> Sounds like another vote for the "Old Reliable". I have great-grandkids
> that age, and I haven't had much luck keeping them still unless an adult
is
> holding them. :~((
I was feeling a little guilty for going off-topic on the off-topic till I
realized that it had gone full-circle back to the original topic. :) OK OK,
when was the last time I've ever felt guilty about going off-topic?
Anyway, yes, "Old Reliable" did a fantastic job--for the most part. Well, it
did better than I did. I was being an idiot about a few things and managed
to completely park my brains more than once. When outdoors with a low, but
bright sun, trees and a hyperactive parent with a two-year-old, things can
get a bit adventurous. My daughters and wife "helped" assist. Not sure that
was a benefit, or not, but I put everybody to use. Daughter #1 had the T45
with FlashBender. Daughter #2 had a shoot-through umbrella. We used the
umbrella two different ways. As a diffuser blocking the direct sun on the
child and also as a shoot-through diffuser for the flash.
So, here is where idiocy kicks in. I'll freely admit the error of my ways so
others can avoid the same stupid mistakes.
Stupid #1: I defaulted the setting on E-1 to Portrait saturation and +1
contrast. The WB was set to 5200 with no offset to prevent the skin from
turning into citris fruit. Shot everything RAW. Well, from the
post-production aspect, this is brilliant because I can run with the
in-camera settings and am right there for most of the shoot. But the problem
is that on the dinky LCD, the review of the image showed massive contrast
shifts and exposure issues. They looked blown out or too dark. Extremely
frustrating. But, for sanity sake, I'd glance at the histogram on the worst
ones and everything was tucked safely inside the entire range. Hmm... Well,
later on, when we were shooting ambient in the shade, as the WB was locked
down to 5200, the images on the monitor turned downright ghastly! Looked
like the Adams Family. Later, on the computer, everything was fine, but I
need to write a memo to myself to always shoot in the field with CS2, 0
contrast and 5200-1 WB. Fix it in post. Or maybe I should just ignore the
monitor altogether and never chimp. When something was 1/2 stop under, it
looked about three stops down. When something was 1/2 stop over, it looked
blown out. Hmm. Maybe this really is a good strategy after all!
Stupid #2: When dealing with a highly active child like this, stick with
just one lens--preferably a zoom. Attempts at some longer focal-length shots
were pretty much impossible because I literally can't focus that fast, frame
that fast or follow that fast. The 35-80 was worth gold. It is definitely my
current favorite portrait lens on FourThirds. Hands down, it rocks. For an
active child in an outdoor shoot like this, just dial down the aperture to
give yourself enough DoF to cover your focusing errors. The 35-80 will take
care of the background--no worries there.
Stupid #3: Chasing the exposure. What a total idiot. I tried to set exposure
by chimping. See Stupid #1. I normally don't work this way and it will
probably be a long time before I do it again. Remember our recent discussion
about flash exposures and ambient light? Well, what do you do when your
subject is sitting on a park bench (more or less sitting, see Stupid #2)
with the sun shining through trees onto her. Inotherwords, there are bright
splotches of light on her. Location didn't work for using the umbrella to
block, so I had to use the off-camera fill-flash. My voice-actuated
remotely-adjustable light-stand wasn't very cooperative with being
consistent with flash-to-subject distance. After a while of this, I just
took us all down to a shady area of the park, turned the flash off, rolled
up the umbrella and stuck the camera on aperture-priority. I DO know how to
balance flash and ambient, but what do you do when both are fluctuating by
three stops continously?
Stuuuuupid #4: I didn't use my fastest CF cards. Long story behind that
lapse of judgement. The E-1, has a nasty little habit of occasionally going
into lockup mode if you are shooting up against the buffer, with auto
image-review and a slow card. The CF activity light just flashes forever. If
you wait about 20 minutes the camera will eventually recover, but you'll
most likely need to pop the battery. I thought I'd wait it out and switched
over to the L1. After a few minutes of that, I realised that I'd be better
off sacrificing the six shots remaining in the buffer of the E-1.
Stupid #5: Two-year-old alien lifeforms aren't very cooperative at 8PM.
After two hours of shooting, I was ready to take up knitting.
Overall, the results are amazing. Here I was feeling pretty bad about the
results as I looked at the camera monitor, but once loaded up in the
computer, there is some good stuff in there. It is a reminder that there is
a reason why we are paid the big bucks. We must deliver, no matter what.
AG
--
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