yup. point and shoot for those two shots. the macro ability on this camera is pretty nice. thats all ive been doing since ive gotten it. haha. i got it exactly because of the same reason you got yours. i really love my DSLR too, but sometimes if i dont come back with some nice photos, i feel like it was a waste to lug that thing with me all the time. i plan on bringing my DLSR with me only if i anticipate some nice photos. otherwise, the little powershot is enough for me to keep me from having the sting of āaww, i wish i had my camera on meā moments.
28-105 for 130? thats not bad for that lens. i think it was the kit lens for the 40Ds at one point (may need confirmation). thats a nice range for walk-around. hmmā¦ about your tamron thoā¦ 40 isnt muchā¦ i dont know too much about the optical quality of that tamron, but from specs alone, it has a min focus dist. of 2.3ā vs. the 28-105s 1.6ā. that alone would make me favor the canon lens because youd have some more versatility in shooting. and the canon lens has USM, which is pretty nice. speeds up the focusing and keeps it quiter by a bit. i dont know if the tamron has usm (or the equivalent) but if you cant find any reason to keep it, you should take that 40 and put it toward a nice backdrop/stand.
i used to use a PVC frame to hold my backdrop (velvet curtains) up, but i was getting frustrated with them since they dont really have a lot of vertical support. a backdrop stand (+backdrop) was one of my favorite upgrades. it was easier to pack/unpack and it looked super professional. This is pretty much what i got. it even comes with a carry bag if you have to take it with you (which i do sometimes). it hold backdrops that are up to 8.5ā long, maybe 9ā. i use rolls of paper now, theyre cheaper. :razz:
Yeah, the Tamron is decent, its what Iāve been using when iām not using my 50mm f/1.8 fixed lens. But I know that this Canon lens is a definite upgrade, so Iām probably going to get rid of the Tamron. Iāll look into getting that backdrop stand, it definitely looks like its worth it. Thanks for the recommendation.
so youre going to have a 2 lens set up? the 28-105 + 50? thats awesome. im envious of your light set. if i could afford a 2nd set up, it would be similar to that.
the canon ef 50mm f1.8 + any lens would be an awesome set, but id definitely look into a 17-40L. id love that lens.
Yeah, I have another Tamron lens that has a farther range, also, but I donāt see the need for the Tamron I mentioned earlier since the new lens is going to cover the same range. So Iāll have three lenses but I donāt use the longer lens very often. Iām excited for the new one though :-D.
Thanks, I really like my light set right now. Iām thinking of getting a cheap vivitar 285hv or similar when I get a chance cause I see some nice things you can do with 3 lights. I blame Rei for introducing me to strobist.com.
I was just talking to a friend of mine though, who does professional photography on the sideā¦ he has 4 L lenses :-(. Iām jealous.
These days, I own three of those lenses, and as far as bang for the buck goes, it is great. You guys may remember that had two, I lost one on a shoot. Eventually got two others. The funny part is that I got the last two for about 200 bucks each, and one came with a EOS 30 film camera, and the other came with a A2e w/vertical grip.
Although, if you are thinking about paper, I would go with that first, because paper takes to gelled backdrop lighting better than a grey twist-flex.
Paper is awesome, here is my son on some paper.
Preach on brother. When Iām shooting film, Iām normally using the 28-105 plus an 85 prime, and when Iām shooting crop, I use the 17-40 and the 50/1.8. The only thing that I donāt like about the 17-40 is that it is larger than the 28-105. With the 28-105, I can carry both bodies with lenses attached, but with the 17-40s, I have to carry one body without the lens attached. I would say that 28-105 on crop is better to start with because most people starting out tend to be on the long end, and as you get more comfortable interacting with the people that you are shooting, your focal lengths will start shortening.
Anyway, I wonāt leave this thread without images, so here are a few set-up images from a school Iām shooting this week (taken with my camera phone), and another picture of my son that I took while on another shoot.
