[ratpack] Re: First shoot of the year (and a little issue with Canon service)
- From: John Christensen <johncgg@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:41:21 -0600
Nice Stuff Ray.
I got a cleaning kit in the mail for my sensor on the Rebel. Now I just have
to figger out how to use it.
JC
---
John Christensen
Saint Charles, IL
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 8:19 PM, Ray Buck <rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I shot the Auto Expo today. I talked my way into a media pass (I'd
> exchanged email with a guy previously and he told me who to see, but I had
> to convince her...and I did. I ended up with a badge that said "Ray the
> Rat" <G>) and started shooting before the Mongol Hordes descended on the
> place. For those in Utah, I'll mention that it was the South Towne Expo
> Center. I've shot shows there before...maybe 4 or 5 times. I've hated it
> because of the guard rails, crowds and mostly the lighting. I decided to do
> things a little differently this time.
>
> First of all, after a couple of shots, I decide that I wouldn't shoot any
> white, silver or pewter-colored cars...and very few black ones....well, very
> few. That made it like shooting wildflowers in a meadow. The red, blue,
> yellow and orange cars were bright spots interspersed among the jellybean
> lookalikes.
>
> I used the 7D, the Sigma 17-70 f2.8, the 430 Speeedlite and a tripod. I
> also used (mostly) a Sto-Fen diffuser for the flash. Getting there early
> helped avoid the crowds for...well, to a great extent. I don't think I'll
> be going back Saturday afternoon when the place is crawling with untamed
> house apes.
>
> As far as the guard rails, I did my best to adjust the height or angle of
> the camera to minimize their intrusion. That left the lights.
>
> In the past, the glare from a million different light sources gave me fits.
> I could edit some of 'em out, but I still had a hell of a time with 'em.
> This time, I decided to try making the lights work for me instead of
> against me. I can't say I was 100 percent successful, but not bad. A lot
> better than before. The diffuser on the flash helped a lot too. Mainly I
> tried to integrate the pattern of the lighting into the photo to draw the
> eye to the car or highlight one thing or another on the cars. I'll have to
> find a good example of that to post. I found that using the diffuser on the
> flash at a 45 degree angle (sometimes 60 degrees) worked the best for most
> shots.
>
> That's another thing. I tried to minimize the number of shots I took, as
> well as minimize the amount of post-processing (leveling, cropping, etc) so
> that I could just resize, add a watermark and save the shot for use on the
> web. One shot, one kill sorta thing.
>
> And another: I used long exposures without the flash (or some with it, as
> well as a long exposure.) I found that between 6 and 20 seconds turned
> people into something that looked like dust clouds or didn't show at all.
> I'd done this a year ago, but it's kinda hard to do on a monopod. The
> attached shot of a Hyundai Genesis shows a blurry figure looking at the spec
> sheet. It's just a shot that I found as a quick example.
>
> One more: I played with different exposure times on a Lincoln Explorer
> clone...whatever they are. MKT is the model. A crossover...or cross-eyed
> or something. I'm not sure if the shot I attached worked or not. It might
> be like some that Paul's done by blowing 'em up to 20x30. I'll try an 11x14
> and see what happens.
>
> As a summation of all of this, I'm pretty pleased with the way things
> turned out. I'll have something on my server soon.
>
> Last but certainly not least, I came home to find an email from the Canon
> Repair Center telling me that it would cost $124 to repair the broken lens
> lock on the 18-200mm lens. I did my best to explain that it wasn't the
> result of mis-use, but rather an engineering defect, since I'm certainly not
> the only one to report this...there are several on Canon's own site stating
> it. All I could get was a 20 percent reduction in the charge. This one
> ain't over. I'm gonna write a rather scathing review of the product
> wherever I can and then forward the links to Canon, with hopes of getting
> the email to someone other than a gatekeeper who'd just delete it and forget
> about it. This ain't right. It's a lousy design; a cheap piece of plastic
> and their attitude was, "we only warrantee factory defects." Stay tuned.
>
> RtR
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