[John Bennett]

yeah Ive been putting thought towards just creating my own, based on Think Tank parts. Problem there largely is weather sealing.

The rain cover included in the lowpro packs like the vertex 100 to 300 series has saved my bacon 3 times this year.

Did a turkey hunt in May. Near zero temps, light, moderate and freezing rain at different times. 5+ hrs with my back to a tree trunk soaking it in. I was miserable, my gear was warm and comfy.

[John Bennett]

What we need is an engineer from Lowepro to get hooked on fly fishing so they understand the needs of an angler out for a day and on the water.

or

An engineer from Simms/Sage/LL Bean to get into photography so they understand the needs of a photographer.

Something that combines both elements of conveneince, storage capacity, weight distribution, lumber support, weather sealing, shock absorbtion, etc

Honestly, its shock and absorbtion and weather sealing thats kept me from looking too seriously at any of the packs designed by fishing/outdoors manufactors and thus I look at stuff designed for photographers that can be made to work on stream.

Yeah, you can zip lock spare CF cards, spare batteries, lenses etc but it just adds to the inconvenience and weight and does naught for shock absorbtion.

What Id love to see is something like a chest pack with “battle harness” includingd web belt for a completely modular system with back pack for main storage……but designed for the photogrpaher.

Id put all the fishing related pockets on the waist belt w/ lumber support. That way Im free to unclip the uppers and put them down yet stil wade into the water or sit on my butt for a low angle fish/bug shot.
Zingers, pig tails, tools on the straps etc.

Fragile and heavy stuff like body/lenses/cards/batts, etc into/on the chest/back thats weather sealed, water resistant, shock proof etc. All of it modular so you can pack for bear and still take the weight, or remove stuff for light excursions.

[John Bennett]

Sounds alot like my experience David. Some days I want to concentrate on fishing an only bring the 24-70 and 180 3.5 incase I get into some bugs. Other days Im hoping to concentrate on photogrpahy inwhich case I go loaded for bear, not knowing what will end up in the viewfinder.

Finding a flexible system that makes it all possible inlcuding carrying a pod has been a chore.

And yeah te dry zone back packs look bad. Really heavy especially for their size, and I can only imagine how hot one gets lugging that on the back on a hot day due to all the rubber. Looks great as a boat/travel dry pack but not a pack to use if hiking or bushwhacking.

J

[John Bennett]

Nice Aaron. Few better ways to spend time together.

J

[John Bennett]

David how much “gear” are you talking about?
I could try to figure out a way to post of a pic of me loaded but heres what I use and a typical load for a day on the river.

Lowepro Vertex 300.
http://products.lowepro.com/product/Vertex-300-AW,2074,16.htm

1DMKIIN + 400 f5,6 L + 180 3.5 + 24-70 f2.8 + 85 f1.8 + Flash + RRS 87B + Gary Fong LS + Spare Batts for the 1D and flash and asorted other stuff and sometimes the Manfrotto 190 PRo. Some days Im pushing 40-50pds. Granted I dont slug it all day and put it on the bank but suffice to say it does the job and I abuse it pretty hard.

Like..lots of room, carrys and distributes the weight really well, rubber seals on the zippers..enough to prtect vs a quick dip but not a swim and a rain jacket. I’ve spent the better part of a day in moderate to heavy rain a few times and thus far no moisture has gotten in except when I’ve opened it.

Like.. The note book section. Somedays I want to concentrate on photpgraphy and just want my reel, rod a small box a wee bit of terminal etc incase I see risers or cant anything to shoot. It all fits in there. Rod tube (4 peice) extends out the top of the note book pocket and rides like a 2nd tripod.

Also has neat system for add ons like think tank single len bags, pod carriers etc.

Dislikes
The weight. The bag empty is hefty but it needs to be. Take the good with the bad I guess.also dislike leaving it on the bank so I can fish. Would like something that I could sling while fishing but to do that means 1 lens only and no flash. Reality is anyone picking it up aint outrunning me despite being in waders and boots;)
Like any back pack it can be slow getting into and set up. Missed an Osprey taking a 12inch Brown 20 feet from me two weeks ago as I couldnt get to the bag, get the 400 mounted and out in time.

