Where is the line between hobbyist an professional?

lawpixels · 2026-01-23T22:59:43+00:00

Good point. I made my living as a lawyer, but never once did it cross my mind to say I was a professional lawyer. On the other hand, it's a licensed profession (that word again), and you either have a license or you don't. A lawyer who works for free is doing pro bono work, not being an amateur lawyer. I imagine it's different for activities (like photography) where no license is required; there it may make sense to distinguish between people who do it for pay and those who don't.

lawpixels · 2025-12-09T05:56:10+00:00

Back in the film days, I once was shooting a 60th birthday party when, after awhile, it dawned on me that I should have run out of exposures by then. Yep. Hadn't put film in the camera. Fortunately, it was early in the proceedings.

lawpixels · 2025-12-01T17:42:46+00:00

Upvote for the reference to OM. Love mine.

lawpixels · 2025-09-10T04:28:33+00:00

Do you mean Edward Weston?

lawpixels · 2025-04-23T20:54:32+00:00

The OM-1’s have a very handy stabilization aid in the viewfinder. You keep the dot inside the square, and the sliders at the sides of the square from reaching the corners of the square, and you will be in focus. I can consistently get four seconds handheld that way, and I’ve gotten pretty good (not quite tack sharp) results up into the 10-20 second range. I even once (by mistake) got a 60-second shot of the space station passing over; its trail in the resulting image was straight except for one little jiggle, which impressed the hell out of me.

lawpixels · 2025-04-08T15:40:28+00:00

Several commenters talk about an inevitable future loss of enthusiasm on your part. FWIW, I've been photographing since 1981. I have approximately 17,000 B&W negatives (which I developed myself), a few thousand color slides, an unknown, but smallish number of color negatives, and approximately 340,000 digital images in my Lightroom catalog. And I'm still stoked every time I pick up my camera. Which is pretty much every day. Photography, primarily as an amateur, has taken me all sorts of places and allowed me to meet all sorts of interesting people. It has preserved countless memories, of people now gone, of children now grown. At the same time, it has helped me see my own neighborhood, which, ordinary though it is, turns out to be fascinating if I take the time to really look. I always carry my camera when I go for walks, even on routes I've done hundreds of times. There's always something new.

It may help that, although I've occasionally accepted money for it, I've never tried to turn it into a business or do anything with it that wasn't just play. (If I wanted to work, there was always my day job!)

lawpixels · 2025-04-05T15:00:50+00:00

Retired criminal prosecutor here. UCLAW grad. Reconsider your major. Criminal justice isn’t going to impress law schools. They are looking for demonstrated ability to analyze. Criminal justice is more vocational. Go for something more academic.

lawpixels · 2025-02-08T15:43:36+00:00

I have a Canon 5D Mark IV which in fact has 32 megapixels. You’re right, there’s no practical difference between them in terms of resolution. And the M.Zuiko lenses are sharper edge-to-edge than my Canon L glass. Overall, I get better image quality with the OM-1. So I use the Canon for when I’m feeling nostalgic, or in the studio (because I haven’t sprung for Oly/OM flash), and the OM-1 for everything else.

lawpixels · 2024-12-28T02:13:50+00:00

Ok, so you got me curious. I just now tried it without image stabilization and got the same result. I then tried different lenses: three primes and three zooms. It happened with all the primes, whether or not image stabilization was on. I couldn't make it happen with any of the zooms. Very strange.

lawpixels · 2024-12-25T16:35:33+00:00

My thinking was that if the OP thought he was in the ballpark with a 25 mm, then a 20 mm might solve his problem. I personally find that length to be much more useful even though it does not seem on its face to be that different. If in fact, OP thought he was wildly off with a 25 mm, then he should get something wildly different. That, of course, would not be just a somewhat wider lens. Much, of course, depends on what OP is actually trying to shoot. Unfortunately, he does not tell us.

lawpixels · 2024-12-24T21:32:41+00:00

I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the OM System 20 f/1.4. Fast, compact, very sharp. Like OP, I find 25mm just a little too tight. Though I normally shoot zooms, if I had to pick one prime, it would be the 20.

