Could be my first job, advice needed

Since the OP's foray into "full auto" produced his sharpest pictures so far ... I say go the whole hog and superglue that mode dial.
My advice is just for the OP and his present camera+lens, not for anyone else.
(Apart from the actual glue I'm serious)
 
I've not read all of these posts but something grabbed my attention... I've got the d3300 and if I use continuous focus mode with correct settings the focus is never pin sharp. If I use single focus it is sharp. I'm.not sure why but I've done numerous tests and every single one has the same results.
 
If continuous focus worked well for single focus situations, that would be all the makers would give you. The reason you have single focus available is because it is better - ie gives better focus more quickly.
 
AndyG123 said:
I've not read all of these posts but something grabbed my attention... I've got the d3300 and if I use continuous focus mode with correct settings the focus is never pin sharp. If I use single focus it is sharp. I'm.not sure why but I've done numerous tests and every single one has the same results.
Click to expand...
I used continuous focus mode for the first time recently on my D700 and took a number of shots of this lady running toward me, I was pleasantly surprised at the accuracy of the focusing.

 
Terrywoodenpic said:
I am interested to see where in the regulations Photographs are expressly deemed not to be personal data under GDPR. As yet I have never found it.
Though Bio-metric data seems to be in contention and is unclear as to its status.
Click to expand...
Sorry you had to wait till I had time to research properly:
Journalism, academia, art and literature
This exemption can apply if you process personal data for:

  • journalistic purposes;
  • academic purposes;
  • artistic purposes; or
  • literary purposes.
Together, these are known as the ‘special purposes’.
 
andrewc said:
Does your flash have a focus assist light function?

Flash recycling times are faster with the best batteries you can find - eg Sanyo Eneloops.

In the birthday folder, when you are shooting in portrait, there is often a lot of empty (wasted) space in the upper 1/4 of the frame.

Next time, slow down and think more.

Friends are always going to be pleased.
Free is always liked.

Pleasing a paying customer is harder.
Click to expand...
+1
On the subject of batteries get an intelligent charger so you know they are fully charged.
 
I would tend to agree with your and the lawyers conclusions that this is a Grey Area with no certainty. and one that will not be clarified until a few court cases have arisen and been resolved
In the mean time, If such images are taken with honest intent I doubt that there will ever be a problem.
I suspect images of events fall within the Journalistic category.
However all photographs taken by individuals and amateurs for private consumption fall outside the scope of GDPR.
Though if they are used on social media or on line, they enter them in to another grey area, concerned with "Publishing" But one of such massive size and complexity that is probably impossible to regulate.

All such photographs can also contain images of Children which could raise "safeguarding" concerns, even though not illegal themselves.
However, though indirectly every-ones concern, the regulations do not apply to private individuals, unless commissioned as a photographer by an organisation that is so regulated. this seemingly grey area has resulted in the paranoia so often encountered from parents. schools and such like organisations.who have the erroneous belief that photographing children is in some way illegal.

What it boils down to is that a vast majority of photography is perfectly legal, but that various hoops can have to be jumped through, in regard to vague regulations.
Most of these regulations involve publishing rather than the taking of photographs, and sometimes the obtaining and recording recording of various permissions.
 
DemiLion said:
Do stop being a dick. Warning someone that there are potential licensing issues is hardly being anal. It's called compliance.

FYI - Misuse of a software licence equals breach of copyright.
Click to expand...

TBH there's such a load of FREE stuff on the Internet now that paying for anything is a bit silly unless you know exactly why you need it and what you want it to do.

What an amateur like the OP needs for PP is a simple editing program until he learns that the more complex a program is the easier it is to turn out crap.
 
Phil V said:
Its out of focus.

Stop shooting ‘headshots’ till you’ve practiced.

Spend an evening shooting the table lamp, pictures on the wall, the telly, your feet, anything you can see.

It’s a piece of p*** (when you haven’t got the extra pressure of pleasing someone else, communicating with them etc), using your cameraproperly should become 2nd nature within days.

There’s a picture on the wall in my dining room...

I’ve got about 200 images of it, because it’s handy for testing stuff, and I’d been shooting 20 odd years when I bought that picture. I don’t shoot it cos I’m a learner!!

