hi guys,
yes george, its nice having the 9-5 thing in my life at the minute. im trying to slow things down a little. the photographer that was in my head was andy rouse, not dave norton. the both do articles for pp.
3/4 years ago life was hectic playing in a full time pro band, touring europe full time bla blabla...photography turned from a hobby into a proffesion, which for me, wasnt the best thing. i mean i was good at what i produced, it was just the unseen hours when clients think that all you do is take a picture and then print it....little do they know!
also you cant please everyone which i found difficult to handle. i try my best in everything all for someone to just downgrade your work (ignorence mostly)
anyway, graeme, the lens i used was a f2.8 . your right, it makes the biggest difference. alot of people believ that having the best camera in the world will produce great images, to some degree maybe, but ime its the glass you use. buy the most expensive that you can afford. greame, i used a 350d as a back-up camera at a wedding last year. Great camera my friend and if you can process raw images you'll get more from it and in turn your images will shine.
i use raw imaging software, not to over process an image, more to just getting rid of the simple mistakes at the time of shooting. for me the 2 main benafits to raw image processing are
white balance and exposure. try it.
take a photo at random in jpeg format (just a snap shot) then try and mend that blown out sky, or under exposed shaded area with photo shop. try and correct the white balance that you forgot to change!....
now switch to raw (which most entry level slr has) take a snap shot then adjust with raw software and see how you can bring back exposure, or decrees it. change the white balance with far more acuracy etc etc...
it takes the pain out of on the spot shooting. no need for worrying about exposure compensation any more( i stopped bracketinfg a long time ago when i discovered raw)
obviously you need to be close to the correct exposure in the first place, but with regards to everything else worry about it later.
now someone stop me cus im going on.....