I will be freezing the ball with 1/10,000 second duration flash pulse from my QT1200 strobes, not with my shutter speed, same as this guy is doing, and my R3 will flash sync at 1/250 in EFCS mode. Using flash and then ALSO trying to use fast shutter speed is misunderstanding entirely what you’re doing.
To freeze motion like the photographer is doing you also need strobes with high flash sync , and to be that powerful those must be some expensive lights.
Absolutely not. You leave your shutter at 1/125 or 1/250 or whatever, use your other exposure triangle elements to black out the ambient, and your exposure time becomes your flash duration. “High speed sync” is much much slower and far worse at freezing motion than just shooting with traditional strobes.
Am I right in saying this all seems a bit bait and switch? Any clients I have ever worked with have had a consultation meeting or call before I take on what they want, aling with a discussion about payment and delivery.
It’s not ‘a bit bait and switch’ it’s a model relying on fear of sunk cost in the shoot instead of repeat business. Scummy in my opinion, I’d rather make people happy with the entire process and recommend me to their friends, but it’s not unique to photography or even a particularly ‘arrangement’.
What’s the contract say? If there’s not one, your options get reduced. Other than continuing to ask her, there’s not really anything you can do to force you to give you photos quicker, even taking her to court would just get you your money back.
As far as “is this acceptable?” No, obviously not. I’m assuming you went with her because she was a good deal, this was the risk that went along with that. You didn’t mention when the photoshoot was done, but amateurs or budding pros are famous for underestimating the effort to deliver.
Photography business is 10% photography skill and 90% business skill. And that might even be generous.
Best I can figure is that it means candid natural light portraits of strangers. However, it’s so trendy that people use it to describe several other sub genre, and that they value compact/ inconspicuous gear.
Sure! Anyone photographer who accesses the playing area of the sports I cover is required to be background checked every two years a have current Safe Sport training and Photographer membership. The ID has a QR code event directors scan, and you need to sign your name and member number to the sanction sheet.
Uncoincidentally, I have no shortage of skilled people willing to shoot exactly how I want and keep up the certifications I need from them to access the events we cover 😀
I pay my second shooters $500 a day to shoot with my equipment and hand over their memory cards. When I’ve second shot for people in the past, it has either been at a similar day rate or $75/hr.
Said sporting event also has official photographers by the event organizers, but they are only paid via direct sales to participants, no upfront payment.
To everyone crying for the poor take-advantage-of photographers who accidently got themselves into this awful arrangement, gimme a break. I do plenty of direct-to-participant speculative event sales, which I find profitable enough that I’m happy to pay the photographers I have trained in my methods $500 a day plus all flights, hotels, and travel expenses to shoot with my gear and give me the memory cards to upload. I’d highly suspect they don’t need your advice or pity.
If they didn’t negotiate exclusivity, shoot your shots and stay out of their way. Don’t make it weird, if you know them, just say hello and point out who you are there for–if I was shooting the event officially from a publicly-accessible area, I’d be happy to duck down when your athlete was going, or share settings etc. “I’m working with that girl, she hired me for this as a part of some other work I was doing for her…if you guys are ever shorthanded for events like this, I’d be happy to talk!” is a lot better than trying to be sneaky and coming off like a creep, plus they might end up booking you for a larger event in the future!
There is a photographer that I respect that is totally out of my market (in Ukraine, actually) who was doing an amazing shot unlike anything I’d seen duplicated that I wanted some details on figuring out.
I found his email, stated that I admired his work, asked for his venmo, and asked if he’d be willing to give me the details of his lighting setup for $100. He was incredibly helpful :)
He probably would have helped me for free, but I wanted the information because I wanted to make money from it, so I felt it was only fair to pay for it.
DSLR are a weird low point in the manual focus timeliness. They don’t have the split prism of historical SLR bodies, nor the focus guides, peaking, and magnification of mirrorless (unless you run in live view). I use manual focus all the time on both my mirrorless and my old SLR, because I have many manual lenses.
Four years after the release of the RF 28-70 F2L, Canon is still the only company with a standard zoom with lower aperture than f2.8. I wouldn’t count on anyone else developing a 24-105 f2.8, or, if they do, it was probably already on their roadmap as a natural evolution of the 24-105 f4, which most brands have.
One stop. The difference between 1/500 and 1/1000 second, or 6400 ISO and 12800 ISO. Plus double the background separation.
Volleyball is really predictable, it’s the only team sport I will promise photos of each player ahead of time. Set up for the front row and you have a 1/3 chance of getting a hit each play, then move to set up for the back row and same 1/3 chance, and that’s if you’re just picking a player to focus on at random rather than trying to react.
I shoot with wide aperture prime lenses (40, 105, 200, 300) to get maximum light and background separation, which helps.