A racing driver doesn’t ‘practice’ racing, he practices driving, he doesn’t wait till he has someone to race, he hones his skills and learns how his car works. So then when he has to race, he doesn’t have to think about how his car works, he can concentrate on the racing, because the driving is 2nd nature.

Once you’ve learned to use your camera, you can take pictures for others.

You try to pretend you’re getting contradictory advice, but that’s b****x. You like to think you’re shooting ‘jobs’ cost makes you feel great. Practicing your photography on your mates when there’s no guarantee you’ll get them in focus isn’t a ‘job’ or a ‘gig’ or ‘headshots’, it’s not asession; it’s just you learning to use a camera with your mates as guinea pigs.
Click to expand...

Excellent advice Phil - the first digital camera I got was the Canon 350D which I had for 5 years before I felt that I needed to move on, finally ending up with the Canon 1Ds MkII.

During that time I took thousands of photos gradually getting better as I learned more and more about all the aspects of digital photography - which is inherently different than working with the old film cameras, simply because of the mass of adjustments available.

And also learned more and more about PP as the programs got better and better - and sometimes more complicated.

But until you can use your camera without even considering how it works and having to worry about why things are OOF I certainly wouldn't consider doing anything as a paying gig.

Because sooner or later it will bite you in the ar*e.
 
If you have Amazon Prime try this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B01L0IIJZI/ref=atv_wtlp_wtl_1

There is so much to learn when it comes to photography that you can concentrate so hard on one thing, you completely miss everything else. But one thing's for certain, there's nothing more frustrating than being in the heat of the moment and not being able to work out what's going wrong.

That will come about through constant practice. Event photography scares me as I don't like mingling at the best of times. So if it's something you're going to pursue, then you need to be good with people. I seem to remember @Phil V (I think) saying that he had two personas - Phil the photographer, confident, take charge kind of guy, and Phil the non-photographer, who probably wouldn't go up to complete strangers and boss them about.

I think as others have said, when photographing people, you're not likely to go wrong if you focus on their eyes. And when there's more than one person, constantly shooting at f/1.8 means you'll more than likely only get one person in focus. We've all been guilty of it - me especially when I got an f/1.4 lens. I shot everything at 1.4 and came on here thinking I knew it all and that something was wrong with my kit because a lot of my shots weren't as sharp as wanted.

A few pointers (most considerably less harsh than some on here) and I was at least heading in the right direction. I'm lucky in that most of the photos I take are really just for me, so if I'm happy then all well and good. But as soon as you start taking them for other people, I'd argue that the stakes aren't just a little bit higher, they go up exponentially.

Friends of ours knew I was a keen snapper (I won't use the term photographer) and asked me if I wouldn't mind taking pictures of their wedding. This was before I even had a DSLR. They didn't have a lot of cash, and I explained I only had a point and shoot, but at that point I realised just how important some events are to people and how much pressure there is on you. They were happy with the results (it's hard not to believe you're getting value for money when something's free).

ETA: I've just looked back over the images and while they may have been happy, i wouldn't say they were good. Snapshots, but nothing more.

Certainly now I have 8 more years' knowledge, some better equipment and a little more confidence, I would approach things very differently.

You're not really paying for people's time as such when you hire a photographer, you're paying for their expertise and their results. It may be that you're choosing them for a particular style or look, it may be that you're choosing them because you can guarantee you'll get what you asked for. But in my humble opinion, if you're going to accept any of these jobs, you should explain to them that you're learning and not seek to get paid for time or shots, but accept that the knowledge you gain is more valuable than any money you'd get.

All IMVHOOC.
 
Last edited:
Kell said:
If you have Amazon Prime try this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B01L0IIJZI/ref=atv_wtlp_wtl_1
Click to expand...

DemiLion said:
Good looking course. I couldn't help giggling when I noticed that the very last chapter (Eps 130-149) is the one about making money.

TBH, that looks like decent value even if you aren't on Prime (£49.99).
Click to expand...

This course is a Udemy course and currently (two days left) available at £9.99.

I haven't done it, but the Amazon Prime details had a "Udemy" look to it so I searched Udemy, and it appears to be the identical course.

