[John Bennett]

What Chad and David said, with a couple exceptions.

I just don’t want something that I am going to have to upgrade in the first 6 months. I would like to possibly not upgrade for a couple of years if that is possible

If you buy their entry level camera’s you run the risk of outgrowing it. How fast you outgrow it, depends on how much you get into “it” You could outgrow it in 6 months year or it might be 2 years.

Re Canon/Nikon.
Close your eyes and pick one. Each has very slight advantages over the other. For whats its worth, I went Canon because their high end lenses are cheaper and theres slightly more of them.

[John Bennett]

Hope people don’t mind hashing this stuff out, I find it’s a great way to learn. Photography’s subjective (especially landscapes where people often play with light, tones, saturation etc) so taste vary and I personally like hearing them, its helps get a sense. If all I had was my family as souning boards every picture is an award winner 🙂  

Thats definately a result of the Blue/Gold CP Morsie and an aspect I haven’t mastered yet, although Im getting a feel for it.

The shot

Reality:
The sky was nowhere near that blue and the sun was just up (shot at about 6am). Techs are ISO 100, f13, 1 second

Nor was the reflection in the water that defined or intense. But as you mentioned I was drawn by the clouds and layout and realised the B/G may be able to turn nothing into something.

Problem is when using the B/G,  digital cameras can’t handle the colour play. It confuses the coding, so what you see when holding the filter to your eye (pre shot visual before screwing it on) and what you see through the viewfinder after adding it, are not what you end up with (a heavy magenta cast amongst otehr things).

So you have to try and recreate it at home by djusting WB and tint. If you look at the cloud reflection you can see traces of the magenta cast. Problem is in order to correct the WB you often need to drop the WB into the 3,000-3,600 kelvin range ( very, very cool intensifying the blues) and you need to correct your tint into the greens. Most sky shots Ive taken thus far look horrid and correcting the clouds is something I havent quite figured out yet.

The shot. This is closer to the effects I try to acheive

Reality: ISO 500, f13, 1.25 seconds
Overcast evening, dull grey sky, dull water, normally theres no shot. By adding the B/G CP where a normal CP would remove glare, this CP turns the area’s containing polarized light into either Blues or Golds depending on wich way you turn it..just like a normal CP

heres an unedited RAW of essentially the same shot but with the CP dialed in to bring out the Blues, rather than Golds. As you can see and imagine theres nothing there but grey and very late evening light

As mentioned (imo) its a fantastic filter ( but it can be wonky and difficult to) and theres a learning process to it bt the rewards are worth it. If you want to see samples from someone whos mastered using it, check

[John Bennett]

No problem Morsie. Im assuming your referrin to the last 4 pics.
Pics 1,2 and 3 were taken with the Blue Gold filter. Its a neat filter that turns polarized light to Blue or Gold in varying degrees of intensity. So its intentional.

Its also leaves a god awful magenta cast alot of the time with digital and you have to play with the WB and tint 100% of the time. Learning how to use, when not to and to control the filters effects  is stll a learning process, Ive had it but a few weeks. Learning to to process it an remove or redue the cast is also part of the process 🙂

The last pic is right out of the camera, no filter on but did flip a 2 stop soft edge grad ND to hold back the horizon and maintain detail in the clouds and foreground a bit. I did warm it a hair in post because te blues out of the boz were too cool and intense.

[John Bennett]

Since calibrating my monitor I’m always amased at how different *my* photos look when at home vs at work or most other people’s monitors. Seems like a small thing but its often a big difference. Its why I often wont comment on others photos until I see thme from home 🙂

Take “Solitude” for example.
Here at home I can make out a fair bit of the Greens in different shades from light to dark, and detail of the White Pines etc in the background. At work is bascially extremely dark green (black silohette) with little detail, can barely mke out individual trees let alone shades of green.
Subtle difference but that extra 1/3 to 2/3s more “exposure” makes a big difference in the photo.

[John Bennett]

Re Nit
yeah, it’s close to what I saw, still experimenting with it.
There’s atleast half a dozen in there that have the B/G on.  in some it’s obvious and in others less so. The latter group are the ones I’m striving for…Its there, but not in your face. Pics 2 (War canoe at dock) and 3 (shore line rocks) are the type I strive for.

At this point it’s hit and miss. Sometimes it just gives the photo that little extra and sometimes it’s hit delete do not pass go. 🙂

[John Bennett]

Nice Tim and yeah pretty sure its a Juv Bald although not entirely sure of their molting patterns/phases to definitively say. Usually when it comes to Birds of Prey if it allows you to get close, theres a good chance it’s a Juv.

too young yet to know any better.

[John Bennett]

Thanks all.

Neal about the time i was taking that pic, the Black Flies were so bad I could feel them crawling on the skin of my back like an army of ants. That, despite wearing a Simms river tek base layer, the new soft shell hoodie thats fairly snug……and my bug jacket over top 🙂 Dont beleive any marketing ploy for any product that says it stops Black Flies….they dont, all you can do is limit the feast 🙂

And yeah I have near a thousand images to cull down to a couple hundred deleting soft images ( often at low shutter speeds, 400mm and in a canoe) boring or too similiar yada,yada,yada. Needed to get a gallery online asap though for the group and

Because Canadian Geographic wanted to see it.
/Xing my fingers they’ll use a couple somewhere.

