Ezra Morley

If you have umbrellas, absolutely use them if you can! As long as the lights are bright enough to show up all, they should help fill in shadows and give that nice soft look that makes for nice portraits. You don’t have to break the bank to invest in speedlights if you’re not a hardcore “Canon” fan that can only used branded gear. 🙂 I use cheap…[Read more]

There is a beautiful window in the foyer that would be ideal for the formal portraits.

As you can see, it was not acceptable. 😀

I think I’m sensing a contradiction here. 🙂 I’m afraid the second statement is the more accurate one though. 🙁

If you would have raised the ISO and lowered the aperture, you might have gotten the face bright enough…[Read more]

Yes I’ve opened vectors in Photoshop, but I don’t know what Photoshop does with them after that.

Right, it can open them, but can’t save a “true” vector file. If your print shop absolutely REQUIRES a vector file in order to print, then you’ll need to use Illustrator/Inkscape (or find a different print shop 🙂 ) So far in my printing exp…[Read more]

So if I want to use Photoshop I would have to do a file 24″x72″ at 300dpi?

Correct, but you only need 150 DPI. 🙂 Just create a new file with those dimensions, add your text/vector graphics (making sure to leave at least an inch of margin all the way around to keep any important info from getting cut off) and then export to whatever file for…[Read more]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Photoshop can open vector files. Is that not all that is needed to design a banner? Unless you need to save a vector file, I don’t think you need Inkscape/Illustrator.

@blessingscaptured, how do you plan to print this banner? Your printing company should certainly have guidelines available for what sizes and…[Read more]

Hi Jennifer,
We can better help you if we have an idea of what kind of camera you’re looking for. 🙂 Do you need a DSLR, or are you wanting to start out with a compact point-n-shoot? (A DSLR with a good lens will be a little hard to find for less than $200)

I don’t have any cameras for sale right now, but I own and highly recommend the Canon…[Read more]

@loganlamar, what software are you using to view the RAW files? Do they look that way in your RAW editor?

And I have one more question. I am planning to use my camera with stabilizers for videography, so I am just curious if there are some different lenses I should get that are made for videography to use on my camera? That’s probably a no-brainer question one way or the other, but I’m still really new to videography.

Since Nikon cameras don’t hav…[Read more]

No problem, @hannahm! I was just wondering the other day if you had made any progress on that. 😐

I will be happy to take a look at it if you’d like. I’ll be in contact via email with more details…

Amen to all of the points above, especially #2 and #4.

I have read about, (and done some experiments on my own with) raising the exposure in LR versus raising the ISO in-camera, and in my experience there’s not even a detectable difference! (I didn’t want to believe it at first, but after seeing the results with my own eyes, I decided that I…[Read more]

First, what specific lens do YOU have? (i.e. I think it’s a Canon EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS STM).

I think it’s a EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6. Not sure which model though… 🙂

So, third, what mode were you shooting in (Av, Tv, M, P, etc.)

I think it was Manual mode. 🙂

What metering mode were you using?

I’m going to say it was “pattern / m…[Read more]

Hmmm…. That is quite a difference, but I think it’s not too hard to figure out what the problem is.

First, we are comparing a $1,600 lens to a $200 lens. I would hope that the expensive one does a little better! 🙂

But you have to realize that your exposure settings are quite different as well. Your camera is underexposed by more than a…[Read more]

The lenses are for a 35mm camera if I put them on a crop sensor camera what, if any, will the crop factor be? Would it be the same as with a full-frame to a crop sensor?

It should be the same crop factor as if you were using an FX lens on your DX camera body. So the 58mm will be ~87mm, and the 55mm will be ~82.5mm

Good suggestion, @loganlamar & @creative-click-photography! No need to call in the big guns if all you need is a USB cable… 🙂

@hannahm, if that suggestion does work, then I would suggest that you rescue all the photos and make sure they’re not corrupted, then format the SD card in your camera.

Here’s a tip for the future to prevent this from…[Read more]

Ouch!! I know the feeling very well. 🙁
Thankfully, if your camera can still read the files, all is not lost. If I had access to the disc, I’m reasonably sure I could recover your files within an hour (or two). However… since I don’t have access to the disk, it might be a little tricky to do that.

Is anyone in your immediate vicinity a…[Read more]

It’s a pleasure! 🙂

Well I have to confess, I have a general understanding of histograms but I don’t know a whole lot about them. 🙁 I think it’s about time I actually take the time to look into them and get a better understanding of them!

Sounds like a good idea! For what I’m talking about though, you don’t need to know much about his…[Read more]

Here are the settings I used for your file, @bennett-family. Note that these are a little drastic compared to my “normal” settings, because this photo needed some extra help.

Wow, thank you so much, buddingphotographer!

Last time we had a photo shoot, I had a ton of blown out highlights, so I think that’s part of why I ended up going to the other end of the spectrum this time around. 🙁 Maybe next time I’ll hit the perfect balance! 🙂

It’s a pleasure!!

This is why I advocate shooting RAW and enabling the histogram dur…[Read more]

Here’s a comparison with the file you posted earlier…

I’m not sure what your editing software was doing, but it was definitely blurring your photo more than it should have been. 🙁

Here’s a dropbox folder with the full-res and a few smaller resized versions for web and printing if you’d like to use my edit.…[Read more]

As I recall, there was a LOT more sunshine at first, so I think that’s why it ended up being ridiculously underexposed when the shadows came in at this point.

That’ll do it… 🙁

I received your original files on Dropbox, and popped them into Lightroom for a little rinse-n-shine! 🙂 First of all, this is why I shoot RAW, instead of J…[Read more]