Lenspiration | Matthew Stevens | Activity https://www.lenspiration.com/members/mrstevens/activity/ Activity feed for Matthew Stevens. Thu, 04 Jun 2026 22:08:20 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v= en-US 30 hourly 2 e4e443366ac7348df0acb870cb8b2931 Matthew Stevens's profile was updated https://www.lenspiration.com/activity/p/7081/ Fri, 19 Jan 2018 01:17:46 -0500 0 816f47e0f60e8d458a7a1766630943fb Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Your most practical lens for event photography AND portraits in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/your-most-practical-lens-for-event-photography-and-portraits/#post-28444 Fri, 19 Jan 2018 01:16:39 -0500 +1 for what James said… For all purpose shooting where I don’t know exactly what I’m going to encounter, for a full frame I mostly leave my f/4 24-120mm on the camera (with a DX body the same went for my 16-85mm, which was the same effective focal range). For event shooting where I typically can’t get too close to the subjects, or I want to…Read more

]]> ae24744f2ff26473fca11f46e3e07ed5 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Nikon D3400 vs D5300 in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/nikon-d3400-vs-d5300/#post-28443 Fri, 19 Jan 2018 01:01:53 -0500 I would be a bit careful about using ken rockwell as a source.. from his About page: “This website is a work of fiction, entirely the product of my own imagination and personal opinion.”

He does have some true stuff on there, but picking the truth out of the “entertainment” as he calls it can be more trouble than it is worth (and I say that from…Read more

]]> 4e1ef06632ed96f3651e915ece61cc50 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic What's your recommended Nikon FX camera? in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/whats-your-recommended-nikon-fx-camera/#post-27186 Sun, 03 Dec 2017 03:45:10 -0500 There’s a couple reasons a sports photographer (which I’d assume the adorama guy was) to choose the D500 over the 750. One is buffer capacity (basically the super fast memory built into the camera, where it stores the data off the sensor momentarily before writing it to the much slower SD card) is larger on the D500. That’s why it can shoot 10fps…Read more

]]> 3a7e09e2b434e3770a13292a33ce8845 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Getting Organized in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/getting-organized/#post-26317 Fri, 20 Oct 2017 03:17:57 -0400 for #1 and 2, I pretty much do what James describes.

As far as cloud backups, I don’t use any sort of live cloud backup system like photostream on an iphone, or like the new Lightroom CC that was just announced today. That’s largely because of a) slow internet, and b) cost. It’s just not practical for me with my relatively limited internet…Read more

]]> 7054ebd225cbf4efff6c366f5f4bb583 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic What's your recommended Nikon FX camera? in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/whats-your-recommended-nikon-fx-camera/#post-24360 Wed, 05 Jul 2017 13:01:06 -0400 I just upgraded from a D7100 to a D750. Both are great cameras, the main reason for the upgrade was that I do a lot of night time photography, astro etc., as well as some indoor stuff in dark places (auditoriums). The D7100 does a good job under these circumstances with a fast lens (just ask James, he’s seen what it can do), but the low light…Read more

]]> 726f111ad2f0539e4c1f89c490310ce3 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Exporting format? in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/exporting-format/#post-17019 Wed, 25 May 2016 12:29:19 -0400 Well, the same thing applies to GIMP. I do a lot with gimp, there’s some stuff it does better that PS. You still wind up losing image quality on every save because of how jpeg compression works, so just work with tif until you’re finished making your edits, then export as jpeg. That way you get max quality + small files. 16 vs. 8 bit has less to…Read more

]]> 5684bd231a2819f70a7d84105344ed76 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Exporting format? in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/exporting-format/#post-17019 Wed, 25 May 2016 12:29:19 -0400 Well, the same thing applies to GIMP (except the 16 bit part). I do a lot with gimp, there’s some stuff it does better that PS. You still wind up losing image quality on every save because of how jpeg compression works, so just work with tif until you’re finished making your edits, then export as jpeg. That way you get max quality + small files.