When fully loaded ( gear + fly gear)
I use Sages Lumbar “fanny pack”.. Have to. I gave up on trad vest 2 years ago and chest packs as a result. Back and shoulders just couldnt take the weight/strain of everything, let alone the discomfort of a camera pack weighing down on the straps of a vest/chest pack. Great thing about the fanny pack is I can swing it into any posiotn,front/back/left right hips. Hips take all the weight, if one side gets tired or chaffed I rest it on the other. When walking, I position it on my lower back, directly under the LowePro, providing more support from the shoulder to my lower back all in. Tons of room for stuff
http://www.sageflyfish.com/dyn_prodlist.php?k=83813
Dislikes.
No rea way to hook up my net, a big 19inch mouth. Typically I clip the bungee to the fanny pack and either clip to the fanny via Carbiner+magnet or stuff the handle down my waist belt.

Taken all together its a flexible system that allows me to carry as much or as little as I might possibly want without killing myself and handle the weight. Much better than any other combo of things I tried while looking for a solution.

[John Bennett]

And I certainly never said companies don’t have the right to sponsor boats in fishing contests, nor that seeing such a Basscar (or whatever you’d call a professional walleye fishing boat) would completely ruin my day.

I’m guessing the collection of rocket images Im getting from hitting some Pro Tourney’s wouldn’t fly so well here?

[John Bennett]

Add a 2x TC will greatly reduce your focusing speed Will.
I’d try some tubes first.

Ive had better luck getting Dragons in flight with my macro than with my 400mm with either TCs or Tubes, although if some darn hatches would ever go for me when Im on scene I’ll be reaching for the 400 and tubes first.

J

[John Bennett]

Just to add a little bit what both Labrati and Eric have said.

When Labrati talks of continous focus and the subject possibly being oof (Out of Focus) and whether or not you can or can’t take the image, thats a Custom function setting. I don’t beleive the XTI has it, the 40D I’m reasonably sure does…Certainly all 1D body’s do.
Bascially its a custom setting that toggles whether or not the shutter will trip (or not) when the camera has yet to attain focus. For action shooters you want it on, basic premise being you can start shooting when the subjects oof, looking to get them in focus by frame 2 or 3.
Others prefer to to turn it off, logic there being they dont want to start recording frames until focus lock is acheived.

On metering.
I’d use spot as well in that situation but M not AV mode. Reason being it’s difficult and takes a ton of practise keeping your center point on target. It’s easier with human subject than with widlife being larger and slower but its still not easy.

If your in AV mode, the moment center point slips off target a *new* meter reading is registered and the camera adjusts your SS..it happens faster than you can blink. So one moment your targeting a player in a dark blue jersey, a “proper” exposure is calcualted and set by the camera for the dark Blue…the player jigs, you start to record images, you slip off target just a bit but still have him in frame and in focus. The camera however is immediately blinded by the white of the ice, as thats what your center point is on. As a result it guts your shutter speed and what would have been an in focus image is badly affected by motion blur.

A good example of this occurs when shooting birds in flight and AV mode. Dark Bird in a bright blue sky. Your exposing for the bird (as you always should) you slip off target a bit and the bright sky overpowers the meter reading and you go say from 1/1000th to 1/250th.
1) Motion blur
2) The birds badly underexposed
3) but the sky sure looks exposed nicely 🙂

AV is great, it can also be very bad leading to alot of deleted images.

Something Eric touched I want to add to.

Your better off spending the time to figure out what angles, shots, etc. will work for your setup and tyr and repeat.

ALL cameras and lenses have their limits. Whether its an entry level body/lens a pro body/lens or any combination of the two. Learn the limits of whatever it is you have and as long as you stay within the limits, your keeper rate will go way up.

If your body and lens can’t get really fast action…Don’t shoot it, rather shoot what it can. When I used a 30D and a slower lens (f2.8 rather than f1.8 I use now) to shoot my daughters gymnastics I didnt bother trying to capture the spins, vaults, dismounts etc…They were simply occuring too fast for the shutter speeds I could get. The lighting for gymnastics is litteraly about as bad as it can get.

Rather I concentrated on getting images of the slightly slower action like leaps in the air, coming out of spins and flips, poses, hand stands, etc and came away happy with what I got each time.