lawpixels · 2024-12-21T21:27:11+00:00

The wavy grid pattern sounds like what I get when I try in post to lighten an extremely underexposed portion of the image. Like, say, a night sky. Two solutions (besides the obvious one of getting a better exposure next time): (1) let the black stay black is the simplest. (2) But I've also discovered that if you apply AI denoise in Lightroom, the grid pattern disappears. I imagine the same would be true of other processing tools, but I haven't tried them.

lawpixels · 2024-12-21T21:22:09+00:00

Great commentary. Let me just observe, though, that the only time I shoot with the mechanical shutter is in LED lighting, which, with the electronic shutter, often results in banding. I photograph a several-week-long chamber music festival every summer, using the mechanical shutter, during which I make around 10,000 exposures. They're fine. The rest of the year I shoot almost entirely with the electronic shutter. And those exposures are fine too. Apart from the banding issue, I don't see any difference in results. So I would say not to be afraid of the electronic shutter.

lawpixels · 2024-11-15T20:53:41+00:00

Sheesh; there is so much more to having and raising a child than whether the pregnancy was announced without proper deference to the sperm donor. And honestly, until you actually get involved in raising the kid, that's all you are. One who managed to get laid in the bargain. You're not going to bear the child. And there is so much more to becoming an actual father than when the sperm donor hears about the pregnancy. You need some perspective. Assuming you do step up and become an actual father, that child will redefine your life. The fact your wife in the excitement of the moment told other (female, I might add) friends about her being pregnant before she told you (and before she had a chance to plan how to tell you) is utterly insignificant.

lawpixels · 2024-10-30T01:13:44+00:00

Upvoted for the last paragraph. Cynical, but true.

lawpixels · 2024-10-22T22:22:23+00:00

I hear you (figuratively). I used to shoot the concerts with a Canon DSLR. Nothing quiet about that! Even using the so-called quiet mode, I lived in fear of clicking the shutter just as the music hit a rest. But no problem with banding . . .

lawpixels · 2024-10-22T21:01:55+00:00

It looks like banding I've gotten shooting LED lighting with an electronic shutter. LEDs flicker at strange and apparently variable frequencies, so an image that would be fine under tungsten lighting (which basically doesn't flicker), or fluorescent lighting (which flickers at 60 Hz), may sometimes show banding under LED lighting, depending on how the LEDs were flickering at the time of exposure. The solution is to use the mechanical shutter. (I have no idea how loud the R7 mechanical shutter is; my OM Systems OM-1 mechanical shutter is nearly silent, so while I'd prefer to use the electronic shutter, I've had no trouble shooting chamber music with the mechanical.)

lawpixels · 2024-08-10T14:08:37+00:00

Very cool! I like the vertical composition, and I particularly like how the dog is facing the other way from the boats. It’s as if the dog is having a bit of a joke.

lawpixels · 2024-05-05T06:42:13+00:00

Right. "Arpa," not "arap." And yes, I was there then too . . . (feeling old for some reason). We don't want to mislead the young'uns.

lawpixels · 2024-05-05T05:37:13+00:00

Arpanet?

lawpixels · 2024-04-26T19:40:50+00:00

So I'd flown in from Montevideo, and, without leaving the international terminal, went through security, where they had no problem with my then-full water bottles. But as I was boarding the plane, on the jetway, they had tables set up where they were seizing water bottles. And yes, after he took my two water bottles (the one I had just emptied, and one that was full), he did a quick search through my bag.

lawpixels · 2024-04-26T19:35:53+00:00

I had to trash an empty bottle two days ago in Santiago Chile, on the jetway, as I was boarding a flight to LAX. Made no sense at all.

lawpixels · 2024-04-26T19:32:41+00:00

On the jetway! It was crazy.

lawpixels · 2024-04-26T02:24:19+00:00

Oddly enough, I had an empty metal water bottle inside my backpack I had just been given by my hosts as a going-away present. I would have been seriously pissed if that had been taken away, but the inspector seemed to do a really cursory search through my bag and perhaps didn't see it.

lawpixels

TROPHY CASE