Part of it depends on what the background in the photo is. If it is a bright orange cone and the background is nothing but grass it would be easy to edit out. But if behind the cone is the horses leg, a fence, a wall with patterns on it then it is a lot more difficult.

Photoshop has a tool called content aware fill along with clone tools that can make it fairly easy to remove objects if the background is a solid color something repeating with no obvious patterns i.e. dirt, grass etc… With repeating patterns it can still be done but it depends on how complicated the pattern is as you want it to look seamless.

As for colors a bright orange cone, or get one of those green screen colored cones that are fluorescent green. Ideally it would be a solid color no stripes, no black edges etc… If it’s a solid unique color it is much easier to select and replace the object.

To add onto this topic. I think you need to work on your portfolio more before you start trying to get clients. You have some strong images in there but you also have some that should clearly be cut, edited or be cropped.

The fact that the first thing I see on your website is text and I have I have to scroll down to see your photos is not ideal. The first thing someone should see when they hit a photographers website should be a picture that impresses them.

Your creative statement/mission statement does not land as well as you may think. With it being the first thing a visitor sees before they even see your work some people may move on before they even get to your work.

You should take some marketing and business classes if you have not already.

I am not sure where you are based out of but here in the US $10 is dirt cheap and that implies low quality regardless of your skill.

Also are you offering portraits at your university to who fellow students?

No social media platforms support raw by default to knowledge. Convert to JPEG then upload.

For me it is a hobby I picked up 15+ years ago. I grew up with national geographic magazines in the house. I may not have read every issue I always loved how stunning their images were. The amazing people and places they showed. It was much different fairly boring small town and the mid sized city that we lived closed to.

Part of it was I wanted a hobby that I could explore more of the artistic side and photography felt very accessible to me. It’s also has a lot of different genres to explore is a great reason to travel more and it’s a hobby where I can always keep growing and learning.

Why do you want to join mirrorless? What does your t6i not do, or how does it fail you and how would going to mirrorless make things better/easier for you?

If you do not have a clear answer to that question then it sounds like you simply want a new toy. Which is fine but realize a new camera when your old one does everything you need is not going to automatically improve your photography or change it.

Generally it is better to invest in lenses that open up new opportunities or provide better image quality vs. buying a new body unless your current body is limiting you in some way.

Professional sports photographers typically have sideline access or a dedicated press area where they only have a few people who might be walking in front of them.

You might find Jeff Cable’s blog here interesting. He does a lot of sports photography and shot the US olympics water polo team in Japan. It was a very interesting read to get his thoughts on how he managed to get some of his shots and the thought process that went into them.

There is a reason that virtually of the successful photographers recommend taking business courses. Business skills and marketing make a bigger difference skill behind the camera.

As long as their images are good enough to make their clients happy it does not matter if they are not as good as another photographer. The clients are happy and that is all that matters in the end.

As others have said quit complaining/looking down on the quality of other photographers work and instead focus on learning how are they getting that much business. What are they doing better/different than you are that results in them getting those clients?

Once you have those answers and can compete with them on the business/marketing side then hopefully your skill work translate into clients choosing you over the competition.

I have been using eneloops for years they were the first ones that came out with good high low discharge recharable NIMH’s. Even 5+ years later they are still going strong.

I have used both over the years and have no complaints with selling to either. Go with whoever pays the most for your gear both offer free shipping. For both I found it took several days to a week after the package was delivered before they gave me their final offer.

With them rescheduling twice both with less than 24 hours of notice it seems very fishy. I would require a deposit for at least 1/2 the session fee immediately and make it clear the deposit is non refundable.

If this is just someone trying to mess with you or scam you that should make it easy to tell. Though if they try to send you more money than your deposit or session fee I would run as that is another common scam.

At that price just use your phone. The only dedicated cameras in that price range are going to be 10+ years old and that is without a lens, or you will get a old pocket camera that will perform worse than a modern smart phone.

Mostly the DXO lens correction profiles being the best is marketing and a way to differentiate themselves vs. Lightroom. Lightrooms lens correction profiles are usually supplied by the manufacturer. I know Jared Polin mentioned that was the case with the new Canon 10-20mm lens at least.

