Equipped

[mratner]

Canon 5D Classic (used); 85 1.8; 24-105L; 70-300 IS; 430EX II; Manfrotto 190CXPRO4 Tripod legs; Manfrotto 460MG (3-way) head

Comments

[amigofriend]

Well, this is way over my head, but looks good :)

Looks like portraits, nature and whildlife are covered.

[mratner]

Dude, if I can approach the quality of your pictures, I'll consider myself lucky.

Yes, this is geared towards portraits (hence the flash and its accessories) and travel. Not really wildlife, as 300mm on a full-frame is not very long.

What do you use for workflow, Lightroom?

[amigofriend]

I use photoshop, just because, but I hear Lightroom is better, especially if you start w/it.
Agree w/your statement on 300mm on a full-frame, I guess.

I am a real neanderthal, don't use filters or lens hoods. I guess one small thing that's missing is some kind of lens cleaning kit.

[mratner]

Yeah, I am really intrigued by Lightroom, especially the new Highlight and Shadow sliders that supposedly allow you to easily extract tons more detail from RAW shots.

Lens cleaning kit... hmm... thanks, I'll think about it.

[mratner]

Re: filters, did you never feel that you could have spiced up some wide-angle outdoor shots with a polarizer?

[amigofriend]

Of course, just too lazy :)

[mratner]

You don't put UV filters on your lenses (for protection) ?

[amigofriend]

That's why I need lens cleaning kit that much!
:)

[mratner]

Oh, and another question - how critical is it to have the hood on the 70-300? My bag may be smallish...

[amigofriend]

My position would be firm - screw the hood, especially for 70-300 :)

For wide and ultra-wide some of my shots suffer from the lack of the hood, for 70-300 I don't remember one shot that did.

[mratner]

Oh, cool. I am really put off by that huge ugly thing on the 70-300.

On the 24-105L the (much smaller) hood is included.

[amigofriend]

Yes, I think the latter is true for most of the L lenses.

But so far I used one on my 400mm only once, recently (rain) :)

[mratner]

You have the 5.6 I presume? Can you really shoot it handlheld without IS?

[amigofriend]

Like crazy!

http://amigofriend.livejournal.com/1814135.html?thread=20785271#t20785271

http://www.lensplay.com/lenses/lens_data.php?lensID=31

[mratner]

Your shots are like insanely sharp. 1/1600... must be nice to live in sunny California :)

[amigofriend]

Of course, one thing about it - if there is not enough light, fuhgeddaboudit.

However, usually I shoot at F8.0, but here are cases I had to put it on 5.6:

http://amigofriend.livejournal.com/1803062.html (evening)
http://amigofriend.livejournal.com/1810599.html (overcast)

Still kinda works.