The Show is in the feed or you can download it at Pixelcorps.TV

This week: Something entirely new, questions and answers, we take on a slew of listener questions and do our best to answer them.

Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Ron Brinkmann, Joseph Linaschke, Alex Lindsay

Bandwidth provided by Cachefly. Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro

Show producer Aaron Mahler at www.halfpress.com or www.twitter.com/halfpress

Show notes by Bruce Clarke at www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke

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LISTENER QUESTIONS

Question 1 - Printer Calibration

Web927 in the IRC chat room asks: I have an Epson 1800 printer. I calibrate my monitor and the colors look great on screen but when I print them they seem to be a little off. What can I do to correct this?

Ron: At some level you can't just because print and monitors are different beasts and can't display the same color gamut. That being said, you can get a little bit closer. There are calibration tools that will calibrate both your monitor and printer. You can also eyeball and adjust your profiles manually. You may just look on the web to see if there are specific color profiles for your printer that maybe you're not using.

Question 2 - Differences between a Beauty Disk, a Ring Flash, and Softboxes

Joseph E asks: Can you talk about the differences between a beauty dish, a ring flash and a softbox?

Joseph: Depends on what you're shooting. The beauty dish gives you nice soft all around light although I haven't really worked with them. I like a big softbox as a sole light source. If you keep it close to the subject, it will wrap around them and give you nice even light. An umbrella tends to be a bit harder and will give you a direct shadow. Ring light is extremely even light and goes around the actual lens. It started off in Macro photography as a way to do close-up photography without getting those strange shadows. It's a light that actually wraps around the lens. They've become quite popular for fashion work. It puts a nice catch light in the subject's eyes and depending on it's distance to the subject it can give you a nice even light or create that halo effect around the subject.

Question 3 - Budget-Level DSLR

Intothetouch asks: For those on a budget, can you recommend a budget-level SLR?

Alex: The good news is that almost all DSLRs are great. Where you'll really spend your money is on lenses. Eventually you'll replace your body so if you're going to spend money you should spend it on lenses. The two cameras I would look at would be the Nikon D80 or the Canon Rebel series. Both are great but having a great lens will make a big difference. If you're on a budget, for $400 - $500 you can get a Rebel and a 50mm f1.8. Now if you want to do landscapes and other stuff then you're getting into a whole other set of lenses but the 50mm is great for shooting people.

Ron: Also consider what gear your friends have if you want to borrow lenses from them.

Fred: That's a great point and another thing to consider is that once you buy that DSLR, you can go to your favorite lens rental place like BorrowLenses.com and rent some lenses. You could also rent a DSLR body if you're not sure what you want.

Alex: If I were shopping today, I think I would go with Nikon however the Canon leads in the area of video right now and that's what we've been using. I think the Nikon focuses faster, it does time lapse and shoots a greater dynamic range for bracketed exposures.

Question 4 - Flash Suggestion for a Canon G10

GDW says: I have a Canon G10. What flash would be the best?

Fred: It depends on what you're shooting. I still have my G9 and the only flash I've used on it was the 580EX II. If you're shooting something like Macro photography and you don't require as much power, the 270 or the 430 might be enough power for you. If you want to do portraiture you'll need to scale up to something like the 580. Buy what you can afford. Like lenses, the strobe will be with you for longer than you have your body so it's best to invest in those options up front.

Question 5 - Storing and Backing up Photos

What is your workflow process and how do you handle the backup of your files?

Ron: I keep all of my RAWs and process everything into a JPEG using Aperture. I keep most of those JPEGs on my laptop and my RAW files on a bigger machine. I keep stuff on the local machine. I make a clone of that disk to a Drobo and then I use Backblaze to put it up in the cloud.

Alex: Something doesn't exist until it exists in two separate places at a minimum. Even better is to have it in three places.

Joseph: I shoot with the Canon 1D Mark III. I shoot RAW to one card and JPEG to another so I have instantaneous backup. Then I copy everything to the Drobo. Nothing comes off the card until I have it on the Drobo. I'd like to use cloud storage but I have so much data that it takes a long time to back it up online.

