Music: RE: [u2tour] Photos from New Jersey

We're good:) thanks for sharing your thoughts. I respect photographers, its
not easy. My own skills have dramatically improved on this tour, & I'm
merely a novice. I learn from people such as yourself. Its very much
appreciated. I'll keep my mouth shut from here on out. I apologize for being
offensive. To you, & everyone. Hug it out.
Nick
On Jul 29, 2011 11:38 AM, "Jennifer Breton" <jenhybr@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Nick, I'm sorry if my comments made you feel attacked. As a professional
photographer who is constantly asked about my equipment as though buying the
same will turn them overnight into the exact same photographer as I am, your
comment (as well as others who ask Ayaz constantly), I guess rubbed me the
wrong way, particularly the bit about "hell, they better be good." The
equipment comparison, however, of a Polaroid and a pro-level DSLR is not
accurate and not what I meant nor intended.
>
> What I want people to understand is that if they had the same equipment as
Ayaz, and used the equipment on auto, they would NOT get the same results.
>
> Concert photography is not easy: lights are constantly changing, which
means that exposures are constantly changing. You'd have to really
understand the nuances of shadows and of highlights to make correct
exposures. And further, you'd have to understand how aperture settings would
affect everything from what was in focus to what wasn't (and even how it
affects lights in the background), and then know how to change your ISO
settings to accomodate your shutter speed. Photography is a lot more than
just clicking a button and investing a couple thousand dollars into fancy
equipment. You COULD get the same results from a Rebel as Ayaz gets from his
5Dii (other than some image degradation from the camera's poorer handling of
noise--but that certainly wouldn't be something anyone without a developed
eye would notice...) but you really have to know what you're doing, which
means taking the camera off of auto and working with it in manual mode. I
promise you that if you invested into the same sort of equipment that Ayaz
has and kept the camera in auto, your images would be just the same as they
are from the entry level DSLRs and higher-end point and shoots (I'd even
argue that a person using a 5Dii on auto would probably wind up with even
worse images since the 5Dii doesn't have a built in flash).
>
> Above all, taking great concert photos means having invested quite a bit
of time and practice into the art of photography: knowing what shutter
speeds you can work at without focus issues, knowing how to work all of the
settings on your camera (including focal points), knowing how different
apertures affect your images (and how to properly focus using wider
apertures), knowing how different lenses affect your images, knowing how to
set ISOs to accomodate your desired shutter/aperture settings (and how the
higher and in-between ISOs affect your final images), etc. Not to mention
you need to have a good eye, understand composition, and know the right
moment to press the shutter. These are not skills that are developed
overnight, and buying expensive equipment is definitely not going to turn an
unskilled photographer into an amazing one. It's knowing how to operate the
equipment, understanding the nuances of particular camera settings,
understanding how to creatively compose images, and how to develop them that
does.
>
> Finally, while some images will come out of the camera just fine, many
images need proper post processing in Lightroom and/or Photoshop to work
with color, highlight and shadow levels, contrast, cropping, etc. Black and
white photography is a lot more than just desaturing color, too. For myself,
a few hours were spent in Lightroom following the upload of my images
tweaking the images to work with the aforementioned issues and to make them
into the final images that I envisioned when I pressed the shutter.
>
> I hope this clarifies my earlier comments; hopefully it also provides some
insight for those who may be considering plunking down several thousand
dollars into equipment that they don't need hoping to get the same results
as Ayaz.
>
> Peace,
>
>
> Jen
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]