Eric as good as the 100-400 L is, at f3.5 at the short end it’s too slow for indoor sports where flash isn’t allowed. You really need f2.8 and faster. Even at f2.8 I often struggle to acheive 1/500th at ISO 1600 and will then move to the f1.8, where even then 1/500th is often not a given. Some gyms I rarely get above 1/300th.

[John Bennett]

First of all, John, your work always looks amazing!  I enjoy viewing it.

Thanks but have you seen me display many landscape/enviroment shots? 😉

Re the “Horizon”. Thats more along the lines of what I meant, not neccessarily the actual horizon. Theres a very noticable right to left slant throughout. Dont quite know how to put it in words but I almost want to fall off the left. A slight crop (just a bit) designed to flatten it, or the straiten tool in ACR, might ease that sensation.

[John Bennett]

Tim this won’t answer your question but interestingly enough this topic came up when a friend and I were fishing the Grand this past Friday.

We both are dieing to goto Montanna, so much so were very loosely thinking about doing it next year together. He’s been dieing to go and ive been dieing to go..so……In due coarse of the conversation turned somewhat naturally to “size” but in the sense that we here very likekly take for granted the number of 20+ Browns we have. I’ve read somewhere it has the most + kilometer or one of the highest. Rare is the day we go out and someone doesn’t get one or two 20+ fish. My firend whos so much more accomplished than I has had multi 20+ fish in a single day a few times. In about 6 outings this were we’ve probably caught a dozen 20 to 25inch fish. A few holes we fish hold quite a few, in fact most of, if not all the holes do throughout do. A trophy Brown for *me* would be 25 if not 27+. The point is we are very likely jaded.

A trip to Montanna for us would be about everything but catching large fish and we’ve both been wanting to do it for years.

[John Bennett]

Far be it for me to critique when my own work still leaves room for improvement..especially landscapes.

Two things on the canoe shot.
1) Try to level the horizon, when first viewed I wanted to tilt my head.
2) Dunno, this is a guess but faced with a subject that I wanted to highlight with a mundane or busy background Id have opened the lens wide and tried to throw the BG way oof. Would it have helped here, dunno…you could select the Canoe and apply some gausian blur to give you and idea. At the very east it would deemphasise the surroundings, isolate the canoe and thus draw our eyes to it, and quite possibly hold them there.

[John Bennett]

Not at all…meaning being morning dense and all 🙂

I shoot anywhere between f22 and F29 for mayflies and similiar sized subjects. So yeah allowing more light to hit the snesor…in short a longer exposure can introuduce its own set of problems. The two biggest being noise if you need to bump ISO too high, or motion blur if the SSs arent high enough.

Like I said Im learning how hard it is to get the right amount of light as well. But Ive always ( more accutrately “usually”) worked with the simple premise that the longer the exposure the more saturated an image will be flash/or no.

Can you lower your SS a bit without introducing too much risk of motion blur? Or raise your ISO a bit any combo of?

[John Bennett]

There is a difference.
The 40D has better noise control at high ISOs, just dont expect miracles. It has better AI servo but still suffers from the same faults…just not as much.

It also has a higher frame rate. Not the 5.5 advertised, its closer to 5 from testing, but still more. It has interpolated (not true) ISO increments. Basicaly where with the XTI you can only bump (or lower) ISO by full stops..with the 30/40D you can change it by 1/3 stops. All important things for action shooting.

Its also little more sensitive. This means that when using center point focus it will snap to initial focus a little faster…..The down side to this is when your center point slips off target, it will snap to whatever is in the BG faster to.

Practise…practise alot. Sea Gulls make great practise targets. They are everywhere.

As for which body after?
None really unless you want to look at 1DmkII, a 1DMKIIN or a 1DMKIII.

One thing I dont like about Canon is the jump between their prosumer 40D and the 1D MKIIn and 1DMKIII.

No matter your skill you will notice a difference. Both in the noise level at iso 1600 and in your keeper rate.

But your going to take a fair financial hit stepping upto it.
Why not use the XTI until you outgrow it?

edit add.
Want to make it clear when I use terms such as “faults” or not as good, or whatever…its relative.
Im not syaing they or it is bad…they aren’t…they just have limits and in my experience people starting out often dont realise that, or sometimes feel let down.

AI servo…the bodies ability to track and predict focus is limited by how much Canon puts into the chips. Even 1D bodies such as the 1DMKIIn and 1DMKIII ( canon top flight action bodies) have their limits.

