Morning Shoot,Morning Edit...Good Morning Everyone!!

[ErikJonas]

Up at 5 Kaye was for her shoot this morning on near by Lake Cassidy....We sat in the car, waiting, hoping for a beautiful sunrise but that didnt happen..We did get some great shots though...Getting her out of bed at 5am on a saturday i figured i had to come up with something lol would of been nice if the sunrise would of given us some color....

this shot...7am...28 degrees....F22 , 1/180 ISO 200 with speed light full power...Still on the camera Asher so i could check....

Now back to meet up with Kaye and her mom to go dress shopping and get this girl some heels, then shoot some more....

Morning Everyone and have a great weekend....

Prior to shooting we were talking Kaye,Amanda and myself about movies where theres a creature and it gets the people be it in a swamp or lake setting lol gave us something to think about walking the path to the dock....

 

[Asher Kelman]

Erik,

I commend you on getting up so early and choosing a good woman for the shoot. This is a great initiative. I would have considered backing off so that she is not shot from such a close distance as this causes a distortion due to perspective. It's got nothing to do with the choice of lens, just the distance between you and her.

The other thing is that you are shooting into the light. You can do that pretty well with a Canon 50 1.2 L or Leica Summicron as these are coated to perfection to decrease flare. If you use the auto color, levels or contrast under the Image-Adjustments top menu in Photoshop or Elements, you will see a dramatic improvement and the glow in her hair will become magnificent.

Once again, your processing strips the picture of it's EXIF picture information. Did you shoot this in RAW? In any case PM me if you might send the original for me to try to edit and process myself.

Asher

 

[ErikJonas]

Asher....

Kaye is who should be commended as i said it was 28 degrees....Not too often a 16 yr old will want to get out of bed on a saturday morning...We were out there sunday morning at 6:30 as well trying for the spectacular sunrise but we got a lot of fog and could'nt see a thing...She was very gracious about not even getting one frame....Shes a hunter so shes use to early mornings and the cold...

On these shots i was wanting the sun flare...I was working that into the image...Shooting right into the sun though is very challenging...

As for the raw files...Asher i have said it before i dont have the storeage space...Even if tera bite drives were $20.00 its $20.00 i dont have....And the reason you asked if it was raw is because frankly you cant tell...I have not had one person say they were not going to buy my print as it was not shot raw...Further more no one has given me sound solid reason to shoot raw the stroage aside....They say well jpeg is a deteriating file.. Theres no need to open it more then once, none and thats a copy off the main one....They say well you can change the white balance in raw...I can do as much in jpeg....They say well jpeg is a compressed file...Yes but not so much that its screaming obvious CAUSE EVERYONE HAS TO ASK IF ITS RAW OR JPEG THEY CANT TELL....Storage is the key thing.Huge amounts of storage that i can not afford...And my prints sell, the prints look great and thats my biggest concern...

I have also been told oh well you HAVE to get photoshop...No...No i dont...Elements does all the basics which is all i need....

I'm not presenting this in any kind of defensive mode i'm just saying it more matter of this is where i am at and how i feel...Have another beer, on me even.....

 

[Asher Kelman]

Erik,

You keep saying you are selling your prints and so you should have no problems paying the trivial amount needed for storage. You keep talking about how good things sell, well they'll sell even better when you can finish up to the potential of the digital files inherent capability which you haven't used as yet.

Raw allows much gentler gradients of shade as your subjects are built and modeled from numbers to color and tone you can see. There's no comparison between what you can get with careful RAW processing to what a JPG will give you. Of course, JPGs are good enough for many things. JPGs of models from my studio are almost perfect, however the RAW is still more malleable and will continue to yield even better pictures as we get better RAW processing software. I simply changed from using Photoshop to Capture One and I have much greater ability to bring out features in the pictures and make variants than I had before.

Simply put, jpg's are not professional for use in natural light as there's not the same possibilities for dealing with shadowed areas and highlights that get lost in jpgs.

You can choose what file type you want. However, without shooting RAW, there's no point in you being in OPF as you will be left behind and will not reach your potential. You simply do not possess the data to present you images optimally. If you want to shoot JPG, carry lights with you and get perfect exposure and you can bipass RAW. That's what a few stubborn wedding photographers do and the labs have a workflow just for that. Everyone else shoots RAW! Certainly id you want to be a creative photographer and work on a file afterwards, you need to have stored the information your camera delivered.

Don't be stubborn, Erik! Take the leap. Sell one more print and buy a hard drive. It's that simple. The idea OPF is a place where we can help each other on our separate journeys. You however seek to travel handicapped and that means everyone else's energy to help you is handicapped. If you are a clear beginner, then we have plenty of patience. You, however, talk of your sales being so great. So there's no excuse. either you are going to be able to take advantage of the incredible expertise here shared freely or not. We have no interest with the folk who just are satisfied in selling postcards at the base camp when there's a great mountain for each of us to climb.

My job is to challenge you and not accept less than your best effort.

Asher