-up

Format. Every time you 'delete', the image info is still retained. Bit by bit, the card builds up memory until it is full of useless info. (this is why recovery software works). When you format, you are getting rid of EVERYTHING. Recovery software does not work on a formatted card.

If you have a 5D then you wouldn't waste your time with onboard flash It's like putting a velcro zip in a designer dress.

Wht's the budget? :D

nothing wrong with Sigma lenses. Avoid the ridiculously cheap ones and you will be fine (I used to work for the importer).

40d is fun.

My old faithful is a *istD. (I also got mine direct as I used to work for CR Kennedy ). It has served me very well through many wedding shoots. Nowadays my kids use it and it is still going strong with only minor issues such as hot pixels. Pentax products are very reliable and their after sales service is brilliant.

She's still alive... but feeling very guilty and worried about finding the money to pay for a new flash. I haven't worked with her on location, but apparently she is easily sidetracked while shooting. I dare say that she won't misplace anything from now on.

actual sigma stuff I already get a good price on (being a former employee) - will check out all those links though. Thanks! Turns out we now need a new flash today also... the assistant who is working with Alex while I am off doing baby duties left the good flash on location. She left his full camera bag on location last week - luckily it was there when they went back. Can't say the same for the flash today though.

Ripley - do you have a link to the place you bought your lens from? We are looking at getting a few more lenses while the dollar is strong.