[Burt]

August 11, 2006 at 1:31 am

Hey Eddie,
Some nice shots there. They would work well as part of a series if you have some other frames.
Some great stuff on your website by the way!
The nerve of you to be using darkrooms and chemicals- isn’t that cheating, in the digital age we struggle to get perfect blacks and archival qualitys etc…
chemicals in dark rooms is most definitely cheating.

Burt. :wink:

[Burt]

August 11, 2006 at 1:08 am

“I think the original one is more interesting and appealing. Her nose is an interesting character feature and doesnt need to be altered by airbrushing in my opinion.”

I would have to disagree. The subject of the photo is a highly stylised fashion type image of a girl. Under those conditions the objective is always to make the model look as good as possible. She is obviously wearing lots of make up and jewellery so why stop there?
The question is do you think she looks better in the original photo or the edited version? In my experience, if i offered the model the choice, 100% of the time she will choose option 2.

Its a common studio shoot problem and its the common action taken.

If it was a shot taken on the street in a reportage style then it would be other wise.

Burt

[Burt]

August 11, 2006 at 12:53 am

Hey Ben,
I havn’t used the new Hassy 39mp backs yet but use the phase one 22mp fairly regularily on a contax 645. 95% of the stuff we shoot, a 35mm DSLR does the business but if its a BIG job i will go for the medium format back. The backs are just in a whole other league. Its not just about the megapixels, medium format just gives everything that refined look. Photographers constantly try to argue that a canon 1DS is 16mp so a 22mp back is not much better, in practice its just not true.
But to answer your question ‘is it worth it’, in short NO. The hassy and back will set you back big bucks, most of your clients won’t appreciate the difference. When I need the extra wow factor, I beg, borrow or rent the backs.
If i was to invest in medium format digital I would be seriously looking at the mamiya ZD. I got a chance to try one a few weeks ago and was very impressed. Its less than half the price of a hassy,phase one or Aptus back. It uses the same Dalsa chip as the Aptus 22mp back.

Burt.

[Burt]

August 11, 2006 at 12:31 am

lorraine
I love this photo. You are crazy to worry about the shot not being pin sharp, photos don’t have to be totally sharp to work, just look at some of the pulitzer prize winning images. First objective has always got to be to get the shot, period. i am sure theres millions of award winning photos that were never taken because people think they have got to have it technically perfect, so miss the opportunity.
I often work on jobs with some well known press photographers who actually shoot with their cameras on fully automatic (exposure, focus etc..) but they get the shots time and time again.
I like the contrasty look, it works for the subject (its a gritty look), just dont blow the highlights on his hands and book (they look fine on your cropped version), The shadows are not as important.
I like your original crop better, it gives him a bit of space ‘to be thinking in’. I would just crop the top a bit, take out the buildings behind the wall and go in a bit on the top of his head.
You can NEVER take that photo again, but i don’t think you need to!

Burt.

[Burt]

August 10, 2006 at 11:59 pm

Hey Ross,
Nice shots.
Noses can be tricky but its the first thing Helen will look at! Those ladies can be pernickity when it comes to reality. I gave it a bit of a rough retouch which would work well if you tried it on the original file, hope you don’t mind!
Iwould also use amuch deeper and darker red on the background.

I like the Yolanda, shot too, did you smooth her skin tones?

[Burt]

August 6, 2006 at 6:14 pm

“Looks like a sepia version of mine Very Happy

For sepia to have an “authentic” look, you have to ensure only to add it to the shadow details. Hand printed sepia prints, the whites are still white, or at least sepia is added in far smaller proportions to the shadow detail.”

No actually, its a Duotone version of Marks :D
but thanks for the tutorial

[Burt]

August 6, 2006 at 5:48 pm

Well, since everyone is having a go……

[Burt]

August 1, 2006 at 4:07 pm

Nice Shot Lorraine, I gave it a bit of photoshopping, hope you don’t mind! Its got great potential.
Burt

[Burt]

July 31, 2006 at 12:21 pm

There are a couple of companies who deal with photographers insurance policies in Ireland but its not worth it unless you have at least 5 or 6 grands worth of gear to cover. Most policies will start at about ?450. If you are looking for cover for a D50 only i wouldn’t bother. You could add it to your home policy but if your camera was stolen outside your home it would be tricky!

[Burt]

July 29, 2006 at 5:42 pm

Depends on what you want to do with this lens. If its real Macro work, I dont see the point, VR haz zero effect in anything less than a couple of meters away. If its for portraiture etc.. I would go for the 85mm 1.4, will give you much more creative scope.
The 60mm Micro is one of the best lens Nikon make, RAZOR sharp and way cheaper than the 105 VR.

[Burt]

July 28, 2006 at 1:34 pm

Antifuse,
I have compared it to Rawshooter which I use regularily. For Product or Landscape photography Rawshooter is very good, it produces very detailed conversions but that if you need to process a few hundred files which contain people Rawshooter is a TOTAL non runner. Its almost impossible to get good skintones consistently unless you painstainkly convert each file individually.
Its also not really possible to compare Rawshooter with either Photoshop or Lightroom. Rawshooter is really only a Raw conversion programme while CS/lightroom give you much more scope for editing your files after conversion.
I was delighted to heat that Adobe have bought out Rawshooter, Rawshooter engineers are now part of the lightroom design team so we will all benefit by having a very well rounded conversion and editing tool.
The Rawshooter developers had always intended on selling out to one of the big players, it was obvious, you cant make money by giving away your software for free which is what they were doing, very few people ever upgraded to Rawshooter premium. Its fortunate that it was Adobe who they went with rather than one of the other options.

[Burt]

July 27, 2006 at 9:06 pm

I have tried Lightroom on a windows system and it seems to be very responsive in comparison to CS2 on the same machine. Its not a rocket but if your comparing it to CS2 you wont be disappointed. Like CS2 though it needs lots of ram, lots of ram meaning all the ram you can fit in your computer, anything less than 1G is a waste of time i think.
Lightroom is a Beta version at the moment so its not a finished product, Adobe want to know what we think it needs to add to the programme so theres no point in complaining later, try it now and email them your suggestions for improvements (or post on their forums). It has the potential to be a superb tool for anyone doing high volume work.

[Burt]

July 27, 2006 at 8:59 pm

If you’re after the high quality stuff, try Scopas Mouldings in Kilkenny. They deliver. They have a comprehensive range of fine art/ acid free mount board. Its not the cheapest but if want the best………………

[Burt]

July 27, 2006 at 8:55 pm

Ye you gotta love those Ken Rockwell reviews, the most indept reviews of camera gear you can find on the web and the amazing thing is he can do it before the equipment is even manufactured. Now that is impressive :D

[Burt]

July 25, 2006 at 4:00 pm

Now thats a whole other argument!!!

What I need is an Fmount to Fmount adaptor and get rid of the EOS bit altogether :P