Cant recall exactly but I beleive the “hit” rate even on pro bodies is around 70%. Meaning if a Track Athlete ran the 100 sprint heading at the shooter only 7 of 10 from an extended burst will be critically sharp. And they have 2 chips, prosumer, consumer bodies have 1…Their hit rates are considerably lower.

Also no matter the body…AI Servo will, track, predict and keep focusing better when the movment is lateral. Targets heading at or away from the shooter are harder for them.

[John Bennett]

The secret to BBQ ribs.
No matter what your sauce is add some JD or Boubon to it. It thickens up real nicely 🙂

The secret to Mac and cheese pie.
Marry an Italian, your taste buds and horizons will be extended.
You have Mac and cheese +
Rigatoni and cheese caserole (up here we call it a caserole)
Angel hair speghetti +cheese
Linguini
too many to name
Cheese blends are gods gift to.
Cheddar, real parmesan, harvarti, provoglone,fetta

Same dish…..and yet not… I never tire it.
Put on 30pds within 3 months of starting to date my now wife 🙂

[John Bennett]

You definately want backlight for the tranlucency Will. If I wasnt hitting a brick wall getting flies this season, I had planned to buy a silver reflector just for that.

As for bringing out more colour.
The black BG is a function of an underexposed image, relative to the ambient light available and then the flash compensating fo teh subject.
Worded another way, with no flash it would be a black image.

I kow just how tough it is to get get enough light shooting this stuff but I would hazard a guess you need more exposure/less flash to bring out more of the colours. If you can try getting the exposure to less than 2 stops underexposed pre flash and leave the flash to compensate for the rest.

hope you dont mind the photo add but its the difference between.
this

and

The black bg can be striking but for saturation you’ll likely want more light hitting the sensor.

[John Bennett]

Few things Todd. This is going to be long, hope you dont mind. There are some things you can do and some you cant control.

As others have noted, you want to set your aperature at f2.8 and leave it there. That means AV or M mode, M would be the better of the two. Reason being, as the action moves up, down adn around the rink, the light values will change. However, the ice and the white boards are going to fool your camera’s meter into thinking theres a bit more light than there is. You can use AV but dial in +1/3 exp comp as a starting point.

Shutter Speed.
1/500th should be enough to freeze most of the action. Sticks, pucks, the goalie shooting out an arm may have some motion blur but probably not much. Unless your right at ice level shooting through the glass ( I recomend not to) your going to be be far enough away from the action. Experiment, I would hazard a guess you can shoot lower than 1/500th.  Theres a relationship between distance to target and shutter speed required to freeze the action. The closer you are, the higher the SS you need. Hockeys reasonably fast but its not THAT fast, aforementioned aspects ( sticks, pucks, extremities) exlcuded and besides some motion there will in all likely hood ADD to the photo, not subtract from it. What you want to freeze are the subjects body and head. If you can get their facial expressions…they impart intensity.
ISO 800 1/800th

RAW vs Jpeg.
RAW, RAW, RAW. The lighting is going to play HAVOC with your whites and there are ALOT of whites in hockey. Set your body to AWB, shoot RAW then use DPP (came with your camera) to convert to jpeg. During that phase play with your WB to get your whites close to white.

Monopod.
Dont bother.  Monopods have their places, I have one, use it when I need to but no matter what a monopod will impede your ability to track. Tracking fast moving objects, be it hockey players, or birds that fly at 50mph is a skill and like any skill it takes practise. If your focus point slips off target, the body will in alot of cases jump to whatever is in the BG..So in hockey that could mean focus jumps to a player behind your son in the .5 second or so you focus point has slipped off target. Also at 1/500th or a bit lower you should have plently of SS to eliminate camera shake, hence no need for support. Its one thing to track a fast moving object that moves in a straight ( cars, bikes etc ), its quite another to stay on target with things that dart about, move erraticly and or change speed..

Oh, and by the way ONLY use center point focus. One it means your in control and not the camera which might use any of the 9 focus points but more importantly it speeds up the focusing process.

On Noise
The 40D while better than than the XTI wil still produce noise at ISO 1600. No getting around that. Better some noise than a deleted image due to motion blur. Dont know if this will show or not its an old pbase account.