[John Bennett]

Ok, heres a few of my favorites, a couple of which are from just completed trip to Alqonquin (separate thread coming soon), where I tried to concentrate on Landscapes. Some of these you’ve seen before, bu like I said I’m not much of a landscape shooter 🙂

[John Bennett]

Whats truly sad, isn’t so much that a grocery store in the CR (or whoever put the add together) thought they could do it.

No, what’s really sad is reading the comments

[John Bennett]

Great stuff all.
Just got back from a few days in the bush, have a several hundred photos I need to get done before Friday and another event takes me away for the weekend and then I’ll have several more hudnred to get done.

Not much of a landscape shooter but I’m trying hard to learn, will try to add some of my favorites in a couple days.

[John Bennett]

Nice Matt.

Matt .. I feel your pain. Going out solo and trying to get good pics is difficult to say the least. I am rarely happy with my pics from a scenario like that. I think you did a great job.

Aside from having access to good fly fishing rivers, this is my biggest hurdle and it’s common to alot of people. I try to make a decision, fish or shoot when solo. If I want to get good images, I leave the rod at home and head to a spot where I can shoot strangers fishing. Unfortunately, for me, that means I’m typically not doing fly fishing as it’s just not as popular up here, there basically only 1 river where I can count on finding people.  Would suggest the same, have some goto spots where you can either shoot other people fishing, or wet a line yourself. Its extremely difficult to do both, and ultimately one suffers for it.

J

[John Bennett]

Bryan I don’t know if I have shots with absolutely no glare but two things.

1) I leave my CP glued to the lens
2) When flashing I try to remember to angle the head so its not directed at the fish. A diffsuer helps with this.

This was shot right around noon or 1pm. Cant recal if I angled the flash or not but it is flashed

And as Morsie said as long as the glare isnt overpowerin or a large hot spot I wouldnt sweat it. What I worry more about is not blowing the whites of their bellies/mouths tc.

[John Bennett]

Fantastic imagery Adam.
Fan of your entries at the “Focus on SR Filters”

[John Bennett]

LowePro’s Vertex line. All weather, including rain coat and sealed zippers.

I have the 300 and really like it. Its a bit heavy, but for days when I’m loaded for bear it’s great. The laptop sleeve I use for misc stuff, be it more accessorries, fly boxes, or whatever but it’s there for a laptop if thats what you want

[John Bennett]

I sooo wish I felt comfortable enough to use a kayak for my photography. Toons are ok, but so slow and you sit a little too high.

[John Bennett]

3 images of completely different nature, so hopefully Phil has some stuff to work with. Links are provided for larger 1024 x 750ish images

http://jben.zenfolio.com/p779740145/he1d8ee1#he1d8ee1

http://jben.zenfolio.com/p964320940/h7d7ca44#h7d7ca44

http://jben.zenfolio.com/p570963796/h317b7b70#h25e0a63a

Zach, I’d be more than happy to try and provide “close” but not quite images if you need fodder. Meaning images that I know have a fault or two that might prevent an editor from using them

The idea here is to put up stuff that you might like to actually see published (there’s a chance Phil would find a place for stuff he likes in one of his various outlets, too).

Here’s the deal.  Phil has offered to provide constructive editorial critique of reader-submitted photographs.  He’s willing to give you a personal editor’s eye on your images, discussing what works and what doesn’t, whether they would be published, and why they would or would not be appropriate for a particular article.

One thing I’ve learned is that it’s not always the *best* images that get bought. Technically theres a couple things wrong with this and one glaring problem ( the edge of my shadow)

But it was bought and published.

[John Bennett]

Neal it’s like anythin else, once you start doing it, theres comes a point where it’s more automatic and less thought process. Like Morsie I enjoy getting shots that are into the light. You do blow alot, especially when running and gunning and theres no chance for retakes, but with practise you start dialing adjustments almost without thinking.

face he light and decrease ISO 2/3s or stop down 2/3s as a result?
2 clicks of your shutter speed dial offsets that and keeps you “good”. You do it without looking at your meter reading.

With regards to open spaces and vast expanses where flash wont cut it.

Grad NDs and Rev NDs

[John Bennett]

Agree completely Morsie.

The #1 thing is contrast, so at it’s simplest any 2 elements (line/background) with good constrast against each other will work.

We often can’t choose the line though, and have to work with what ever is on the rod. So setting up either through utilising angles or by asking your friend to cast at spot X is a step whereby we control or take advantage of a BG. Hense so much emphasis on choosing the BG thats going to make the line pop.

Backlit (into the light) are great for casting shots, providing its your BG elements (preferably trees or shrubs) thats backlit. It provides a nice siloette of the BG elements.

Both of these are ‘staged” or mock shots, that came about because I thought the BG and light would give me what I was looking for in both shots, so I had my friend high stick and the shoot an upstream cast.

[John Bennett]

I’ve fought alot of Musky out of a 12 foot Sportspal canoe. If your unfamiliar with the brand, tthink flat bottom, wide beam and hard to tip

One thing I rarely did was try to bring them into the canoe. Good pair of pliers and wet release them. These days alot of people use cradles.

[John Bennett]

I generally underexpose the sky by 1/3 to 2/3rds.
Then adjust flash output as desired. Sometimes I want it a little soft as the first couple below, then others stornger to remove shadows.

When shooting fish I try to remember to angle the flash head so you dont blow the scales/highlights in the fish

without flash

[Author]

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