The course is here https://www.udemy.com/photography-masterclass-complete-guide-to-photography/

This £9.99 deal is something that happens fairly regularly at Udemy, and most are pretty good, I'm ashamed, or proud, to admit (not sure which) that I've done nearly 200 Udemy courses over the last 10 years.
 
So I have a 3 hour photography lesson next Sat, £85 for 3 hours.

Here are 2 pics I took today

f7764bb4-7bc7-400e-92e2-896c95847db3-original.jpg


f6599ab2-1853-43f5-b881-d980616f590c-original.jpg



But here is also a pic today I took which isn't in focus?

326939ab-a8ed-4470-b6f6-e5cb8e79220c-original.jpg
 
Mark can answer for himself, but my take on this is.
1. You're carrying on just as before. You don't seem to be giving any thought to composition, framing, background or even why the photo is (or isn't) worth taking, and your photos seem to be just as unsharp as ever.
2. You seem to be ignoring all of the helpful advice that people keep giving you, you're still shooting with your lens wide open from a short distance, people have suggested using a lens of twice that focal length at the same effective aperture (2 f/numbers smaller) instead, if you really want to blur the background - not that blurring the background, even for a photographer who is capable of focussing his/her camera, is any kind of a rule.
3. Einstein famously defined insanity as "“insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
4. £85 is a lot of money for a lesson, but I doubt whether there are many photographers who are worth paying who would charge so little. Are you going to get good value from this, assuming that you actually listen?

Harsh words, but we really are trying to help you. You just need to take a step backwards, learn the basics, listen to people who are trying to help and to stop using techniques that you consider to be 'professional' until you have the skills to make them work.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Mark can answer for himself, but my take on this is.
1. You're carrying on just as before. You don't seem to be giving any thought to composition, framing, background or even why the photo is (or isn't) worth taking, and your photos seem to be just as unsharp as ever.


What you see in the pics is what I wanted to achieve.

What you see in the background is what I wanted in the background.

Sorry if you don’t like it

So you are saying the 1st 2 images are out of focus????




2. You seem to be ignoring all of the helpful advice that people keep giving you, you're still shooting with your lens wide open from a short distance, people have suggested using a lens of twice that focal length at the same effective aperture (2 f/numbers smaller) instead, if you really want to blur the background - not that blurring the background, even for a photographer who is capable of focussing his/her camera, is any kind of a rule.

I wanted to shoot wide open.......


3. Einstein famously defined insanity as "“insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”


4. £85 is a lot of money for a lesson, but I doubt whether there are many photographers who are worth paying who would charge so little. Are you going to get good value from this, assuming that you actually listen?

£85 is for 3 hours. It’s not a lot of money to me and it’s what I want to spend my money on.

Harsh words, but we really are trying to help you. You just need to take a step backwards, learn the basics, listen to people who are trying to help and to stop using techniques that you consider to be 'professional' until you have the skills to make them work.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I'm 4 years into photographing people,99% on location, and only just starting to have the confidence to approach virtually anything / any situation that's thrown at me (NOT WEDDINGS, you guys deserve high praise indeed) I mostly recognise when an image is worth taking and can usually imagine what it will look like on a screen monitor. I went out last weekend and had planned where I would photograph but even then when I saw some of the backdrop on the back of the camera I changed my position, changed her position, waited for people to walk out of frame behind the subject just those little details that might otherwise spoil an image.
I started with landscape and general photography and photographed lots and lots of stuff, I learned how to use my camera and took advice from various postings on here, I learned what SHOULDN'T be in the scene and I apply that to my people photography all the time, the standard joke among my friends is that "Brian's clearing the woodland again" but it's because there are twigs and other detritus that I just know will bug me when I get the image home. My point is, don't run before you can walk, by all means "reach" for the best you can be but learn learn and learn a bit more.
 
metroman said:
I'm 4 years into photographing people,99% on location, and only just starting to have the confidence to approach virtually anything / any situation that's thrown at me (NOT WEDDINGS, you guys deserve high praise indeed) I mostly recognise when an image is worth taking and can usually imagine what it will look like on a screen monitor. I went out last weekend and had planned where I would photograph but even then when I saw some of the backdrop on the back of the camera I changed my position, changed her position, waited for people to walk out of frame behind the subject just those little details that might otherwise spoil an image.
I started with landscape and general photography and photographed lots and lots of stuff, I learned how to use my camera and took advice from various postings on here, I learned what SHOULDN'T be in the scene and I apply that to my people photography all the time, the standard joke among my friends is that "Brian's clearing the woodland again" but it's because there are twigs and other detritus that I just know will bug me when I get the image home. My point is, don't run before you can walk, by all means "reach" for the best you can be but learn learn and learn a bit more.
Click to expand...
This.

