Don't be a Recipe Follower!

[kundalini]

Should I feel guilty for asking Mom how she made her fried chicken taste so damn good? Nope. Did I take her recipe and put my own spin on it? Yep.

I think there is a difference between following a recipe and using a cookie cutter approach. I can't see the harm with having a recipe in the begining. I can see the detriment for not trying to make adjustments.

 

[Derrel]

So, what lens and f/stop would be best for this wedding that I've been asked to shoot next week? I shoot a Nikon D7000.

And, a few days after the wedding, I have to shoot an outdoor private school beginning of the school year assembly; how should I set my flash up for the podium shots? I have an SB 700.

Thnxs!

 

[Dao]

So, what lens and f/stop would be best for this wedding that I've been asked to shoot next week? I shoot a Nikon D7000.

And, a few days after the wedding, I have to shoot an outdoor private school beginning of the school year assembly; how should I set my flash up for the podium shots? I have an SB 700.

Thnxs!

Forget about D7000, just use a 10 inches tablet!

 

[snerd]

So, what lens and f/stop would be best for this wedding that I've been asked to shoot next week? I shoot a Nikon D7000.

And, a few days after the wedding, I have to shoot an outdoor private school beginning of the school year assembly; how should I set my flash up for the podium shots? I have an SB 700.

Thnxs!

Just a sec............... let me go look at some EXIF's, be right back!!!!

:mrgreen:

 

[imagemaker46]

So, what lens and f/stop would be best for this wedding that I've been asked to shoot next week? I shoot a Nikon D7000.

And, a few days after the wedding, I have to shoot an outdoor private school beginning of the school year assembly; how should I set my flash up for the podium shots? I have an SB 700.

Thnxs!

If you're booking jobs and charging clients then you should never have to ask that question. If anyone that has decided to open a business, regardless of how bogus it may be, are searching out clients, and charging them, they should be going into the shoot with more than a basic knowledge as to what gear they will need. Unfortunately there are way too many pretenders out there that don't know the basics. Like trying to bake cookies without a clue of how the oven works.

As for the answer, something wide, something long and for many, something borrowed. Outdoor shoot I'd be using available light.

 

[Juga]

I pick up what you are putting down...a chef just doesn't become a chef by following recipes. A chef does follow recipes at times but tends to learn how and what ingredients work together to achieve a desired taste. Some learn by just try and try and try until they figure things out but I would say most learn under the tutelage of a more experienced chef and his peers.

Personally I avoid the 'what f stop do I use' or 'I am shooting a wedding what do I do' questions but it does make it difficult to learn on this forum because of the stubbornness or willingness for some to accept that there are people wanting to learn. Often from my experience so far on the forum is that most people just get plain ignored when asking for feedback. I know I am not the best or even close but I personally I appreciate feedback no matter how harsh it is. I didn't start off this way but I learned quickly that it isn't personal. So when some noob, like myself, asks for feedback how about take some time and offer it instead of turn your head the other way.

With that being said I do want to address the flip side of that and say that I have received awesome feedback on this forum and really appreciate those that offer it willingly; tirediron (John), Derrel, Buckster, The Traveler, Pgriz, Pixmedic, Charlie (sorry I forgot your screen name), and a few others come to mind of people that offer advice willingly and without the self-righteousness. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

 

[table1349]

Should I feel guilty for asking Mom how she made her fried chicken taste so damn good? Nope. Did I take her recipe and put my own spin on it? Yep.
.

Well Damn right you should feel guilty. If her recipe for fried chicken was that good then you should have shared it with US. I DON'T SEE NO RECIPE POSTED NOW DO I???layball:

 

[table1349]

Actually Joe, chefs do follow a recipe. That recipe however is not what the average cook is aware of. Instead of exact ingredients for a particular cake there is a basic recipe for the construction of cake. Let us take the basic layer cake for example. The proportions of sugar to flour is from 100 to 145% sugar to flour. The weight of the eggs should be equal to the weight of the shortening. The shortening should be around 50 to 60% the amount of the flour and the amount of liquid should be 20 to 30% the weight of the sugar. When dealing with coco in the cake then the sugar ratio should be around the 145% ratio to the flour and the liquid should be closer to 40 or 50% ratio to sugar. The combined weight of the eggs and liquids should equal or exceed the weight of the sugar. It is really a quite simple formula.