Fred: Some cloud storage options let you send them a drive to get the initial bulk of your files online and then from there it's just uploading the new and changed data. For someone like Joseph who is shooting everyday, that conveyor belt of data may not move at a fast enough pace however to get everything backed up. A strategy I'm using is to store an off-site backup copy at a friend's place and then Crashplan will keep things backed up.

Question 6 - RAW Workflow

Robert would like to know our workflow for RAW images. Do you keep the JPEGS you create from your RAW files? Do you convert RAW to DNG and how to assure the viability of the images decades from now?

Joseph: Going to back to the earlier question, once I know the RAW files are secure I delete the JPEG images that I captured on the second card. I then process my RAW files in Aperture and then once I've done an edit, all the good files go up to SmugMug as full res JPEGS. I don't do any conversion to DNG. I'm banking that companies like Canon and Nikon's file formats will be around for awhile.

Ron: Similar to what I answered earlier. I tend to make a JPEG copy of everything. It's a lighter weight format.

Question 7 - How High Will Mega Pixels Go

Dark MacIntosh asks: How high do you think megapixels will go? Will they surpass medium format?

Ron: I think it will keep going. There is a physics issue with the lenses so that will probably be what holds stuff back.

Fred: What do you think about technology diverging away from mexapixels and getting into creating in-camera high dynamic ranges. Is that something we need?

Ron: I think that's where it's going to go. I do a lot of photography outdoors so having a camera with a higher dynamic range is very important to me.

Alex: For me the priority are low light and dynamic range rather than more megapixels. I'd like to see 20-30 stops of dynamic range and being able to shoot in near darkness.

Fred: Low-light sensitivity is big on my list for sure. I think we also have to consider the audience for this stuff and where this stuff is going. I think there will be a market for high megapixels.

Question 8 - Photographing a Fire Breather

Ravenscroft - What would be the best way to get a shot of a fire breather? I have a 40D and a 50mm f1.2.

Joseph: You are going to need to use a slightly slower shutter speed than you might normally shoot with. Something around 1/60th or a 1/125th of a second to caput re the movement of the flame but also the glorious ambient light that's going to be cast all over the place.

Fred: You went out on the Seal tour and captured a lot of great images where you were shooting in a situation where lights were moving on the stage and landing on the subject. How do you deal with those situations?

Joseph: You have to follow the lights and if you want to get a great shot of the artist on stage with the audience in the background you have to wait for that light to sweep across the stage and light up both the subject and some of the crowd. It's a lot of chimping where you shoot, check the image and adjust your exposure while you're standing there.

Question 9 - Communicating with Other Photographers

Reg says: I want to participate in local photo events like ASMP and photo club meetings but I can't find the time. What other ways can you get involved in communication with other photographers?

Ron: The web has huge photo communities on them so I'd start there. Places like Flickr let you exchange photos and comment on them. If you want actual face-to-face meetings then there are plenty of photo meetups and other events. You just have to make the time and get out there.

Fred: For real-world meetings, head over to www.meetup.com and search for photography related meetups in your area. If you want online interactions then go to some place like SmugMug or Flickr and engage that way.

Question 10 - Picture Styles

When you add affects to photos in camera and you're shooting RAW, does it affect the image? The second thing is should you use the in-camera controls or do it in post?

Alex: I want the camera to do as little as possible. Keep everything in focus and expose well.

Ron: I think anyone listening to this show has the desire to up their photography so I recommend doing it in post for the most control. There can be a place for setting something like sepia tone if you just want a quick snapshot and if you don't plan on spending any time on the photo in something like Lightroom or Aperture.

Alex: That's the only time I'll do that if I just want to do a quick snapshot and send it to someone right away or upload it quickly using my iPhone.

Joseph: My take has always been just shoot RAW and doing everything in post. I have the Olympus Pen EP1 and I have found that I almost exclusively shoot in one or two of the art modes. There is a B&W mode and pinhole camera effect and I love the look of both files. When I'm just shooting pictures for fun then I shoot in those modes, I know I like the effect I'm going to get and then I can just put them on my computer and share them right away without having to spend a lot of time on the computer.