Fact is, people do genuinely try to help, but when people continuously come out with b******t, they tend to give up.
I had a good example of this today.
I went clay shooting with a couple of friends, one of whom is a linguist who translates for a living. He is also a polyglot, competent in quite a few languages.
The other friend is a natural polyglot. I was the odd one out, used to be good in German, converersational standard in Italian and passable in French, but well out of practice now.

There was a visitor there, watching the shooting. People are always welcoming but nobody was talking to him, his English was hopeless and so we were asked to talk to him if we could, make him feel welcome.
He said that he was Bulgarian but has lived in Spain for 20 years and also speaks Russian, German, Lituanian and Polish. Well, that should have been fine because between us we had all those languages well covered, and some fluently. Except that the only half way common language was in fact Spanish, and his Spanish was hopeless.
He told us that in Spain, he goes clay shooting all the time, and was very pleased to find that we do it in England.
So, we insisted that he tried it, using one of our guns under supervision.
It was obvious, as soon as I went into the cage with him and handed him my gun, that he was talking b******t and had never handled one before.
That was the point at which we gave up trying. If people delude themselves then they need to sort themselves out.
 
@willkia i mentioned earlier about learning to ‘see’.
You say that the background on these images is what you want it to be.

Well, you’re not seeing those images through the eyes of a photographer.

Image 1 is out of focus, the light on the subject is appalling with his jawline disappearing in shadow, there should never be landscape lines running through the head of your subject they’re distracting, you’ve managed multiple. :)

Inage2 at least on my phone appears to be in focus, and you have your subject in a pool of light so it has the beginning of a portrait. The smaller downsides are the stranger in the background is distracting and...
On both images the logos on the clothes are attention grabbing, which is fine for advertising, not so good for portraits (though for fb IG etc I appreciate some people like to show off their ‘style’)

Keep practicing, but you need to learn to read a scene like a photographer, and your focussing hasn’t improved, I’ll bet you haven’t ‘practiced’ without a person in front of you. :(
And you still need a longer lens if this is what you’re trying to achieve.
 
Phil V said:
Inage2 at least on my phone appears to be in focus, and you have your subject in a pool of light so it has the beginning of a portrait. The smaller downsides are the stranger in the background is distracting and...
Click to expand...

Even on that one, on a full sized screen, it's clear that the guy's hair is actually sharper than the eyebrow/eyelashes of the front eye - so, yeah, the OP's still basically missed focus, though this time at least not tragically badly. The guy in the RHS background wouldn't have been half as distracting if he'd not just been raising his bottle to his gob... that's observation and timing...
 
Garry Edwards said:
Einstein famously defined insanity as "“insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
Click to expand...

problem is, I can see this thread eventually driving more and more f the membership to the same mental state...
 
a very educational and entertaining thread.
the OP wants to do things his way, but achieve results that are gained from doing things differently (the right way).
good luck to you OP
 
I am so looking forward to my lesson on Sat.

Don’t see how image 2 is out of focus.

But I am sure I will he told on Sat what I am doing wrong
 
willkia said:
Don’t see how image 2 is out of focus.
Click to expand...

not out of focus per-se, just missed critical focus ever so slightly - we're talking maybe 1" if that... BUT, we're talking photography not mortar-fire here, near enough isn't good enough.
 
DemiLion said:
I need to apologise to Will.

I misread 'lesson' as 'session' and thought that he was charging for another shoot.

The idea of a lesson is a good one. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t charge £85

I’d charge £850

Hahaha
 
No. Because I worked my backside off to learn photography properly over several years (including a six month residential course) before I started to charge.
 
I've just read the entire thread (some brilliant advice, by the way), and one thing that keeps coming to mind is that as it goes on, it reads more and more like the OP doesn't want advice at all and is just tailoring their posts to elicit frustration from those who have offered their advice, simply to keep the thread going.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top