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Do you mean a 16-35, Stapler? I didn’t know Canon ever made a 20-35.

As for the Red camera… My official word is meh. I’m sure it’s great for cinema, but I have doubts about the reliability of the modular design for work in the field, especially for run-and-gun shooting. If I’m in a risky environment like the sidelines of a football game, I’d rather have a camera that’s durable enough that I’m more worried about my survival than the camera’s if I’ve got a tight end barreling at me.

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Pfft:

http://www.usa.canon.com/html/industrial_bctv/p_field_DIGISUPER100_93BIEDAF_spec.shtml

And because video uses 2/3″ chips, the field of view is MUCH tighter, especially in extender.

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Do you get free tickets at least?

Yeah, usually when a band wants me to take some pictures they’ll put me on their guest list so I don’t have to pay cover.

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I believe you have found your calling in life.

Ha, now if only bands weren’t broke and could pay me to do it. =P

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f/2.8 all the way. When it’s low-light and you want to zoom in at all with either of those Canon lenses, the f/5.6 is going to kill you. At these focal lengths IS doesn’t really make that much of a difference anyway because at the shutter speeds where IS actually makes a difference, there will be too much subject movement to get sharp shots anyway.

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On a film camera it’s basically what my 10-22 is on my 30D. Just watch out, the superwide look is freakin ADDICTIVE!

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Watermarking won’t do you any good unless you have a way to automatically search for images with your watermark.

A better bet is instead of doing an invisible watermark, do a very visible one. Include a copyright notice in the corner of your image. Unscrupulous folks can crop it out, but people running major ad campaigns at least will think twice before doing so.

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That picture is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

It worked too! It’s how I took my self portrait picture over in The Gallery. I eventually disassembled the contraption though, in case the fire marshal came by.

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Weeelll… The thing is, I ordered it online. I’m sure if I’d bought it from a brick and mortar a salesman would have made sure I walked out with everything I needed to make it work.

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Hey, it looks like it does take AAs after all! Well, sort of:

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Sometimes you can use 2 AA batteries instead of 1 2cr5.

When I first opened the battery compartment my first instinct was that it was for AAs but I noticed there aren’t any conductors on one side, and it very specifically says it requires 6 volts, and two AAs would only give 3 even if I put a conductor in there to wire them in series. The compartment’s too short for AAs anyway.

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I like the first picture, the non-HDR straight out-of-camera exposure the best. I think it represents best what it would look like to your eye, and the HDR versions don’t preserve local contrast (which is where the “punch” of an image lies) well enough. If anything there could be a bit more detail in the highlights (the bridge supports), but that’s it. There’s not really enough dynamic range in the scene to warrant HDR treatment IMHO.

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You can take great pictures with any camera. Better gear makes it easier, but in the end it comes down to YOU. The other reality is that owning a camera lets you take better pictures than not owning a camera because you’re saving up for one. Be glad you have something you can go ahead and take pictures with. The practice you get from shooting with this camera and dealing with its limitations will pay off when you move up to a camera that doesn’t limit you as much.

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It really depends on a boatload of factors including your desired final image size, what kind of lighting, what kind of photography you’re allowed to do, etc.

If you have complete access (i.e. close friends with the band) I recommend using off-camera flash to augment the ambient lighting. I say off-camera because on-camera flash looks awful. I’d actually recommend not using on-camera flash at all because it just looks terrible. If the venue’s too dark to shoot ambient and you’re not allowed to set up flashes, don’t even bother.

If you use flash, use CTO gel to match the color temperature of the ambient lighting.

In my experience, you want to set manual white balance to 2000k or so. The “tungsten” preset will give you images that look too orange. If you’re using flash gelled to 3200k you can afford to increase your manual white balance temperature in proportion with how much the flash is contributing to the picture compared with the ambient.

ISO depends on how much of a cave we’re talking about and how big your final image is going to be. It’s a tradeoff you’ll just have to learn to make depending on the situation. If you’re only going web resolution, just crank it up all the way to give yourself as much shutter speed as possible, the noise isn’t gonna show up. If you’re getting over 1/250 or so shutter you can also afford to close your aperture to buy yourself some extra depth of field (for fewer out-of-focus images). If you’re printing at all you’ll want ISO 800 max, 400 preferably and 200 for posters. 400 and 200 will obviously require that you add flash.

I used to use continuous mode all the time but I eventually learned to pick my moments rather than spam the shutter. Shooting continuous makes your job harder in post because you have so many more images to sort out. Since post is my least favorite part of photography, I’ll take every chance I get to reduce that part of my workload! Continuous mode will also not work if you use flash because no matter how much the band likes you, it will distract and annoy them.

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I use special sensor swabs and cleaning fluid. Does the trick for me, I haven’t broken anything yet.

You’re not actually touching the sensor, it’s actually the low-pass filter in front of the sensor, if that’s what’s worrying you.

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