Especially now the price is $0 
Silver Efez is the only plugin I’ve tried from the collection, and I agree it’s great. I’m looking forward to trying the others.
I’m not very organised with Lightroom. At the moment I import everything into one big collection. I’m wondering if I’d be better having a collection for each group of images.
Ah, I had forgotten it went free awhile ago (and I see now that you mentioned it in your original post) . I bought it when it was something like $150. Does that sound right? Anyway, I paid for it.
As for cataloguing, do it however makes the most sense to you. I start a new catalog every year, and import photos from each shoot into a separate folder (I use Photo Mechanic for the ingest part, but it doesn’t really matter what you use.) So, on disk, I have a folder tree that is named “YYYYMMDD Shoot Name,” and I import these folders into Lightroom like that. But that’s the way I’ve been doing it since way before the days of Lightroom, so that’s the system I keep. But do it whichever way makes the most sense to you.
Ah, I think I may have got myself confused between catalogues and collections when I posted that.
On another note, I’m going on an Evening Photography workshop tomorrow night. This represents my first formal training of any sort. 
There’s going to be a talk on theory and technique, followed by a guided photo walk. I’ll be taking my D5100 and its kit lens, my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and maybe my 70-200mm, although that’s quite a slow lens. I’m debating about a tripod.
I own the same lens, Nikon mount. Remarkable optics. And a joy in tight spaces because, you know, the bend.
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A big thank you to these guys!
"Four engineers who invented the imaging technology used in digital cameras that has allowed “selfies” to become a global phenomenon have been awarded a £1m prize in recognition of the work.
The prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has gone to Michael Tompsett, Eric Fossum, George Smith and Nobukazu Teranishi.
Their work - which was spread over three decades - has changed the world and how we see it, allowing the creation of digital cameras that are cheap and small enough to fit on a fingertip, and whose pictures can be shared instantly through the internet."
I am switching to Affinity and Luminar for most of my processing. I have used Photoshop for decades, and still use it when necessary, but I refuse to rent software, so I’m stuck at v5.
Luminar is a new Mac-only (currently) editor that is just really neat. I’ve been using it almost exclusively lately.
Luminar does look good, but surprisingly, it is missing some key things that are important to me:
Their website says all but red eye removal is “coming soon”, so it might be a capable replacement for Lightroom soon. (My adult children both use Macs and cannot afford the Adobe CC monthly fee, so I continue to be on the lookout for good alternatives for them.)
Oh, yeah - they are missing some features (the big one for me is lens fringing correction), but they are releasing new versions very rapidly, and they have made no secret about their desire to replace Photoshop as the Mac’s #1 editor.
Affinity is also well worth a look.
So, as mentioned above, I did my first ever workshop last week. It was a night-shooting workshop, and I really enjoyed it, and learned a lot, and got some shots I’d never have normally taken. Definitely worth the investment.
It wasn’t totally without incident though. The event confirmation had stated that a tripod was highly recommended. I didnt have one, so on the morning if the workshop I toddled into town and bought one from the local high-street camera store, took it home and practiced with it a bit. During the shoot, all was going well when my shiny new tripod broke - the centre column snapped somehow, and the now-free ball head flew off, with my DSLR attached. Off the bridge I was standing on, and towards the river below. That’s when my latent superpowers manifested; I’ve never reacted that fast to anything before! I saved the camera just as it went over the edge.
That meant I was hand holding for the rest of the shoot. Not ideal at night, but on the bright side (ha) it forced me into taking some shots I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise…
Yikes!
What kind of tripod did you buy (so I can avoid it)?
I have recently bought two Induro / Benro tripods to match my existing Induro tripod. I like them very much. I don’t like ball heads, and bought matching quick-relase pan heads so that I can use any tripod with any camera.
It was a Jessops’ own-brand one (Jessops being a national camera store chain in the UK). It was at the expensive end of their own-brand range.
I took the bits back into the store where I bought it this morning, and after disappearing down into the basement with it for a few minutes, the sales guy came back and admitted that he’d tested another identical tripod, and it broke in exactly the same way. He suggested that they might withdraw the model.
They replaced the tripod with a much nicer Manfrotto one (190 Go). I haven’t used it in anger yet, but having played with it a little it seems really nice.
Manfrotto makes good tripods. I have one for my Celestron C5 scope and it’s rock steady.
Hmmm. Weird that this thread suddenly popped up again, when the last entry was in February.
Even weirder that I was just thinking “maybe I should resurrect that photography thread I started”.
All this time, and I’m STILL dithering over whether to buy a Fuji X100t or not…
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Yes. All of this. I was lazier when I first starting using digital because I didn’t have to pay as much attention to my settings so I relied on the various auto/priority settings. Eventually I got strict and now I shoot everything in manual mode. I took control over the settings, paid attention to which ones I was using, and actively paid attention to what worked and what didn’t. Now I use that information to work on improving the not-so-great results.
