IP Roundtable (EP-201)

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Pre-Roll:  BrentRentsLenses.com  Use offer code “IMPROVE”.  Selling off gear.

Topic 1: (Jim) Eye Tracking for Photography Composition

• This week I did some testing with sophisticated software which tracks where on the screen someone is looking.  Records gaze location twice a second.
• The best compositions keep the viewer’s eyes away from the edges, and move the viewer in a logical pattern around the photo
• Viewers pay little attention to the frame itself and all of the attention to the area between the framing elements
• If model looks into lens, viewer stays looking at eyes almost the entire time they see the photo.  If model looks off camera, then the viewer only briefly glances at face and looks more at environment.
• LR Steal pre-orders available right now at improvephotography.com/presets.  Product to be launched on November 28 for 72 hours ONLY!  We will never ever ever have this sale again.  Period.

Topic 2 (Jeff): Being creative on finding leads for paid shoots.

• In spite of trying through the school and through supporters/boosters of the school, was unable to get media credentials to shoot any football this season
• Have a neighbor who has two sons playing on the basketball team, she helped me to get media credentials to shoot the varsity basketball team.  They had a student take the shots of the team last year, she only knew how to get the shots sent through text to the school and they were pretty terrible
• Haven’t shot an actual game yet, only the rah-rah intro night they have where the have the team do some scrimmages for the school kids and some that we took for yearbook with flash lighting
• Having a ton of fun creating “game day” images too with the kids looking tough with kind of a grunge preset in Lightroom and then adding the high school logo, a #gomustangs hashtag and simple words of “GAME DAY” on there
• I am slowly posting an image a day from that and getting huge likes/shares/comments from students and parents.  Have had 2 inquiries about senior photos in less than a week.  Have had a 763% increase to my business Facebook page

Topic 3 (Brian): Not a day goes by when I don’t think about how photography has impacted my life.  I’ve seen and heard bits from Nick on how his life is different.  I see cool things happening for Jeff.  I want to know the impact that it’s had for you guys.  What opportunities?  What’s different?  Looking back, how would you compare it to your life today?  Grab a tissue!  Let’s get real!!!

Topic 4 (Jeff): Photo Taco on Exposure Lock

• Who has used the auto-exposure lock feature?
• Only available in automatic or semi-automatic modes like shutter or aperture priority
• Useful if you want to use those modes and want to have a little more control over how your camera uses the metering information coming to it, normally it will constantly be changing the exposure settings it has control over until you take a picture
• In the Photo Taco episode, which you can find by searching “photo taco auto exposure lock”, I go over the hands-on camera process to use the feature for both Nikon and Canon, so for the details about how to do that go check out the episode.
• Mario Magallan: The most common time I use AEL is for stage performance shoots, where lighting is constantly changing or the stage I am shooting has hot spots that need to be adjusted in a split seconds to capture action on different parts of the stage. (shooting 5d mk iii, 7d mk ii or 70d)I will set my camera to * for AEL, AF-On to Back button focus, Aperture mode, spot metering and set desired ISO based on available stage light. I use the * button to lock in shutter speed on someones face for that section of the stage and will shoot a few captures under that light using back button focus and recompose as needed. I then select another part of the stage hit the * on another face and repeat. Because the lighting can change from spot to spot on the stage, this is the most efficient was to adjust and not miss any action trying to get exposure right in Manual mode. If I have even lighting on stage, or a subject has a spot light on them, then I switch to Manual so my exposure is not jumping around. Of course shooting in RAW is a must to help overcome missed exposures.

Midroll: Casper

Fracture

Topic 5: DJI Inspire 2

• $3,000 for the body only.  $400 or $1400 for your camera
• Dual batteries.  27 minute flight time.
• Obstacle avoidance

Topic 6: What to do when the season changes

• Focus on business: website, budget, etc?
• Connect “real facetime” with other photogs and industry peeps
• Clean tripod???

12 Minute Skill: Jeff, how about an episode sometime on Creative Commons?  Professional photographers rely on “all rights reserved” copyright to safeguard their paid-for work from unauthorised copying. This is essential for royalties and their livelihood. Hobbyists (and professionals on non-commercial shoots) are happier about their work being shared under the right circumstances. Usually I mark my work under a Creative Commons licence (I use Attributions-NonCommercial-ShareAlike), tagging photos as they’re imported to Darktable. It might make a good subject for a Photo Taco, so that photographers who want to share some/most/all of their work can do so with the protection a CC licence offers.

• Jim’s experiment–NO ATTRIBUTION!
• PicSee

Doodads of the Week!

• Jim:  LG 4k monitor 27”  
• Brian: Peak Design Everyday Backpack (preorder $259.95) 
• Jeffaroozle: Holiday Gift Guide coming soon!

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