]]> 5fe74dd490503c27dca38fc439acf939 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Exporting format? in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/exporting-format/#post-17013 Wed, 25 May 2016 00:37:24 -0400 Basically, if I am going to edit a photo further outside of Lightroom, I will export a tiff. Otherwise, it goes out as jpeg. Like, say I needed to do some touchup work with the healing brush or whatever in Photoshop, I’ll save a tiff out of Lightroom and then work on it in Photoshop. The ONLY reason for this is that tiffs are lossless…even if…Read more

]]> e66a2c53b13417a9e8f6c39a2d4664fd Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Camera Backpacks in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/camera-backpacks/#post-17012 Wed, 25 May 2016 00:21:55 -0400 I use an fstop lotus http://shop.fstopgear.com/us/product/mountain/lotus.html

Kind of expensive, but totally worth it. I’ve hiked with it, flown with it, loaded it down with more weight than it’s supposed to hold… It’s water resistant, you can get a rain cover for it, modular straps for tripod/camping gear, you can change the ICU inserts for…Read more

]]> 09fe1ec597135a36f4f3df942b2d01ef Matthew Stevens replied to the topic merging catalogues in Lightroom in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/merging-catalogues-in-lightroom/page/2/#post-15172 Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:31:24 -0500 As long as the XMP files are in the same directory as the raw images (not in subdirectories, but just mixed in there with the raw files), and have the same filename as their respective raw images, Lightroom should read them automatically.

If not, assuming the images have been added to Lightroom, go to the metadata menu and click “read metadata from file.”

]]> 0230725bfdf63b9b24f2053323d1b433 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic merging catalogues in Lightroom in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/merging-catalogues-in-lightroom/page/2/#post-14526 Fri, 06 Nov 2015 21:47:50 -0500 The metadata in a DNG file is actually still XMP data (it can be stored in other formats too, such as exif). The difference is that it just gets recorded right into the DNG file itself rather than in a sidecar file. So, with DNG its the same story as the .xmp sidecar files, there’s still no edit history, collections info, flags, etc. That stuff…Read more

]]> 134d9a90fa45a61796aa466556c000f5 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic merging catalogues in Lightroom in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/merging-catalogues-in-lightroom/page/2/#post-14516 Fri, 06 Nov 2015 00:44:56 -0500 for future information, the whole import-as-a-catalog thing is how I manage using Lightroom on my desktop and laptop. Whenever I am on a trip or whatever using my laptop (which has limited storage space), I’ll just start up a temporary catalog on there and do all my imports, backup, tag/sort my photos, etc while on the road. Then, when I get back…Read more

]]> 9ee3eb66e3d49bdc92677986d119b3bc Matthew Stevens replied to the topic merging catalogues in Lightroom in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/merging-catalogues-in-lightroom/#post-14457 Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:40:53 -0500 LR 6/CC zips them up by default now, which definitely helps with storage space! I also have it set up so the backups save to my backup drive(s), rather than to the default location (never understood why you would ever want your backups to end up in the same place as your original catalog)

]]> be59c8095020b16e5e215b094f1cf91a Matthew Stevens replied to the topic merging catalogues in Lightroom in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/merging-catalogues-in-lightroom/#post-14457 Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:40:53 -0500 LR 6/CC zips them up by default now, which definitely helps with storage space!

]]> 02da67be69ec8d54c36a83f6fb3707b0 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic merging catalogues in Lightroom in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/merging-catalogues-in-lightroom/#post-14454 Wed, 04 Nov 2015 12:58:02 -0500 Just FYI the metadata that gets written to the XMP files do not include the full history of edits that were made on the photo.I was always under the impression that XMP was sort of a backup of all my edits, flags, etc. that would stay with the image no matter where it went, but it turns out this is not the case. It is true that your edits get…Read more

]]> eb9aaac398d47167d55bcc6aed1f3502 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Any Tips on Moon Photography? in the forum Photo Critique https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/any-tips-on-moon-photography/page/3/#post-13750 Sat, 26 Sep 2015 14:17:38 -0400 Check here for exact times in your local area. It’s going to be a late night for us here on the east coast… 🙂

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2015-september-28

]]> 7404d9104e2065320809c82f08d5a294 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Color issues with Photoshop in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/color-issues-with-photoshop/#post-12463 Thu, 30 Jul 2015 22:00:23 -0400 Great! Nice shot, btw.

Matthew

]]> 67bb9df8142910acc079cce44b013bf6 Matthew Stevens changed their profile picture https://www.lenspiration.com/activity/p/1285/ Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:36:10 -0400 0 c10df2a00aa715a4f267b112ca3d0dc6 Matthew Stevens changed their profile picture https://www.lenspiration.com/activity/p/1284/ Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:35:27 -0400 0 1ca5fa41bded13091168ec5198596b65 Matthew Stevens replied to the topic Color issues with Photoshop in the forum Photography Q&A https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/color-issues-with-photoshop/#post-12457 Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:31:29 -0400 Try using Export>Save for Web instead of the normal export dialog. It offers options to fix this that the standard export doesn’t.

Your problem is that many web browsers (and other applications too) are not able to display the same amount of colors that Photoshop and many other professional editing apps. So basically, you are exporting an image…Read more

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