30D at ISO 1600 and some noise clean up (neat image or noise ninja). The 30 and 40D are virtualy the same with regards to high iso noise performance.

My advice. Take your XTI to your store and a spare card. Get a couple shots in store (crap light) at ISO 1600 with your XTI adn their 40D…Get home, and check both images to see the difference.

Don’t expect miracles, the 40D is a bit better than the XTI at ISO above 800, its ok at ISO 1000 and at 1600 there will be noise.

On focusing. NO its not always you.
First make sure your using AI servo, (not single shot and not that other option the entry, prosumer bodies have where the body decides to use AI Servo or single shot). No other way to say this, so Im just going to say it.

The cameras ability to track/predict focus (ai servo) is well, one of the areas you pay for that separates consumer, prosumer, pro bodies. Thats not to say the Rebels line is bad, its not. Its just thats its not quite as good as the 30/40D…Nether of which is in the same league as a 1D body. This is one of the issues I had with the current Canon Promotion for the XSI, they used extremely tough sporting/lighting with 1DmkIIIs and kind of alluded that parents could do the same with XTIs/XSIs. They cant, atleast not in that sense.

Another note on AI Servo and this to is likely a cause for some sharp, some soft images. As backgrounds become cluttered, o as something moves into the frame in front of your target, the camer body can and will jump to either. Nothing you can do about that, the better the body the better AI Servo is at “sticking” with your target and not jumping to something in the FG or BG. This is another reason to use center point focus only.

So sometimes you may slip of target and focus will jump, somtimes the camera will do it to you.

The best thing you can do is learn to “Snipe”. Dont get in the habit of taking extended burst with fast moving targets. One or two frames max, release the shutter, reaqure focus, one or two frames. Tap/tap/tap. That will lead to more “keepers”. If you take 5 frame burst, you might 1 or some in good focus, but if AI servo loses it (and it will) you’ll get more keepers by sniping. This includes the 40D btw. You’ll get more keepers by getting in the habit of tracking/shoot/release and reacquire/shoot.

AI Servo…40D vs XTI.
The 40D does have a little better AI servo, it does have faster fps (5 vs 3.5) and it does have better noise control all else being equal than the XTI. All critical things you pay for as you step up in body lines.

Side note.
Noise is another good reason to overexpose a tad, from what the camera meter is telling you.

Do you “need” to step up this soon?
No. Take the time now (this season)  to learn. Use the XTI in the process and then decide..Stepping up isnt cheap. But if you do decide to, yes you will see impovement.

[John Bennett]

ok.

On the surface if you take the quote.

“Note that because a polarizing filter cuts the light down by 2 stops, I had to increase my shutter speed by 2 stops…

Its dead wrong.
A proper “exposure” that then adds a CP (-2 stops) and then increases SS by yet another 2 stops will be underexposed by 4 stops for a proper exposure, relative to a reading taken without the CP

is etiher a typo in the book itself or theres something missing
*****************

F22 for 1/4 second ( no CP) = a proper exposure.

F22 for 1 second with CP…By adding the CP if you want the same proper exposure he’s decreased the shutter speed…in other words left the shutter open longer. You have to. The CP reduces the amount of light hitting the sensor, so you need to increase your exposure accordingly..You an do that by decreasin SS by 2 stops or by decreasing SS 1 stop and lowering ISO 1 stop…That last just for example

I’m going from memory and its been a few years so I may be mistaken. Take what I’m about to say with that in mind.

The book is largely about 2 things.

1) Getting people to understand the exposure triangle ( F/stop,ISO,SS) and how by changing any of the 3 soley or in combination you can still arrive at the same proper exposure

2) Metering scenes and how often you want to ignore what the camera is telling you is a proper exposure.

With incident and spot metering, you meter “something” set your values to render a proper exposure. Recompose and ignore what the cameras light meter is now telling you. Earlier in the book you would have read about Brothers Blue Sky and Green Fields?

If I remember correctly when discussing waterfalls., you set your exposure values for the greens left and right of he waterfall, not the waterfall itself. So in M mode meter off the Greens present, set your values (iso,fstop,ss) and recompose. Or Meter off the water falls (whites) and adjust accordingly for the greens…

The simplier thing todo is meter with the CP on, set your values and your good to go

[John Bennett]

I lent my copy of the book to someone Dusty and I really like to know the chapter thats in and the full the context within which its given.