Adding onto this discussion, Web7676 asks: Do the Canon camera presets affect the image when you shoot in RAW? Secondly, when you're shooting in those portrait modes, you're not baking those settings into the JPEG file are you?

Joseph: If you're just shooting JPEG then those settings are baked into the image. If you're shooting RAW plus JPEG then those settings will be baked into the JPEG and the RAW file will just be the RAW file. If you are only shooting in RAW, you'll see the embedded jpeg on the back of your camera (e.g. B&W) but when you import the image into whatever editing tool you use, you will see the full RAW file. In Aperture you can extract the JPEG out of the RAW file but it will be a lower quality JPEG file.

Question 11 - Getting Rid of Duplicates in Aperture

Dr. Amin asks: How can I get rid of duplicates in Aperture. Aperture never warns me about importing duplicates when I'm rearranging my libraries.

Ron: I think when you're doing your importing there is an option that says do no import duplicates.

Joseph: Yes, that's correct but if you rename your files when you import, if you import them a second time, Aperture won't recognize that file as a duplicate because it's comparing file names so there is a bit of a flaw in the logic there in terms of comparing duplicates just based on file name. When you move files around there is no duplicate detection in there.

Ron: There is a 3rd party application for the Mac that will look at the images themselves and do pattern matching to detect duplicates.

Question 12 - Dealing with Jealous Girlfriends When Shooting Models

Tim asks: How do you keep your girlfriend from getting jealous when you're photographing models?

Fred: The key is to have a good girlfriend who understands the line between vocation and recreation.

Question 13 - Card Sizes

GDW asks: What is a good size and speed of a CF card?

Alex: I like the 8 GB cards. I'm afraid if I have 16 GBs then I'm putting too many eggs in one basket. 4 GB on a Canon 5D Mark II isn't enough so for me I really need to have an 8 GB as a minimum. I have the SanDisk Extreme IIs.

Fred: Typically I run with 16GB cards in each slot of my D3.

Ron: I subscribe to the bigger cards is better theory. I asked Bill Frakes about this and he feels that there is more risk in swapping cards and potentially dropping something in the mud or water than there is of the card failing so the less card swapping you have to do the better.

Question 14 - Addicted to TWiP

Martin says: I've listened to 40 Episodes of TWiP in the last 10 days and I'm addicted to TWiP. The question is, what can I do about it?

Alex: The answer is that resistance is futile! :)

Question 15 - Photoshop on a Mac vs. PC

Samuel asks: Is there a difference between Photoshop on a PC and Photoshop on a Mac. I see a lot of professional photographers using Macs.

Fred: No. The two applications are functionally identical however Alex has a couple of caveats.

Alex: Obviously there is the whole Ctrl vs Cmd functions but beyond that the big thing that we run into when dealing with large files is that currently, the PC version runs in 64-bit and the Mac version runs in 32-bit. What that means is the application can't access enough memory if you're working with really large files. We use a Mac but if we have any heavy lifting then we will reboot into Windows 7 and run it in 64-bit mode. I think however for the average user, running Photoshop on a Mac or PC won't make a difference. In a lot of situations there may not be a big difference between running Photoshop and Photoshop Elements if people are just doing basic corrections.

Ron: You can run into that memory issue if you're working with lots of layers or trying to combine a lot of large images (e.g stitching a large pano) so you don't necessarily have to be a power-user per se to run into that memory limitation.

Alex: A quick aside, someone asked me about the camera I use to shoot my time lapse and it's the Ricoh R10. The only thing I use it for is shooting time lapse images.

WRAP UP

Frederick Van Johnson - www.frederickvan.com or www.twitter.com/frederickvan

Ron Brinkmann - www.digitalcomposting.com or www.twitter.com/ronbrinkmann

Joseph Linaschke - www.confessionsofatraveljunkie.com or www.twitter.com/travel_junkie

Alex Lindsay - www.pixelcorps.com or www.twitter.com/alexlindsay

Show notes by Bruce Clarke at www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke

Visit the blog at www.twiplog.com and the Flickr critique group. We also have a new Facebook group so be sure to check it out.