For new and honestly most photographers the difference in lens correction profiles will not make a difference in their work. We are talking about very minor differences between LR and DXO lens correction profiles.

Enjoy your new lens and if you want check out the free trial of DXO but I would by no means consider it remotely necessary.

I think disrespect comment is due to the fact that you are venting/frustrated/angry that professional photographers are not giving you the time of day when they have no obligation to. You are acting like it is owed to you or the fact that people are not taking time out of their day to respond to you is somehow bad behavior on their part.

If you want to someone to teach you, to educate you then sign up for classes. Otherwise there are numerous youtube videos where photographers talk about what gear they use their techniques etc… focused around concert photography or any other type of photography you might be interested.

If you have a local used book store see if they have any used national geographic books/magazines. They put out a lot of hard cover photo books for years and they are usually inexpensive and personally seeing an image in print is much better than on a screen.

500px used to be pretty good I am not sure how it is anymore.

Colossal has a nice featured photography section here that I really like and it has a wider variety than some other photography blogs.

If you want good photography by amateurs vs. professionals I also like looking at the winners of https://www.dpchallenge.com/ competitions.

Yeah this is not gatekeeping.

This is people who you do not know who you have never meet not wanting to take the time to reply to a random stranger online messaging them. I am sure if their work is good they probably have lots of messages asking to use their photos for free, or for them to do free shoots for smaller bands etc… that they also ignore or give short replies to.

There is zero benefit for them to and they are not obligated to take time out of their day to give free advice or lessons to random people.

It would be different if this was part of a class, educational series, or you were talking to them live specifically about concert photography and they refused to share details.

Budget less than $100 but large aperture zoom these are contradictory statements. Even a good cheap zoom is more than $100 used.

A large aperture telephoto zoom would be something like the 70-200mm f2.8L which is even a used older version is still $800+ and it is going to be a 2-3lbs and a fairly bulky lens.

Not using flash and shooting in the moonlight or with no moonlight means that anything with a smaller aperture is not going to be able to get enough light even at ISO 6400+.

At $100 the only large aperture lens option that is in your budget is a used 50mm f1.8 or buying used manual focus lenses unless you find some insane deal from a private seller.

I would suggest if your hiking group ever does campfires to get some picture around a campfire instead.

If the light is not great or leaves peoples faces with to many shadows you could use a fill flash to fill in the shadows. Put an orange gel + diffuser on the flash and dial the power way down and it will not be nearly as distracting as a full power bare flash and you will keep the nice warm glow of the campfire.

Chargeback are the with debit cards as with credit cards. Visa/MasterCard have disputes and chargeback rule that banks have to follow.

The bank may or may not give you a provisional credit while the dispute is in process and it can take a while for the issue to be fully resolved as the merchant has X number of days to respond to the chargeback.

Outside of the darkoom there were a lot of in camera techniques that could get what you are describing. Colored gels over flash heads, colored lens filters, colored reflectors, and intentionally using films with different white balance were some of the techniques used prior digital photos/editing.

Here is a great example of playing with colors by using a colored lens filter and colored gels on a flash. Resulting in a beautiful purple sky because of the lens filter but with natural skin tones because of the gel on the flash.

The details are in Joe McNally’s the Moment it Click’s book which I picked up years ago. A lot of photos in his book he talks about how he accomplished them and most were shot on film.

I cannot speak to Topaz AI but Gigapixel AI does a nice job but it is not always perfect. You need to pay attention to settings and use the before/after slider to carefully check your image. With the wrong settings it can result in less detail. I mostly use gigapixel AI for upscaling AI art though I have done upscaling with it for photos as well.

I find with upscaling photos that if you have the RAW file LR super resolution can be better than Gigapixel in some cases. Even Lightroom super resolution though is not perfect and there are some photos where it introduces more artifacts than I would like.

How big are you planning on printing?

I have gotten excellent 20x30 prints out of 10MP photos many years ago by using a quality print shop. If you have a modern 20-24mp+ camera unless you are planning massive prints or are cropping significantly you probably do not need to use Gigapixel AI.