Iām on cloud nine right now. Just got back from a concert where I was actually allowed to bring in my camera. I think this is the first time I got to shoot pictures of a band that I really liked. I havenāt gone through everything yet, but hereās a couple early favorites.
i love shooting live concerts. i cant stand it when they make note that āprofessionalā cameras arent allowed. cuz my āprofessionalā was teh only camera i had. -_- awesome pictures. really impressed how still you got them to come out.
Finally broke down and got a 70-200. Figured that I was renting it enough to finally justify buying it. I mainly use the 70-135 range, but I got a new cool trick. I pack a 17-40 on the 40D and the 70-200 on a film camera. That gives me a pretty nice 28-200 effective range, and if I want to go ultrawide or telephoto, I just swap the lenses and I have an effective range of 17-40 and 100-300.
i had a nice weekend of portrait shooting and decided to share some of the behind the scenes stuff and tell you about the set up
in this pic:
-grey paper roll backdrop supported by interfit backdrop stand with extendable cross bar
-3x smith victor light stands
-large white bounce card hung on light stand with pant hanger
-430ex
-580exII behind smith victor mutli-use umbrella
-quantaray tripod
-canon eos 350D with 85mm 1.8 and ST-E2
this is the way i typically set it all up.
-the 430ex is raised high above my model and is used as a hair light.
-the 580exII is diffused by teh umbrella and is used as the key light.
-the bounce card is used to bounce back some of the light from the 580exII as fill light to soften the shadows.
-both speedlights are triggered by the ST-E2.
i should have included a stand in model or something to show you guys how all these things are positioned relatively.
here are some examples from this set up with some variations.
strobist:
580exII assigned to A
camera right
430ex assigned to B
camera left
triggered by st-e2 set to hss ratio 4:1
strobist:
1x canon 430ex
set to ratio B
bare bulb
on a light stand ~5ft high tilted down
camera left
1x canon 580ex mkII
set to ratio A
shot through umbrella
on light stand ~5ft high tilted down
camera right
triggered by canon st-e2 set on hhs ratio 8:1
hope this helps some of you guys. please feel free to critique.
Nice. I see you finally ended up getting the 580. I think that I already told you this, but the thing that I hate about the 580EXII is that they removed the slave switch, and now you have to go through menus to enable and disable it. Funny enough, your setup looks almost identical to a setup that I used recently. I carry a pair of 580s and a 430 with umbrella stand adapters in my bag these days as a backup to the alien bees, and last month I had to break them out.
So, basically, here is the camera phone setup shot.
In the bag is a 40D and a 30D, both with kit lenses (gasp) and both with a 580EX on master mode. The reflector isnāt set up yet, but the stand that it goes on is visible on the left. I flag the on camera flash and hit the reflector with it for rim. Then on the left is a 430 on slave with a bounce, and on the right is the 580 on slave in a shoot-thru. Here is a test shot of my sister-in-law and my son to show what the final product looks like.
Funny thing is that if I had dropped out the saturation on my image, and removed the umbrella from my 430, I would have got a very similar shot to what blooper got. I still donāt trust ettl ratios, so if Iām going for ratio lighting like blooper, Iād just as soon use the manual mode settings. It just shows how much of an old man I am.
yea, im pretty iffy about the ratios also. 8:1 and 4:1 almost look identical, which they shouldnt. but its a lot easier to have faith in the ettl ratio than to manually set it yourself. the missing slave switch on the 580exII doesnt bug me too much, its just a few button presses at the beginning of set up and you almost dont have to go back to it unless you want to switch it out of slave mode for any reason.
i got the speed lights because of the portability. other than that, they dont put out much power and i have to use high ISO all the time when i shoot indoors with them. and the IR system for canon isnt too bad, for my uses anyway.
Just came back from a trip to Chicago. Here are a few pics, nothing too nice. I just got a trial version of Adobe Lightroom 2 so I messed around a little more than usual with some of the processing of these pics. Not too much though. Still learning the software.
Thanks. I was able to finally really test out that 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens that I picked up a few weeks ago.
The blue tint wasnāt totally intentional, it was just to counteract the warm WB when I was processing them. Turned out a little too cool, I guess. This was my first time using Lightroom so Iāll figure it out eventually, haha.
