going professional

[Ms. Tia]

I have been an amature photographer since being on the yearbook staff (15+ years ago). Recently I have found myself neck deep into taking pictures for a local midwife. We live in a small rural area and a professional studio is not a luxury here. So I agreed to take pictures of pregnant women, couples and their infants. It has been a joy. I love it. My issue is the quality of pictures I am taking. I have yet to collect any money for these pictures because they are not what I would call professional grade. Now, I am having requests from nearby cities for my pictures. I need to have professional quality and fast. HELP. I am currently using a Fuji 4700 finepix. It is a loaner and not a good one at that. I am looking at the 10D and a good general lense. My pictures are focused on silhouettes, semi-silhouettes, closeups of hands, feet etc. and some basic portrait settings. What would you fine people out there recommend for me?? Many thanks, Tia

[lightandlife]

Even amateurs use L glass. So you should get 10D and 24-70mm L.

The latter will cover your immediate needs. Later, you may acquire 85mm L ($1200) for portraits. 50mm L is too expensive for portraits, and 50mm 1.4 will do fine.

[lime]

Without knowing your budget, I don't think you need an "L" lens right away.
You can probably start with a 50mm 1.8 (80mm on 10D) for less than $100 & get quality pictures.

[cowman345]

I agree, you don't need L glass to take professional photography. The 50mm 1.8 lens is perhaps a bit "cheaper feeling" than an L lens, but the optics are great, and you can't beat the price. I'd save money on lenses for the time being and use your funds for more immediate needs such as studio strobes (www.alienbees.com for some great ones) or other lighting equipment.

I think there's one thing most of us will agree on, and that is you can't go wrong with a 10D, it's a fantastic camera. I dropped that 1500 dollars without glancing back and never regretted a penny spent.

-dave-

P.S. for some tips on portraiture from the pros, it wouldn't hurt to check out www.zuga.net (i think that's the right address) just grab a computer with a fast connection and spend the 5 bucks for a day's worth of downloads. The lessons are pretty good, but more importantly can't really be found anywhere else for so cheap. Also check their regular free articles, some good stuff to get you started in there.

[lightandlife]

I generally agree with lime and cowman. It all depends on the budget. Ultimately, skill and experience are more important.

From a different perspective, however, I never heard of any profession or business you can start with $3000. Perhaps photography is an exception.

[henkbos]

People from nearby town are now asking for your services and you think your pics are not good enough? You're in demand, may be because you're a woman as well, may be because you're a introduced by a friend. Most important thing is they want you. Capitalize on that and same some bucks to buy better equipment.

Remember: free pictures (you don't charge now?) is totally different than asking money for it. Start asking money NOW and if the customers are still lining up, get something more professional.

[danphoto1]

I agree set a fee and stick with it do it on a part time basis. Put everything you make toward a24-70mm 2.8 L lens. It is the sharpest zoom that I have seen in a long time and the 24mm range is great. You will find that ther a what I call picturepeople. they are folks that love photos and will become repeat cusomers. I sort of went throught the same kind of thing and it evolved in a 1D D10 and a number of lenses and a background and hot lights etc. I love the D10 for general shooting and Portraits take a look at my site and go to the portrait page just click on the icon on the side of my response here.

Remember My freind who is a true professional tells me your not a professional untill you make a living sellng and tqaking photos

[Ms. Tia]

Thank you for all your help. I feel good about the D10 and will look into all your suggestions for lenses. Price does matter but I'd rather start out with the best knowing I always have room for improvement and will not be limited by my equipement as I am now. On to lights. I have been using shop lights. Does that scream country girl or what! I will look up your website suggestion. Many thanks.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I normally would not advise jumping straight into thousand dollar plus lense,. but as you indicate you want to start with the best and say that cost is not important, then I must miror Danphoto's suggestion. The best is Canon "L" glass and the zoom range he mentions (24-70mm) will be a great match to the 10D for portraights.

Get a good tripod and some lights,.. and you will need a way to print thses images. Are you using a lab,. or using your own printer?