I read a really interesting book called “In Camera” by Gordon Laing recently. His whole schtick is that you should take the time and effort to get the shot right there and then rather than relying on post-processing to fix them. The natural end of this argument, which he espouses, is to abandon RAW and shoot JPEG. To back himself up, the book is chock full of gorgeous I-would-kill-to-have-taken-that images, all of which were shot in JPEG and were not edited in post.
While I’m not sure I want to give up RAW, the logic he uses is similar to pulykamell’s point that checking and refining leads to better and better images.
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**What kind of photography do you do? **
Most of what I shoot falls into Nature or Urban and Rural. I like exploring. Sometimes that means I’m sucked into the colors and textures found in nature, other times I am drawn to the history and grit of urban decay.
What kind of camera do you use?
I currently shoot with a Nikon D7000. I do most of my shooting with my 50mm Macro Lens or my 17-55mm. I also have a 80-200mm 2.8 lens, and a 80-400 that I should stop neglecting.
**Where do you share your images? **
On Facebook and my website, though I’m working on ditching the blog and switching to a gallery service.
**
Any funny stories?**
Not sure about funny, but I’ve had some interesting conversations. There was the time I was photographing a burned out church and met the lady fixing it up to turn into a community center. Another time I met a kid who collected carnivorous plants and was telling me about which flowers at the orchid show weren’t actually orchids. I have gotten my fair share of funny looks as I often get in weird positions to get the angle and composition I’m after. 
I think the link to your website is formatted incorrectly, although I found it with Google. Beautiful photos.
What kind of photography do you do?
I’ve been involved in photography, professionally and personally, since high school, more than 45 years ago. I learned darkroom technique in high school, and right out of high school started working as an A-V tech at my local community college. I wasn’t the staff photographer – I mostly did video and audio recording – but we often mixed assignments, so I worked with 35mm Nikons, occasionally used the 4x5 Speed Graphic camera, processed film, including color occasionally (E-6 and Cibachrome), and did graphic design and work.
During that time I also worked as a freelance for the local newspaper, and for a couple of years I was its regular concert photographer, shooting most shows at the local amphitheater. I also did a few weddings, studio portraits, and other freelance assignments during this time. I worked for several local bands and have at least one album cover to my name (for which I was never paid!).
For the past 20 years I’ve been a journalist covering a very small and specialized industry for my own newsletter, and in addition to writing and editing, I also do a lot of my own photography. This is mostly shooting talking heads at conferences and getting exteriors of the places we visit. Not very challenging.
Apart from the boring head shots for the newsletter, the things I shoot for myself now are mostly family and travel snapshots. Although I’m technically competent, I’ve never considered myself an artist, and I haven’t done much “artistic” shooting or taken much time to use photography to express my creative side.
What kind of camera do you use?
The first 35mm camera I owned was an Asahi Pentax (don’t remember the model) that I bought used in the early 1970s. I later acquired a Hasselblad 500C from a photographer friend, and used it on and off for about 20 years before selling it after I had moved into digital. It was a beautiful piece of gear, and I loved its feel and the pictures it took.
In 1998, while on a trip to Australia, I bought a Canon EOS 50E (known as Elan II in the states), setting me firmly in the Canon camp from that time on. That 35mm camera, for which I paid about $650, had a wonderful feature that I loved: eye-controlled autofocus. It focused where you looked! My first digital Canon cost me more than five times as much, but lacked that feature, as have all the subsequent Canon DSLRs I’ve bought. I suppose the company thinks its new autofocus features are superior, but the simplicity and intuitiveness of eye-control was great.
I went digital in 2001 with the Canon D30 (3 Megapixel), and have since progressed through the 10D to the 40D, which I bought in 2008. And I’m thinking it’s time to upgrade (about which more below).
My workhorse lens is the EFS 18-200, and I have the EFS 75-300 as well. I’ve just bought a used EFS 10-22, which should arrive in a few days.
I’ve also gone through a number of compact Canon point-and-shoots that I use for snapshooting when I don’t feel like lugging the DSLR around. The latest is an ELPH 130 IS. But as my smartphone cameras have gotten better and better, with great resolution and features like HDR and panoramas, which this Elph doesn’t have, I have used the P&Ses less and less.
Where do you share your images?
On Facebook with friends, but I don’t use Flickr or any other such sites. Here are a few of my shots. (Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have any decent scans of Hasselblad shots, only scans from prints.)
[Yukon territory](http://www.LFexaminer.com/AlaskaHDR3 copy.jpg), 2011. This is a Photoshopped HDR made from three bracketed shots from a Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS.
Zion Canyon, 2013. This is a 'shopped vertical panorama from two frames from the PowerShot.
Bryce Canyon, 2015. Taken with my LG G4 smart phone! HDR capability built in.
