So, do I get to call myself a professional now?

[PersistentNomad]

P.S. to everyone in this conversation: Did I mention I'm headstrong and willfully disobedient?

 

[tirediron]

P.S. to everyone in this conversation: Did I mention I'm headstrong and willfully disobedient?

Shocker!

 

[Overread]

When it comes to framing, abuse cropping.
Learn to shoot wide instead of closing in for the action of the event; that will give you room then to compose with cropping in editing. As time goes on you can then slowly and steadily shoot closer because you'll have more of a history of composition practice to better know what you want to frame and when.

 

[Piccell]

When it comes to framing, abuse cropping.
Learn to shoot wide instead of closing in for the action of the event; that will give you room then to compose with cropping in editing. As time goes on you can then slowly and steadily shoot closer because you'll have more of a history of composition practice to better know what you want to frame and when.

This is a valid technique if you only want small prints. If you are going to make a larger print, this can come back to bite you with a pixelated image.

 

[Piccell]

@vintagesnaps I know that I need work on my framing, and a big part of that is the jitters. I am just worried about missing it that I don't always take the time to capture it the way I should. And sometimes it is indeed the only way it gets captured (like in the hugging photo). Anyway, that is part of why I am also working in a retail studio, to get a lot more experience posing and capturing the frame well on the fly. Yay for rambunctious toddlers.

As for maybe I should wait before charging, I'm not a person who puts off something I want to do. It's part of why I failed my sketchbook class (because apparently a sketchbook can only be the rough drafts of final artworks you want to do, not an artwork in its own right). But totally separate from that, everyone has a place where they start and everyone is always getting better (unless they are stagnating) and I don't see a problem with taking the steps to get going when one feels they are ready to take on the challenge.

I used to have that issue at one point. Not wanting to miss a shot.
As was mentioned if you are going to print small, you can crop to your desired frame up to a point. What I started doing is to grab the shot, then refine the composition (quickly) and shoot another and maybe zoom out again and shoot a wider version. That way you get the shot and some alternates to choose from later.

 

[table1349]

Nomad, don't worry too much about print size issues with shooting a bit wide. Your camera outputs 4,288 x 2,848 raw files. That will produce an excellent 14.3″ x 9.5″ inch print at 300 dpi without any resizing. Slight cropping will not cause you printing issues.

It is quite common for photographers to print at 240 dpi which yields a good quality print up to 17.9″ x 11.9″. Overread is right, if you shoot a slight bit wide you can easily crop to what you want instead of missing that shot that only last an instant.

 

[Vtec44]

Nikon d800 and d750. I can crop for days and still print 20x30 just fine

Wait I thought we wanted to return the topic back to OP? Now we just started the great print quality debate lol

 

[OGsPhotography]

On topic? What is the topic? Donyou get to, yes of course is the answer, close the thread.

I think 900$ for a day of shooting is not a budget price. Almost exuberant if you have the experience I think you do, although Im not sure because your page still crashes my phone. Dang ios 10 or whatever they call it crashes a lot more often than ever.

You must be trying to get rich! Haha.

 

[PersistentNomad]

@Vtec44 yes, the 750 is what I want to upgrade to. And we can still talk about print quality; that's a professional concern, right?

 

[vintagesnaps]

Framing shots in a situation where you get the jitters - that's exactly why you need to practice and learn before you go into doing photography for other people. So when you're in a pressure situation and trying to capture moments as they happen that you know what to do without having to think too much about it, your skills just kick in.

For example again with the shot of the hug, that's true it's not always possible to get the shot exactly the way you want. Which is why it would help to get more practice framing shots so you can do it well and efficiently as things are happening. Why not crop that one down some so the couple isn't in the bottom of the frame? and get better balance in the composition.

Although I don't think necessarily that framing more wide all the time is the best way to go either, seems like that's going to make extra work having to crop everything. That's I think where you need to learn what works best when. I tend to shoot tighter doing events and more loosely when I'm shooting film using a rangefinder to give myself a little leeway using the framelines in the viewfinder. Seems best to learn how to get what I learned to be 'clean' compositions (uncluttered, well balanced, etc.).

I just think too often people don't get prepared enough, aren't expecting the type problems they end up having, and end up out of it before they barely got started. It seems like a disservice to clients to go into this without a priority being that you've developed the necessary skills and feel you can provide good professional quality work.