Photography

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

I'll be shooting 2 cameras, and I've been given a buggy to lug my kit round. I'm mainly going to be shooting in and around the tee's and green's, probably a few out of the bunker's. I'm happy to heavily crop for any fairway long shots as I don't really need the pixels.

I had a 35mm & 50mm f1.8 when I was shooting Cannon, but switched to Sony, and went with an FE 24-105mm f4, which will do me for group shots and narrative type shots. The 70-200mm is mainly for isolating players in and around the tee's, green's and bunkers, and also for the presentation ceremony afterwards. Again, I had a longer lens in my Cannon days, but I didn't really get that much use out of it.

I'll probably end up switching out the 24-105mm for a 24-70mm, f2.8 at some point, although I do like the versatility of the 24-105 for street photography.

Well,

Went with the FE-70-200mm f2.8 GM OSS in the end (Mk 1, because I can't afford to spank $3400 on a lens), and I've just spent 6 hours on a beautiful golf course at a number of holes photographing 6 groups of 4-ball's and a presentation ceremony. I'm absolutely bolloxed.

Ended up with around 1600 shots, shooting in high burst mode for a large portion of the afternoon. Luckily, Adobe have just added 'Assisted Culling' in their latest update for Lightroom, so we'll see how that performs...

 

[stonerblue]

took this yesterday on shit phone camera

 

[DrBlueBob]

I’m typically looking to use my iPad to carry out editing of raw files as well as jpegs.
I currently use photoshop express which is about the best I have found so far, but to be honest, it’s pretty basic.
I run photoshop elements on my iMac, which is great for more involved edits, but it’s not portable enough & more than I need for most of the editing I want to do.
Can anyone recommend a a good photo editing app to use on a new iPad?

It's a bit after the event but have you looked Affinity software?

I have used Affinity photo for a few years and it doesn't require a subscription so you pay once and any updates to that version are free.

Also this week they launched a full photo editing / publishing suite which is completely free.

It has most of the functionality of Photoshop but without the huge financial layout.

 

[Manc baggie]

It's a bit after the event but have you looked Affinity software?

I have used Affinity photo for a few years and it doesn't require a subscription so you pay once and any updates to that version are free.

Also this week they launched a full photo editing / publishing suite which is completely free.

It has most of the functionality of Photoshop but without the huge financial layout.

Thanks for this, I will check it out.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Thanks for this, I will check it out.

Also have a look at Snapseed. I believe it's still available for iPad in the app store.

 

[DrBlueBob]

Thanks for this, I will check it out.

No worries. Let me know how you get on.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Well,

Went with the FE-70-200mm f2.8 GM OSS in the end (Mk 1, because I can't afford to spank $3400 on a lens), and I've just spent 6 hours on a beautiful golf course at a number of holes photographing 6 groups of 4-ball's and a presentation ceremony. I'm absolutely bolloxed.

Ended up with around 1600 shots, shooting in high burst mode for a large portion of the afternoon. Luckily, Adobe have just added 'Assisted Culling' in their latest update for Lightroom, so we'll see how that performs...

Update:

Assisted culling got rid of just 260 blurry or out of focus images, which I'm very happy with given I shot over 1600 frames on my primary camera (I haven't got round to my second camera yet which probably has another 200 shots on it). Having manually culled all the mis-timed and uninteresting compositions, I'm left with 155 useable shots, or a little under 10% of what I shot. Of those 155 images I have 10 really decent shots which is a really good result.

Of all the group images I shot, I took three or four shots of each composition, because you can almost guarantee one person in each frame is blinking, so it's over to Photoshop to do an eye swap as required. I still like to do it the old fashioned way with masking and blending modes, even though you can pretty much do a single-click AI edit for those kind of things these days.

Overall, a rewarding experience as it was a charity event, but I'm not sure it's something I could do full time professionally as I enjoy the creative process too much. Commercial photographers only seem to spend a small percentage of their time actually photographing and even less photographing for their own art. The rest is editing, admin, marketing and other business related stuff. Maybe fine art photography on the side might be an option?

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

View attachment 173651View attachment 173651took this yesterday on shit phone camera

Love shots like that. For a 'shit phone camera' it's done a decent job.

 

[stonerblue]

Love shots like that. For a 'shit phone camera' it's done a decent job.

Actually looks much better on my phone. Much brighter

 

[SCEtoAUX]

Update:

Assisted culling got rid of just 260 blurry or out of focus images, which I'm very happy with given I shot over 1600 frames on my primary camera (I haven't got round to my second camera yet which probably has another 200 shots on it). Having manually culled all the mis-timed and uninteresting compositions, I'm left with 155 useable shots, or a little under 10% of what I shot. Of those 155 images I have 10 really decent shots which is a really good result.

Of all the group images I shot, I took three or four shots of each composition, because you can almost guarantee one person in each frame is blinking, so it's over to Photoshop to do an eye swap as required. I still like to do it the old fashioned way with masking and blending modes, even though you can pretty much do a single-click AI edit for those kind of things these days.

Overall, a rewarding experience as it was a charity event, but I'm not sure it's something I could do full time professionally as I enjoy the creative process too much. Commercial photographers only seem to spend a small percentage of their time actually photographing and even less photographing for their own art. The rest is editing, admin, marketing and other business related stuff. Maybe fine art photography on the side might be an option?

Yes when I shoot sports (typically just school sports these days but I've done golf, rugby, football, horse racing, running) I'd probably expect 10% of shots to be keepers, and if I get a couple that I'm very pleased with then all the better.

I spend about as much time processing photos as I do taking them, and charge accordingly, and I think the post-processing is at least 50% of the job. In fact, when you're photographing sports, there's just a whole load of luck involved. Yes, you can put yourself in the right place sometimes, but much is blind luck. You still need to know your kit inside out, but that's a given when charging money.

I certainly don't call myself a pro, because I only work for one independent school, but that's enough for me at my age and they keep me plenty busy enough.

Funnily enough (or maybe this is common), I have zero interest in photography as a hobby. Sometimes I'll take a few bird photos in my garden, but that's about it. That's why I very rarely buy kit, because it has to pay for itself (or because I destroyed it), and the school never says my photos aren't good enough (far from it). Last purchase was that 70-200 f/4, and before that a Z6 three years ago. Always second hand from a reputable supplier.