Ask away Questions 5

I hope you guys still like this series, otherwise just tell me 😀
Today part 5.
And again a two parter.

Question 1:
Hi Frank

Hope you get better soon, now for my question: I have older cameras one Canon eos 10d and a Canon eos 1n hs 35 mm filmcamera,should I upgrade the lenses for better pictures och by more new cameras? I use canon ef 50mm f1,8 and ef 22-55mm f4-5,6 usm and a sigma 28-200mm f3,5-5,6.

What lenses du you recomend on a not to big budget?
Greeetings
Magnus

Question 2:
This must be the most asked question everrrrrrr 🙂
Well next to which glass to by that is 🙂
In reality in this case you already have a great lens, the 50mm f1.8 the rest of the glass is ok but not stellar. However this is already an answer that doesn’t make any sense when you are for example into sports photography, the 50mm f1.8 a good lens ???? “Frank I hardly use it, it doesn’t have the reach I need” well ok point taken…. “and the 28-200 ok? pfff I need at least a f2.8 aperture otherwise I can never get my images the way I want it” well ok point taken again….. you see where I’m going 🙂

For street photography for example the 28-200 reach is awesome and okay it’s not the fastest lens but there you can use the 50 1.8 so you have everything covered. And indeed the sharpness is not stellar but it’s all about the feeling, a bit of softness can really enhance your images “maybe” depending on your style of course.
So telling you what to upgrade is dangerous. For street style photography I would say get a new body, look at the 60D, 600D etc. and you will see a major boost in performance, especially in high ISO which is great with the slower lens you’re using, however when you’re into sports it’s the wrong advise, get a f2.8 lens second hand and you will see a MAJOR boost in performance and look of your images.

Now if you want some lens advise that I think is solid and works for MOST people that are on a budget…..
I love the Tamron 28-75 f2.8  this is a fast lens, light and cheap and got some amazing qualities, even on the 5DMKIII.
I also really like the 50mm f1.8 which you already own, it’s very cheap and the quality is amazing.
Now for the super zooms I really can’t give you any solid advice because I don’t own one but when you’re happy with the 28-200 keep it (doesn’t cost you anything) and if you DO upgrade body compare the image quality with the Tamron or 50mm and decide if you want to keep it.

Hope this helps you. And always remember “It’s not the gear, it’s the photographer that tells the story”……

Question 2:
Hi Frank,
Good luck with your recovery. Really great that you do this during recovery…you’re really giving back!
Since I follow your blog I force myself too make the picture ‘in the camera’ instead of tweaking in post-proces. Your reading on lightmeter and calibration was a great help.
My question:
What is the best way to create the right white balance in camera before you start a shoot. Gray-card, sheet of white paper, expo-disk? Is it wise/ nessecery to use different methods for let’s say ambient light only or for example portraits with speedlight in combination with ambient?
Al the best,
Jeroen

Answer 2:
To be honest, and this might sound incredibly weird, but bare with me.
I don’t care about whitebalance in the camera before a shoot. You can spend time with whitebalance cards, expos discs etc. but in the end I shoot RAW and I will do the color balance in post processing…… now that doesn’t mean of course that I WON’T take my shots with a color checker 🙂 of course, but what my display on the back of the camera shows doesn’t matter to me. The image you see on the back of your camera is NOT and I repeat is NOT the RAW file, it’s a jpeg rendering of that file, meaning if you set a color balance in the camera or custom settings like B&W or contrast etc. it will show on the back of the camera but not in the RAW file… some software packages will add a “flag” to your RAW file copying the settings but when you import your RAW files “flat” or with a custom setting this is overruled. I use the back of the camera to see if my image is ok, if the strobes went off, if I like the composition etc. but not ever for color.

Now I think you also meant this, but I just wanted to start off with explaining why I don’t use the back of the camera.
So to get your image color and color balance correct I use a color checker. There are three I have here but most of the time I use the Color Checker Passport. It makes a profile for your setup and you can use that. If you’re using the same strobes and setups you can make 1 profile per modifier, for example “Deep Octa”, “Strip Light” etc. and use that, however when you change around a lot or use different colored backgrounds I would advise to just shoot a color checker every setup change.

When using ambient it’s always necessary to use a color checker because ambient is actually almost never the same.
And on the use of white paper….. don’t.
In every kind of paper there are so called “whiteners” these make the paper look more white, meaning if you balance on those your images will have to little blue (blue is added to the paper).