....and WELCOME to the forum :D

[Ms. Tia]

I have tried both. My printer is good but not great and what I have learned so far is that printer quality can not match a photo lab in quality. I have tried several in nearby cities. I found a professional lab that charged $.59 for each 4x6 print and did a poor job (on top of my low resolution). Wal-Mart charged me $.29 for a 4x6 and looked much better. I am still in search of a lab that will give me consistently good results. For the subjects I have phtotgrpahed so far, I just handed them a disk with their pictures. I have a PowerMac G4, photoshop 2.0, and photoimpressions. So far I have not felt any limitations by them. I am still learning how to use it all by trial and error. I KNOW I can do this. It is just a matter of discovering what already exists. Discovering the support from this forum is big for me. A huge Thank-you.

I have not used a tripod so far. I feel confined with it. As for lights I find myself leaning toward a flood light but the heat concerns me. sugestions? Thanks.

[slejhamer]

I'm just wondering, how many of the pros out there are shooting pregnant women and infants with super-sharp L glass? And if you are, are you adding a diffuser in front of the lens, or softening the images in Photoshop? On one hand it seems that L glass would be wasteful given Tia's subjects; on the other hand it may be better to start with a nice sharp image and then selectively soften it where desired.

It's too bad that Canon doesn't have an 80mm soft focus lens; the very nice 135mm SF lens needs a bit too much working space when the 1.6x crop factor is taken into account.

[EDIT]

P.S. I just noticed on Monte Zucker's site that he used a Canon 28-135 IS lens on his 10D as a nice, soft portrait lens. Funny that.

Cheers,

[Ms. Tia]

I have been softening the images in photoshop, although, I dont usually have the resolution to begin with.

slejhamer, I looked at your portraits and am wondering, what camera and lense did you use. I really like what you did with them.

[slejhamer]

Ms. Tia wrote:
slejhamer, I looked at your portraits and am wondering, what camera and lense did you use. I really like what you did with them.

Thank you Tia. That gallery was shot with a Canon G1 and various light sources, mostly an off-camera 420EX flash bounced into a studio umbrella, along with some sort of fill light (a slaved flash, window light, a reflector, etc.) Good lighting makes all the difference. :)

I've upgraded to a DSLR for the following reasons: better resolution, more pixels to play with (for cropping, enlarging), less noise, less shutter lag, better color accuracy, and perhaps most important for me is better control over depth of field. Those small-sensor P&S cameras make it nearly impossible to get a good background blur. I would have gone with a G3 otherwise.

You will very much enjoy the 10D for the type of work you are doing, but I do question the need for L glass given your primary subjects. That said, if you want more flexibility to shoot other subjects but only want one lens, the 24-70L is the best choice and is the one I would get too. As you are doing now you can soften the images selectively in Photoshop if desired, or you can attach a good quality diffusion / soft focus filter when necessary.

Best of luck,

[cowman345]

slejhammer brings up a couple good points. for a portrait lens for your particular subjects, a 50mm 1.8 will probably serve just fine to begin with. Once you really establish yourself, upgrade to L glass if you feel it to be neccessary. You can't beat a lens of such high sharpness for 70 bucks new.

forget about flood lighting or continuous lighting for portraits... they make the model hot, uncomfortable, and close down the pupils which is not generally desireable. go with strobes... the 420ex is a good choice as it's E-TTL and cheaper than a set of strobes and a light meter.

-dave-

[Ms. Tia]

What is 420ex and E-TTL and how do they work? I assume they attach to the camera? Working with indoor lighting is all new to me.