Once you learn it you can create variations on end based on your particular tastes. The same goes for other forms of cooking such as cookies breads and basically any other such food preparation.

 

[Juga]

Actually Joe, chefs do follow a recipe. That recipe however is not what the average cook is aware of. Instead of exact ingredients for a particular cake there is a basic recipe for the construction of cake. Let us take the basic layer cake for example. The proportions of sugar to flour is from 100 to 145% sugar to flour. The weight of the eggs should be equal to the weight of the shortening. The shortening should be around 50 to 60% the amount of the flour and the amount of liquid should be 20 to 30% the weight of the sugar. When dealing with coco in the cake then the sugar ratio should be around the 145% ratio to the flour and the liquid should be closer to 40 or 50% ratio to sugar. The combined weight of the eggs and liquids should equal or exceed the weight of the sugar. It is really a quite simple formula.

Once you learn it you can create variations on end based on your particular tastes. The same goes for other forms of cooking such as cookies breads and basically any other such food preparation.

I know and I did acknowledge that they do follow recipes from time to time. That is also a different subject.

 

[kundalini]

Should I feel guilty for asking Mom how she made her fried chicken taste so damn good? Nope. Did I take her recipe and put my own spin on it? Yep.
.

Well Damn right you should feel guilty. If her recipe for fried chicken was that good then you should have shared it with US. I DON'T SEE NO RECIPE POSTED NOW DO I???layball:

My bad. :blushing:

I won't give my exact recipe, but I'll give you a few hints of what you might consider.

1) Gear:
Go Full Frame. Definitely use a heavy cast iron skillet, preferably a 12 incher (that's what she said). If you haven't been handed one down from your grandmother, I suggest to look at Lodge Logic series of their pre-seasoned line.


2) Settings:
Use the "Buttermilk" semi-auto setting. Make sure the entire subject is within the dynamic range. You should expect at least a 12-24 hour set-up time for this. Afterwards, the exposure triangle can be adjusted to taste, but at a minimum there should be kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and cayenne. I also like to add a little FEC by a 1:1 ratio of Panko to flour.

3) Framing / Composition:
Do Not Crowd the Frame. Let there be plenty of space around the edges. Place the thighs in the center of the frame and let the breast and legs cover the edges. You can crop later in post work, if need be.

4) Exposure:
This is critical, do not let the shortening (yes, I said that word) dip below 325°. Once you've tripped the release, take a step back and do not touch the gear, let it ride until you have a crisp focus on the subject. Set your shutter to "bulb" and with a self-timer, let it expose 10-12 minutes each side. But FFS, do not let the background get overexposed

5) Post Production:
After you've uploaded, place the results on a rack in a sheet pan. Most folks make the mistake of using paper towels at this stage. This only causes a soft focus.


Again, I can't give you all the nuances that I go through because each time is slightly different, sometimes I want it hot, sometimes cool, sometimes at room temperature. You could be cooking on gas, electric or charcoal, I don't know, that's why you need to experiment with your own gear, not mine.

Hope this helps a little.

 

[bratkinson]

For some, not having a starting point is like handing a 16 year old the keys to the car and telling them 'learn to drive it yourself'. Unfortunately, they come back the next week wanting to know how to change this or that on your car so they can race at the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day.