As it makes no sense what so ever.

Dusty did you mistype it?

A CP will reduce the light hittng your sensor by about 2 stops.
If you meter the scene first ( no CP) or if your using an incident meter (which he does go into in 1 chapter) the meter reading will determine a proper exposure sans CP in either case

Then you add the CP, which reduces the light by 2 stop. Your now underexposing by 2 stops. If your further increase the shutter speed by 2 stops, your underexposing by 4 stops.

As Carter said if you meter the scene with your body with the CP in place, the proper exposure is still the correct expouse. Take the shot, check your histo and if its too dark increase exposure by a 1/3 or 2/3 or by however much clearance is between the last pixels on the histo and the far right (255)

You can generally tell by looking at the Histogram if you have room to increase exposre by a third, half, full stop or more just by looking at the histo and the gap between 255 (blown pixels) and the far rigt edge of the luminoisity graph
***************

As for CPs sometimes I play with them whenever/whatever but as a general rule I’ll add them when

Theres alot of glare, water, Chrome, etc

When I want to slow my shutter speeds further than a proper exposure for a given scene will alow w/o overexposing the shot.

Classic example is moving water…gentle waves, streams, fountains,waterfalls.

Without the CP your shutter speed will be say X
With the CP

[John Bennett]

My ow persoanl experinece is that I often don’t know Dusty.
How much is too much? Sometimes its hard to tell. Im sure there are times I “finalise” an image and somone else thinks its been sharpened a tad to much, or saturated a bit to much, or too much “punch” added. Or its a little “dark” (underexposed) or overexposed.

Photography like any art form is subjective. To use a cliche image with a cliche statement.
Sunsets. Some people flat out love over saturated images and gobble them up, some people come to loathe them.

Take a decent image and convert it to B&W. Which do you like more?
Drives me nuts sometimes trying to decide. Usually I opt for the “safe” approach. No crops (anymore), no cloning, enough adjustments to bring out the image, yet try to keep it natural looking.

If its an image I want to play with. Typically images I dont think are all that, I go nuts sometimes to see how much I can alter it. Spend 30 minutes trying this and that compare two side by side with different adjustments  and then delete it or them 🙂

The last week or so Ive been playing alot with filter effects in post. adding Colour cast to help me recognise them,adding some to change the tone/mood from a nuetral to a warm image. Adding false light that wasnt there etc. Eventually I want to learn how to do composites…Take a moon, add it to a scene witha stag in a field, add boats where none existed. A a strom system overhead where none exited for “mood” etc.

Those would only be for sale as prints. dont ever think about trying to send something like to a magazine 🙂

[John Bennett]

As far as post-processing goes, I see a little glow around you in the revised image.  Good for deification, not so good for publication.

 

Alhought it should be said tha those who do end up with that exalted status do tend to get alot of publicity..

Great quote Zach, as John noted that one of he funnier ones Ive read in awhile
🙂

In the digital age we live in, do people still rely on light meters the way they once did, or do they rely on the DSLR for the correct info.?

Its a combination Dusty. Histograms and lcds are great when you have the time to review them and shoot a retake. There are lots of sitations where they will save your bacon.

Not so great if thats what your relying on those and only have a few seconds and 1 shot at it. Get used to using them all. The more of the tools at your disposal you become comfortable with using, the more prepared you’ll be to recognise which to use and when. There are times when I barely glance at the lcd/histo and there are times when I constantly check them.

What about a great hatch during some amazing magic hour light?

Haha.. i guess that is the true test!!  I guess you can fish with one hand, and hold the camera in the other!

Raise your hand if

1)you ever tried to fish as normal
2) positioned the the camera n your abdomen set at f11 to 16 for DoF and all points focus
3) Used your stomach to raise it or lower the plane ( think beer belly vs sucking in )
4) A Cable release in your mouth and tongue to trip the shutter

/raises hand

Very nice effort Dusty harsh light or no.
But as others have stressed the golden hours are called those for good reasons. Im out the door before sunrise virtually every weekend.
If I have a location where I want to shoot something ( say a waterfall) that doesnt get good light until the afternoon ( sun rises in east/sets in the west) , I go tere in the evenings. Why make the drive if Im shooting into the sun trying to get Rainbows jumping the falls?

[Author]

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