[ldivinag]

Ms. Tia wrote:
I have tried both. My printer is good but not great and what I have learned so far is that printer quality can not match a photo lab in quality. I have tried several in nearby cities. I found a professional lab that charged $.59 for each 4x6 print and did a poor job (on top of my low resolution). Wal-Mart charged me $.29 for a 4x6 and looked much better. I am still in search of a lab that will give me consistently good results. For the subjects I have phtotgrpahed so far, I just handed them a disk with their pictures. I have a PowerMac G4, photoshop 2.0, and photoimpressions. So far I have not felt any limitations by them. I am still learning how to use it all by trial and error. I KNOW I can do this. It is just a matter of discovering what already exists. Discovering the support from this forum is big for me. A huge Thank-you.


dude... er duddette,

get your own printer then. i mean the canon I series printer.

i just picked up a refurb I850 printer that canon specifically targets for color printing. it was $100 at a local fry's electronics store

i then picked up a pack of canon's PRO GLOSS paper and i printed a couple pixs that were 3-4 megapixels.

i was AMAZED!!!! i mean this is as good as a film developed onto paper...

granted this will add to your initial up front costs, but it sure beats wally-world or some other places to "process" your digital pixs...

and i'm sure once i get my 10D, 6 mega pixels will rock on this printer...

[MarkH]

Ms. Tia wrote:
What is 420ex and E-TTL and how do they work? I assume they attach to the camera? Working with indoor lighting is all new to me.

The built in flash is always limited. The 420EX is a flash unit which fits onto the cameras hotshoe to give you better performance than the built in one will.

External flashes like the 420EX or 550EX allow you to do things like bounce the flash of the ceiling or a wall. The built in flash will often produce red-eye.

E-TTL is a fancy way of metering the flash through the lens. It gets technical, but suffice to say that it is good.

[DaveG]

As soon as you can, get at least a couple of studio type strobe flashes - assuming that you have a studio or you want to do on location studio lighting . As someone else suggested the Alien Bee's look like a very good value. You will also need a flash meter in order to use them but something like a Minolta Autometer IV f or V f will do the trick.

A lot of beginning pro's will want to use photolights, just because they are so much cheaper. But they are very hot and therefore dangerous. They also are not very powerful and have a colourcast which will restrict your film choices (remember film?).

At university we had a bunch of 1000 watt quartz halogen lights and they were wonderfully good at keeping the Friday afternoon Pizza hot. Other than that ...

For lenses I chose the 24-85 f3.5-5.6 as my first lens for the 10D. This was done with all the calm deliberation of a baseball player caught between first and second base! I needed a lens, RIGHT NOW and that looked OK. Luckily it was OK.

Since then I've added a 50 f1.4 for speed and in a fixed portrait focal length. I added quality with both the 16-35 f2.8 L and the 70-200 f2.8 L and then picked up a used and older non USM 100 mm macro.

I tend to do magazine work as well as the regular wedding/portrait work so those additional lenses are very important to me.

For portable flash in the field, you can get the Canon 550EX and then addtional 550's or the less expensive 420's. You must start off with a 550 which will act as a Master to the Slaved 420's. You can get the Canon ST-E2 transmitter for a Master but I think it's a waste of money.

In any case with a 550 and a 420 you can do wireless TTL flash work, which still looks like a bit of magic to me. In a nutshell you can have the on camera flash (the 550) act as the fill light, while the second flash (the 420) can be set up to one side to act as the main. Meanwhile you set the ratio on the 550 to anything you want (1:3 is very nice).

Slaved flashes aren't very new but a big big bonus of this system is that Aunt Gertrude's point-and-shoot's flash won't set it off while you are doing the cake cutting at a wedding.

I keep a light stand and a small umbrella in the car now so that I can use this "studio in my camera bag" whenever I need to. I recently picked up another 420 and this can be used as a back light, hair light or whatever. Althought there are no modeling lights with these flashes the instant review reduces the need for that feature since you can check immediately to see if there are relections in the subject's glasses.

[Andy_T]

Tia,

if you feel restrained by using a tripod, maybe you should consider the 28-135 IS lens. The Image Stabilizer in this lens allows you to shoot hand-held at longer shutter times (approx. 2 f-stops) then a normal lens.

Otherwise I'd suggest to get a tripod. Apart from external flashes, these are most likely the second most important accessories. I use a manfrotto 390 tripod with a quick-release mount. The tripod is very sturdy, and you can switch between using the camera on the tripod or hand-held with a single grip.

Regards,
Andy