After reading this thread completely, I'm torn on whether a 'yes' or 'no reply is appropriate for the receipe method of photography. Haven't ALL of us decided to 'try this or that' adjustment or flash do-dad or whatever based on what someone ELSE had used and/or recommended for a particular situation? I have little doubt that each of us have some 'junk' in our camera bag that we used once, found it was junk/useless and just haven't gotten around to tossing it as 'there might be some situation where it WILL work!' bouncing around in our head. We may have even 'read up' on it, tried adjusting it a little different because we know that our lighting is different from the 'wise author' had, etc, etc, etc. Weren't/aren't we simply copying someone elses' recipe for getting just the right lighting?

However, is it following a 'recipe' when someone wants to know how to get peoples faces properly lit on the beach at a sunset that is the setting of the photograph. Perhaps telling them 1/4 power, or 1/2 power, or whatever, on the flash would work, but that assumes they have a flash comparable to what the respondent has. I would definitely exclude that from the category of 'recipe', as the photographer would at least have to have the 'smarts' to look at the resultant picture and if needed, crank up/down the flash a bit to get better face lighting.

But telling them ISO 1600 at f2.8 at 1/125th with 1/4 flash would definitely be a recipe for disaster, if you ask me. We don't have a clue how cloudy it may be, how 'late' in the sunset is it, are there other elements in the picture such as a large building, ship, pier, etc that need to be lit, etc. All those are variables that need to be accounted for by the photographer. And, of course, a couple of cars behind the camera with their headlights on to light the peoples faces with their back to the sunset might suffice surprisingly well, too.

Then there's lazy amateur photographers like myself. I let the camera tell me what it wants, even taking a picture or two on 'A', and then make settings from there. Why not? It sure beats memorizing some cookbook type recipe like 'in an auditorium, use ISO xxxx, 1/yyy at fz.z sheet of settings. Having the knowledge of how each setting change from 'what the camera wants' affects the resultant photograph is the lessons learned from experience, successes, and failures. But then, we always have Photo Shop or Lightroom to 'cover' some of our mistakes...

I am often reminded of a recipe failure of my now-ex wife some years back. She's a fantastic cook. But she'd often cook this or that from memory. On one such occasion, she was making fudge...from memory. I haven't a clue of how she did it, but after it cooled, it was so hard it could not be cut with a knife. I had to resort to screwdriver and hammer to get it out of the pan!!!

 

[gsgary]

Just about the most frustrating thing for me to see photographers doing is using, copying, repeating, and sharing recipes for things: what f-stop should I use for this? Where should I put the flash? Is there a photoshop action for that? How do I do the Brenizer thing? What camera should I use for sports?

It happens at all levels and in all aspects of photography, from basic issues of getting the exposure right, through composition, and post processing.

There's nothing wrong with a good recipe! But a recipe you don't fully understand is worse than useless. Maybe the recipe is right for a full-frame camera, but wrong for a crop sensor. Maybe it's right for a prime lens but not a zoom, or for color but not b&w. Every recipe has a TON of built-in assumptions. If you follow a recipe blindly, you'll never know what the unspoken assumptions are. Some recipes will work for you, others will mysteriously fail.

When you get a recipe from somewhere, please, I beg you, take it apart and try to understand it at a deeper level. Explain it to yourself in whatever terms you understand. There's no bottom to the unpacking process, there's always another layer of deeper understanding, so don't try to get to the bottom. Just dig down one or two levels. But dig, and think, and force yourself past the easy "step 1, step 2, step 3" of the recipe.

Do this most every time, and I swear to you, I promise, technical problems will start to simply melt away and you will wonder why you thought this stuff was so hard.

You have never seen me ask a question :razz:

 

[cynicaster]

I more or less agree with the OP's premise, not just in photography, but just about anything.

I think it's always better to learn a general philosophy than resort to cookbook instructions. It will take longer, but the payoff will be much greater.

I remember in engineering school, some of my classmates would always "study" for exams by trying to memorize the relevant parts of the textbook. They'd fumble through with C's doing that, but a week later the knowledge--if you even want to call it that--would be gone. I had greater success with not memorizing anything; I'd just read the stuff slowly as many times as necessary, until I understood the concepts. I would not have been able to regurgitate verbatim what the textbook said, but I'd sure be able to articulate the concepts in my own words, which is what you want, IMO.

