kja

Mark Ridout (Canadian people tog) has a good post up that might help with this month's challenge. He was hired by a family to replace a big rectangular art canvas with something of the family. So he used six square canvas prints to fill the space and make it totally about the family.

That is exactly what the challenge is all about!

Pawprints - more or less. The real goal is to visualize the crop before you shoot. To see your scene and know that you want it to look non-traditional. So know that you are shooting to crop square (1:1) or panorama before you press the button. Of course, sometimes you take an image that works great in a more traditional ratio, but then you look at it again and thing "wow, I'll bet this would rock as a 1:1 or panorama (or whatever)" - those are good, too!

FWIW the ratio of a DSLR (bar Olympus) is 3:2 as Ash said above. For those of you who are shooting with compact cameras, your standard ratio is 4:3. It will probably not make a huge difference as you frame for 1:1 or panorama, but it will definitely make a difference if you try to take your compact camera's image to the printer and ask for 4x6 - you'll lose part of your image (for those shooting dslrs, if you try to print an industry standard 8x10, you'll be losing two inches off the long edge which you totally need to keep in mind when you frame your shots)

Ooo, lots of new toys! Great to hear you're having fun with them

Hi, All! Clicking - love that aerial shot RottnBullies - very cute set up! How are you all enjoying this challenge? I'm shooting daily but not sharing a lot. Don't know why...

Thanks for the link, Helen!

New bag arrived today Review & photos coming soon!

Just be aware that hiring = lens lust that you can't shake I rented a couple of lenses a few months ago and ended up putting an enormous dent in my pocket when I decided that the stupidly expensive lens WAS that much better than the already excellent less expensive option. Had I not tried the gold plated one I would have been more than happy with the cheaper version and never have known what I was missing (and had $1000+ still in my pocket!) ;) Have fun!!

LOL I know, it's always something, though. These new ones don't make the current crop of 70-200s bad - they are still awesome lenses that I wouldn't hesitate to own if I needed one now. Canon is putting out the Mk II version of its stellar 70-200 2.8 IS. I have no interest in changing from my Mk I.

Well under Canon's offerings for sure. Sigma has always done very nice things with their pricing if you don't need that range now, waiting would seem to be prudent ;)

Some look yummy! Sigma lens discussion and more links btw - the lenses nominated as "full frame" in that thread can quite happily be used on crop sensors.

New toys!!! Congratulations - looks like you're have a ball with it already

Cesar's fabulous pitbull, Daddy, died on the 19th He was such a character and I think he was a good ambassador for his breed and all "aggressive" dogs.

wohoo!! rocking!!!

Fantastic action shot!!

wooohooo!!! Awesome on the email from Canon! Crossing fingers that they use it everywhere and you get the big bucks

Great that Camera Clinic was able to get it done! They should definitely be in a master list of camera links if DOL ever develops one!! As for my slightly OT comments, they were not specifically aimed at you or at this incident. Your camera breaking at a time when you had plans to use it simply was an excellent illustration of how Mr Murphy loves to muck with us and I thought it was timely since there's been so many people moving in this direction. No offense was intended, only sharing experience and information.

I sure hope you can get a fix fast! This is a bit of an aside but I see more and more DOLers looking at doing photography as at least a part-time business. IMHO NEVER accept an assignment unless you have a backup of every vital bit you need. Relying on the kindness of strangers and your friends might work sometimes, but what if it doesn't? And it won't help you when that bad thing happens in the middle of a shoot. There's so much more to being a pro photographer - even if you're doing it in a very small way - than simply being good at capturing a photo. You need to know that you have both your client and yourself protected thoroughly.

More daily photos added and this week's TOLT is up on the blog

You can still fish in the waters off Coral Bay You just can't fish right at the shoreline.

You know you want one! And $75 off is awesome!!! I think it's expiring pdq

Yay!!!

Just email her your order (copy from the shopping cart) and tell her you're going to ring her :rolleyes:

hehee - +1 and balasana with my knees spread out and arms forward is the other way usually how I end up LOL