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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 21st, 2023

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  • One major aspect is autofocus and the motor systems needed to shift the large f-stop pieces of glass within the same housing whilst also offering silent motors, weather sealing, electronic control/communication and overall durability.

    Historically and technically, primes are very simple designs, but, earlier designs could cut corners due to the formats they were designed for. I.e. b&w, 35mm, etc. These formats were nowhere near as detailed as digital images and so new elements are needed to refine the quality.

    They also have a lot of patents taken up. The Leica and Zeiss patents for Summilux and Plannar, etc are very old. So rival designs often needed to take the long route to the same result.

    But it all together and you have that behemoth of a Nikkor!



  • I’m currently in a position but leaving on 15th December.

    I was allowed to market myself for anything that wasn’t a conflict of interest. So the agency did corporate work - headshots, interiors, Events, some lifestyle and campaigns.

    I was once under the impression that I could market to small and one-person businesses, but I was slapped over the knuckles as that was apparently still a conflict of interest, even though those businesses could never afford the big brand rates of this agency.

    I’m in the UK and by my contract, no additional commercial work can be undertaken while under contract. But they had graces on that. Weddings were fine as well as a bunch of other avenues such as if I sold my prints. That literally isn’t their business.

    So I stuck to weddings and I could market that as much as I liked. I still did the odd other shoot and even got referred by the boss for one! But those were word-of-mouth things I could keep on the down low. And I always used my own kit. That’s pretty important, tbh. They’d have no copyright claim or anything but you taking the risk of damaging it off work time.

    However, marketing the weddings led me to hand my notice in. So it still worked out!













  • You learn by doing and recognising. (I know, summing it up like that is a bit of a cop out.) You learn to watch people’s actions, by seeing contrast in what light is available and learning your own limitations of motions vs shutter speed vs what your subject is. (It’s not always formulaic.) You learn what makes a bad image and redirect your efforts to what you learn is a good opportunity. If you have to get the image under terrible conditions, because the client needs it, you just get it. If you don’t, you can safely pass it by. You introduce strobe lighting when you can - providing it doesn’t disturb the atmosphere of the job at hand (like a wedding in a church). And you invest in lenses before bodies, as always.