 

[Joves]

Well when I first started when I was 9 years old, the only recipe was that the higher the number for the film the less light it needed, and the higher the aperture number, and shutter speed the less light it got. He also told me to take notes on every shot as to what film, and setting I used. That is how I learned to cook the images. Then later I would get critique on what I shot. That was the old school way, and with film that was the hard way. Now I can see where you are coming from in that the majority of people do not want to put in the work to get good images, or they want to emulate one of the latest and greatest fads being annoying. Personally I ignore the how do I get this effect, or how do I get a shot like this type of threads, or if I do comment I say cant tell you I was not there, so I do not know how the light was when they were shooting. When people ask about settings I always tell them you have to choose the settings according to what the light is like at the time.
The only time I will give out some information, but I still leave it to them to figure out what they need, is for the parents shooting their kids events indoors, or under artificial lighting. Then it is general advice according to the equipment they have. I tell them if it is action, then you want a minimum shutter speed of x, but y would be better, and you will most likely have to shoot with your lens wide open, and then adjust the ISO so you get the right SS. I do it that way so they still have room to learn, but have at least a basic idea of a starting point. This is probably all those people will ever be shooting anyhow, and I have given them more information than I got at first.
And when I got critique it was always in the form of a question of what do you think is wrong with your photo, i.e is it too dark, and so on, and what should you have done instead. With my grandfather it was always you need to learn to think critically in whatever you do, because that is how you learn, and that is how you get better.

 

[pgriz]

Have you ever been in a group shoot with a mixture of skill levels? The really good ones go to some position and aim at something... And when they move on, some of the lesser-skilled scurry over to that exact same spot, point the camera in the exact same direction, with the exact same orientation, and shoot a series (just in case). Because they know that Mr. X or Ms. Y has a phenomenal run at winning the club photo contests, and they want to see if they can catch some of the magic. They also surreptitiously peer at the lens Mr. X or Ms. Y are using, and try to have the same or the equivalent. And they are looking for the formula, the recipe, the cheat code. Sadly, their photography does not improve over time, as they are not learning. It is, in fact, somewhat painful to witness their submissions as it is usually pretty clear who they were trying to imitate, and just by how much they missed. They are, unfortunately, the sighted blind.

And yet, Andrew, if you asked them why they are searching for the recipe, they would deny that. Actually, this is not a phenomenon unique to photography. You get the same gaggle of artists imitating someone famous or well known. At some point, some people start finding their own voice, their own vision, their own interpretation of the world. And while it may be clumsy at the beginning, is does have the benefit of being new and unique. Which is not the same as saying that any new and shiny bauble deserves admiration - but a new way of seeing and sensing, is an opportunity to explore new ground. And those that pursue a recipe without going beyond this starting point, miss the point of the journey.

Perhaps, as I noted in an earlier post, the fault is with our society's desire for little squeaks of individuality floating on a sea of conformity. We crave affirmation, validation, and acknowledgement - and so we listen to the same "rebellious" music, wear the same "edgy" styles, eat the same "in" foods, have strong opinions reflecting the current blowing of the wind, and because we parrot the tribal values, we get a sense of belonging. It's a superficial form of belonging, but it passes for individualistic and critical thinking. So in photography, we see one more echo of the need to resemble something we think is "good" or "important". Perhaps we all need to follow a recipe at some point - to get our bearings, to establish a point of departure, to form a bench-mark. Some then move away from this zone of safety. And as we move away from the core, the footsteps in the sand appear fewer and fewer, and eventually, if we are persistent enough, we'll find a surface untracked, and we are the first ones there. Is it worth telling the tribe about it? Maybe, maybe not. And the tribe may not even understand what you've found. But discovery is never anchored in the comfortable places.

Waiter - I want another whisky! I feel another bout of philosophising and sophistry coming on! :greenpbl: