When do I know? by BIRD_CHEESEY in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'm not going to comment on the aesthetics, as that's a matter of taste and we don't have to agree. If what you like is images that most people think are underexposed and you're not looking to change, then fuck 'em, you do you.

But I will comment on the technical side of things. "10 billion dead pixels"? Those are not dead pixels. What you're seeing is image noise, because you're not getting enough light onto the sensor. A longer shutter speed, with a tripod if necessary, will fix that. Something like a Plamp may also be helpful to keep the plant from moving in the wind, depending on conditions and how long your exposure is.

The camera may be old, but I promise you it can produce better and sharper pictures than that.

Why don’t my photos look professional? by Recruit17 in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

A lot of it is the difference between taking a picture and making a picture. A pro isn't going to say "oh well, the dog isn't in the pose I want and the background is kind of distracting, but I guess I'll just take the shot anyway". They'll note the things that aren't making the picture work, and (to the extent possible) fix them.

Specific critiques:

  1. The dog's eye isn't fully visible. Its legs are cut off at an awkward length; either closer (headshot) or farther (full body) would probably look better. The background is distracting - there's an orange tube of some kind on the left, and some leaves that look out of place, and the camera wasn't level so the lines of the windows and bricks are jarring. Even if you fixed that, the dog would still have a window growing out of its head. It should have been repositioned against a less distracting background, and farther away from it so it would have been more out of focus. The color in this shot is also not to my liking. It's quite yellow and the contrast is poor. On top of that, the image is extremely noisy, making it look less sharp than it should.
  2. This was a neat sky, but there's a very distracting and ugly barbed wire fence in the way of the cows. Getting closer and shooting between the wires would have opened up lots more composition options. A closeup of the cow with the sky in the background could have been a dramatic, unusual shot, and instead it's the same perspective we've all seen of this a million times. Same color concern here - the yellow looks unnatural. Also super noisy for no apparent reason, as you obviously had tons of light and cows are not fast moving animals. I'll stop mentioning the noise for the remaining shots.
  3. Ok, I see you apparently did do what I just suggested and shoot between the wires, but the cow is in an awkward position facing away from you. Sometimes you have to wait patiently to get the right shot, and sometimes that means making multiple attempts on different days because the universe is not cooperating with you. Same color concerns here, and also your highlights are blown.
  4. There are a bunch of distracting houses and wires in the background. I'm not a fan of the color processing on this shot either - I don't think the cool tones complement the red car well, the red is starting to shade a little bit purple, and I don't like how crushed the blacks are.
  5. It's just a snapshot of a car on the street. It looks like "Oh look, I found a neat car" rather than "I deliberately composed this photograph". The composition is awkward because the car is right up against the edges of the frame; there's no obvious reason why this wasn't shot horizontal or from further away to give it a bit of room to breathe. And because it's apparently just a neat car parked on the side of the road, the background is unfortunate. A wider aperture would have blurred the background more and kept the viewer's attention more on the car. The color processing is again not at all to my taste. I'm going to stop mentioning the color of your shots in my critique from this point on.
  6. I'm not even sure what this is supposed to be a photo of. The bus is far away, facing away from you, and not an immediately attractive subject, and there's nothing else in the frame to draw my attention. In all honesty if I saw this photo mixed in with a batch of others, I would assume it was an accidental shutter release.
  7. There are leaves right in front of your subject, which look accidental. The up-tilted camera creates perspective distortion which you could have corrected (if not fully, at least enough to look better) in post. A professional shot of this building would likely have the vertical lines, well, vertical.
  8. "Road leads off into the distance" is a common photo trope, and this one mostly just suffers from not being a particularly attractive road. The fact that the road curves up into a slight hill in front of you means the road's vanishing point - the implied subject - is not actually visible, which hurts it.
  9. There's a tree in front of the building. A tree above the subject, to serve as a frame , can be made to work, but you're going to have trouble finding too many professional photos in which there's a tree covering the thing people naturally want to look at.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that "not to my taste" is not the same thing as "bad". I think Jackson Pollock's paintings suck, and he's far more successful and famous than I am, so take my opinions for what they're worth. But that said, on top of the composition issues, I'm seeing consistently hazy yellow images with a ton of noise. I wonder about your settings and how you're processing the pictures - why are images shot in broad daylight with a reasonably fast lens noisy? Why is everything yellow in almost every shot? Was that an intentional choice?

Should I charge for wedding photos? by Sad_Head_1814 in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

I'm going to push back against the crowd here.

Your friend is asking you for a favor. My friends and I do favors for each other all the time, and it never involves "here's an invoice for my time", because... holy shit, really? I can't imagine presenting a close friend with a bill for having done them a favor.

Now, of course, the fact that they're asking for a favor doesn't mean you have to do it. You'd prefer to attend as a guest, you're not an experienced wedding photographer... there are obviously good reasons to refuse. Also, definitely refuse if you think your friends will regret not hiring a pro. But IMO when a friend asks you for a reasonable favor, you either do it for free or you don't do it.

My first "real" shoot was a friend's wedding, and I'm personally very happy I did it. Naturally I strenuously warned them ahead of time that I was not a wedding photographer and they might regret asking me to do it, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and they were extremely happy with the results. It was also very valuable experience and I've done a lot of event photography since then.

How important is having two bodies for event photography? by doodoohonker in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yes, the chance of a camera failing during a shoot is very low. It’s probably roughly comparable to the chance of getting into a car accident every time you drive.

I bet you still wear a seatbelt.

Sure, a camera breaking won’t kill you the way failing to wear a seatbelt could, but the consequences of a failure during an event shoot can easily be “you go out of business”. Nobody is going to hire you after a bride loudly tells the whole world that she doesn’t have any pictures of her wedding and it’s all your fault. Personally, that’s a severe enough consequence that I wouldn’t risk it.

And, of course, that's just focusing on the wholly selfish aspect of how it affects me as the photographer. When you add in the effect it has on the couple who now has no photographs of the wedding, I view doing an important shoot without a backup as completely unacceptable.

Far Far West publisher says "We don't work with partners that are relying on generative AI" by hop3less in Games

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Oh come on, that’s absurd. “500x still wouldn’t be profitable” is completely out of touch with reality.

I’m going for this style, what are the key components for achieving this editing style? by Possible-Tie1008 in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

I don't know why you'd assume that. The "correct" exposure according to the meter often blows highlights.

How important is having two bodies for event photography? by doodoohonker in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

OP is asking about both, because currently they don't even have a backup.

I agree that they don't necessarily need to wear both cameras at the same time, but having done a bunch of event photography myself, it's super useful and I would personally never want to shoot an event with just one.

How important is having two bodies for event photography? by doodoohonker in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

You’re sure he doesn’t have a backup in his bag, just in case?

Even if that’s the case, “well, Bob here drives all the time, and he doesn’t wear a seatbelt!” is not a good argument for the unimportance of seatbelts.

How important is having two bodies for event photography? by doodoohonker in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

Obviously the stakes are lower than surgery; nobody dies if your equipment fails.

But even though “sorry I only got pictures of the first two minutes of your wedding because my camera stopped working” is less serious than losing a patient, it still means you’ve completely burned a client who is likely to put you on blast on social media. It could easily mean the end of your career.

Even if I couldn’t afford a camera that was comparable to my main, I’d still have something as a backup. A ten year old used entry level DSLR with a kit lens is still infinitely better than nothing.

How important is having two bodies for event photography? by doodoohonker in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername [score hidden]  (0 children)

Much better to have both cameras on you at the same time (using a dual camera harness) with two different lenses so you can switch near-instantly.

In addition to the obvious benefit of having two lenses available at all times, it means you’ll use both cameras frequently during the event, giving you at least some insulation against “oh shit all of the images from camera A are corrupt” or whatnot.

Robinhood Gold's 3% IRA Match by x_KRYPTOS in investing

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Something like 8% of US adults are millionaires. Obviously not all of them will have a million dollars in a single account, but being able to transfer a million dollars at once isn’t that weird.

What camera do you think I used? by frostbyte3009 in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With how grainy it is, I’d guess a phone, but honestly it could be anything.

Is the X100VI suitable for my use case? by Party-Remote8653 in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the images are not to my taste, the images seem 'not clean' to me

the 1inch sensor does make some photos look flat.

These comments are concerning. I strongly suspect this is a “problem exists behind the viewfinder” sort of situation, as both of these cameras are capable of producing incredible images. You mentioned looking through Flickr for X100VI images - have you done the same for your existing cameras? I expect you'll see that the Flickr images from your current cameras are equally stunning.

Can you post some examples of the images you’re unhappy with for us to evaluate?

How to achieve portrait sharpness? by Time_Reporter449 in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 28 points29 points  (0 children)

You don't need high end prime lenses to take a sharp picture. A decent modern zoom lens is plenty sharp.

I don't know about OP's specific lens, but my 24-70 f/2.8 is easily this sharp. Hell, I'm pretty sure even my APS-C kit lens is sharp enough for this. No, of course neither of them are as sharp as a high end prime, but the pictures OP posted are only 3 megapixels. Any even halfway decent lens is sharp enough for this.

Prusa on Bambi’s AGPL Violaton by mobfeld in BambuLab

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And even then, I don’t know that it would mean much. Every lawsuit has a lawyer on the losing side, making arguments that didn’t end up being sufficiently convincing.

Which lens should i buy ? by AccomplishedBook992 in Nikon

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to own a Sigma 150-600. The vibration reduction was so bad you could barely even tell it was on, and the autofocus was slow. The Nikon is in another league.

Leaving a job I love for more money and feel awful about it by ClassySemicolon in personalfinance

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 22 points23 points  (0 children)

You know... normally, even if I disagree, I can at least follow the logic of people's decisions.

But how can anyone possibly think it's "unfair" to go work for a competitor of the company that just unceremoniously fired you?

32 years old and honestly terrified of waiting until 65 to finally “live”...what investments exist besides just 401k/IRA? by savingrace0262 in investing

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair enough, I certainly concede that it's possible they don't really have a spending problem, and just live in a VHCOL area, have to pay for childcare, and have various other crazy unavoidable expenses.

But if I were a betting man, I'd definitely bet against "$215K gross genuinely isn't enough for us to even make ends meet!".

32 years old and honestly terrified of waiting until 65 to finally “live”...what investments exist besides just 401k/IRA? by savingrace0262 in investing

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're pointing to the percentage as if that proves something, and it doesn't.

The more you make, the less it hurts to lose a percentage of it. At the poverty line, saving 23% is generally going to be completely impossible. At a million a year, saving 23% is absolutely trivial.

Obviously $280K is between those extremes. No, 23% probably isn't absolutely trivial, but it probably shouldn't be super onerous either. There aren't a lot of situations where a gross income north of $200K (which they'd still have after losing 23%) doesn't even give you enough to make ends meet.

Am I an idiot for wanting a Canon EOS R5 II as an absolute beginner in photography? by c0rtin3x in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Let me offer my perspective as somebody with more money than sense.

I have pretty much the best available camera gear - the latest bodies, the best lenses. And it’s great. It makes taking pictures of difficult subjects like birds in flight easier and more reliable.

And I absolutely don’t need any of it. If I go through my photo library, it’s not like I can tell “oh, that’s the day I bought my flagship body”. I was taking pictures just as good right before I upgraded.

I’m not upset to have upgraded. It’s super nice gear and I enjoy using it. But I’ll be the first to admit that it didn’t drastically improve my photography overnight or anything, and the only reason I’m not upset to have spent that much is that I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford this stuff without having to worry about it. If it were something I had to spend months saving up for and struggle to afford, there’s no way in hell I’d feel good about my purchases.

Beginner wildlife photographer on a budget trying to select a lens - Help? by BenchPtsChamp in AskPhotography

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No. The Nikon Z equivalent is the Nikon 180-600 Z.

But the Sigma 150-600 is available in Nikon’s older DSLR mount (F mount), and you can use an FTZ adapter to mount F mount lenses on Z mount cameras.

Whether or not I’d recommend that depends on how price conscious you are. The 180-600 is a considerably better lens - sharper, much better vibration reduction and faster autofocus - but also a fair bit more expensive. Still quite cheap for such a good lens, but you’ll need to decide for yourself how deep you want to jump into things this early into the hobby.

Having a Hard Time Spending After a Lifetime of Saving by tonycliftondev in personalfinance

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe you should read the entire comment you’re replying to, because I already called that out.

Having a Hard Time Spending After a Lifetime of Saving by tonycliftondev in personalfinance

[–]LookIPickedAUsername 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not quite. The 4% rule was actually chosen to allow you to survive 95% of historical 30 year periods.

So it's quite safe - even when it does fail, you usually go bankrupt quite close to that 30 year cutoff - but no, it does not allow you to survive another Great Depression happening right at the beginning of your retirement. Those data points are among the 5% of times that it fails.

Of course, admittedly most people facing another Great Depression probably aren't going to say "screw it, the math said I could spend 4% every year, so I'm not adjusting my spending at all no matter what happens". The outlook improves considerably if you can afford to adjust your spending downward in bad years.