A hummingbird built a nest in our backyard last year, and I tried to get some decent shots. This was the most challenging photo “assignment” I’ve had in years. They are all taken with the 40D and the 75-300mm lens.
Shot 1 (heavily cropped)
Shot 3
Any funny stories?
No, but perhaps you guys are the right ones to help me with the decision I’m trying to make right now: my next camera.
For most of what I shoot, the main shortcoming of the 40D is that its low-light performance is pretty poor. It’s highest ISO speed is only 3200.
I was thinking about the 70D, which goes up to 25,600. You can get the body for about $800. I mentioned this to a photographer friend of mine, and he suggested I look at the Rebels. The T5i (aka 700D) has almost all the same features as the 70D, including top ISO of 25,600, but is $200 less.
Here’s a comparison of the two.
For almost all of what I do, the T5i would be fine, and much better than the 40D. The main advantages of the 70D are slightly higher resolution (20MP vs 18), more AF points, and the environmentally hardened case. Ordinarily, I would probably just save the $200 and buy the T5i, but in June my wife and I are touring Monument Valley and Antelope Canyon. The opportunity to take some amazing pictures there has spurred me to make this camera decision now. We’ve signed up for a two-hour photographer’s tour that provides more time and fewer other people than the regular tours. I bought the 10-22mm specifically to shoot in the slot canyon.
The 70D’s sealed case is one factor that might make a difference on this trip. Apparently the slot canyon is pretty dusty, and the tour guides recommend keeping your cameras in protective bags and taking great care when changing lenses.
However, this tour is an exception to my normal shooting. There’s not so much dust in the hotel ballrooms where I do the majority of my shooting. As long as I’m careful in the canyon, the T5i should be fine, and I’ll save $200. Right?
But I *want *the 70D!
What do you think? Anyone here have either of those cameras? Or another suggestion?
(Sorry this is such a long post!)
Great thread this. Thought I’d attack the OP questions and then get more involved afterwards.
What kind of photography do you do?
I do it no longer but I used to be a music photographer. The bread and butter was agency work where they’d get you a pass for the photo pit and you’d have the first three songs (usually without flash) to get some useable photos. Then I’d go home and upload them to the agency who would try to sell them. I’d get 60% of the payment but it usually didn’t add up to much. Sometimes I’d sell nothing and other times you’d get a relatively small amount of money. It was no way to make a living but it was great fun and sometimes something would sell for a lot more. The conditions were mixed. At a big arena like the O2 (I’m based in London) the lighting is high and even. Performers are basically doing a TV concert because 75% of the audience are watching a big screen. Search me why people pay to sit at the back of one of these things but there you go. Some venues are basically badly lit caves. That’s when a fast prime and a high ISO are vital. One of the worst was Motörhead. Beer flying everywhere by a rough crowd and Lemmy standing at the back of a very deep stage with hardly any lighting expect a spot light directly above him and of course he’s wearing a hat which cast a shadow over his face. Impossible.
But I also did some amazing things. Being paid to do stills at music videos was always a lot of fun and paid really well. And being flown to the Alps and being given a chalet for a week to document a music festival was another highlight (and access to open bar after show parties!).
What kind of camera do you use?
Canon 5ds, one on each shoulder with a couple of fast L zooms. One very wide the other mid range. Always keep a very fast prime in the bag though.
Where do you share your images?
Not really many places I sometimes put a few on Flickr.
Any funny stories?
I had an interesting few days where on one day I was in a recording studio with Geoff Emerick (the engineer on Sergeant Pepper) and the original 4-track and other equipment used on Sergeant Pepper. I touched it! The BBC were getting artists to record the album using the original process. Then two days later I was holed up with a band called The Feeling recording an album with Pro Tools - the modern way. Really interesting insights.
Other great times too many to mention (but Jimmy Page is a great guy!). Did a few weddings as well (I didn’t want to but people asked) including one at St Pauls Cathedral… And eventually somehow some product photography for a web start up.
These days I do very bad travel photography when I visit places like Nepal and Cuba. Really I don’t think I’m any good at it, but it’s a great hobby.
I think that it’s always worth shooting in RAW but I totally agree that getting it right in camera is totally the way to go. If you nail the white balance and the exposure perfectly I think it makes such a difference to the final image regardless of the processing you’re able to bear on the less than perfect images. Also doing that makes you a better photographer. I also believe that using primes is the better way to go if you want to improve your photography. It encourages you to use your feet and forces you to think about composition. Using a zoom is too easy - you can lock your feet and find a reasonable image, but it’s not the same of having to think through the perfect angle and distance.
Also, if you’ve not already discovered it (and with apologies of someone has already done so) check out Strobist. There is a brilliant lighting course on the site but the really interesting stuff is using gels to colour the light properly. Utterly love that site.
