Thanks for the history lesson(s) RED.
My dad was a big fan of Pentax back in the 70's. Ansell Adams he was not... or so it seemed. He chose the slide medium saying Kodachrome was over rated. We always thought it was because he was too cheap to print stuff. He always showed off vacation pictures on his projector when we were teens. Bring over a date to meet the folks and "oh no, the Canada in 72 pix again". He used manual cameras so when you said "cheese" your jaw was tired by the time he dialed in and took the shot.
When I reached my 20's and started a family I asked my pop for some tips. Not one to mince words he hands me all kinds of pocket manuals and basic how to books that were a Fort Knox of basic knowledge.
Well ole pop was miles ahead of the curve. When he passed we kids found a major cache of his personal photos.. no kids, no vacation type stuff but photos of things the old man enjoyed... all in black and white. What I meant by ahead of the curve is that those photos would've been bland in scrap book form. But he had those Pentax rigs so dialed in that when shown on his 4'x4' screen there were some absolute gems. Macro butterflies, moon pix you could see in exquisit detail like the hubble telescope did it, silouettes, old barns... I was in my late 40's before I knew my pop was a photographing master.
One day I gave him a $45 Canon P&S. He had never seen a digital P&S so I showed him the on/off button and shutter button and told him it's 90% automatic. He took one photo with flash, looked at it on the tiny screen and says "go look in my dresser and bring me one of those white film containers with sharks teeth in it". So I did. He whips out his grandfathers tiny folding knife sharpened so many times like 1/3 of the blade was gone. He cuts the bottom off the film container, slices the side with his razer sharp blade... slides the film container over the flash and takes another photo. WOW!! Suddenly a dim dining room pic all washed out by the ugly flash had nice wood tones with perfect lighting.
He chuckled and says "this digital camera thing may catch on afterall". Then he hands it back and says "thanks but no thanks".
The man wrote the programs to turn 1950's machinery at his factory to CNC type accuracy in the 1980's yet did not own a personal computer. So he did not want a digital camera.
He did really dig the idea of the full frame type sensor on my D700. I showed him how the smaller sensored D7000 I had made for better crops but the bokeh of the full frame was so much easier to predict. He said "phooey on those plastic zoom lenses, go find old glass primes at yard sales". Glad I did.
One day he hands me his spotting scope and says "hook it to your camera, you'll love it. It was a Kowa TSN-822 spotter with a 10x-50x eyepiece and a tripod with a way to mount your camera too!!!! He'd used it at the shooting range to dial in his powder recipe for his reloads. The wife and I hooked our digi cams to it a few times and took amazing photos of baby hawks fresh from the egg, eagles fornicating, and a host of other subject matter only being in the right place at the right time can produce.
As a road inspector there are times we make paths through areas the deer and antelope played before the white man arrived. Birds don't pay you no mind if you sit still often enough and long enough. So birds ended up being my favorite subjects on days I got paid to watch grass grow. Sometimes I'd be 3-5' from birds doing bird stuff armed with a nice camera and a lens.
On one project I shot picks of a gold finch pluck grass stalks one at a time from a field, fly to a tree and build a nest all from like 25' away. Another was a juvenile eagle learning to swoop down and catch fish. Every day the thing would swoop down and belly flop to the water. I took pix 3-4 fps. Then one day... success! And I got pix! I was stoked for the bird , but then later more stoked with the photos. Bird nears water, bird grabs fish, bird flies away fish in claws. But my favorites were baby cows licking adults or doing other hijinx with other youngsters. That was a fun day.
But later on my favorite subject for work was to go find photos that tell a story. A sweaty fellow wiping his brow, a 75' tall steel cage being lowered into a shaft and guided by a 6' worker, a bridge being demolished catching chips flying off a wrecking ball.... the trick is to get the motion without blur.
Like you said, you have 1 try and little to no time to prepare. In my case those pocket guides and a couple of decades of practice later I can do ok.
But I'm picky who I'll shoot for. If the observer says "what is this?" as if to scoff I tell 'em "I don't do Olin Mills mass produced snapshots Bucko!" "When you want good photos ask me nicely and I'll consider it".
The folks I work for now know my style and send me out to do my thing with a couple of small demands. Win-win.
My dad was a big fan of Pentax back in the 70's. Ansell Adams he was not... or so it seemed. He chose the slide medium saying Kodachrome was over rated. We always thought it was because he was too cheap to print stuff. He always showed off vacation pictures on his projector when we were teens. Bring over a date to meet the folks and "oh no, the Canada in 72 pix again". He used manual cameras so when you said "cheese" your jaw was tired by the time he dialed in and took the shot.
When I reached my 20's and started a family I asked my pop for some tips. Not one to mince words he hands me all kinds of pocket manuals and basic how to books that were a Fort Knox of basic knowledge.
Well ole pop was miles ahead of the curve. When he passed we kids found a major cache of his personal photos.. no kids, no vacation type stuff but photos of things the old man enjoyed... all in black and white. What I meant by ahead of the curve is that those photos would've been bland in scrap book form. But he had those Pentax rigs so dialed in that when shown on his 4'x4' screen there were some absolute gems. Macro butterflies, moon pix you could see in exquisit detail like the hubble telescope did it, silouettes, old barns... I was in my late 40's before I knew my pop was a photographing master.
One day I gave him a $45 Canon P&S. He had never seen a digital P&S so I showed him the on/off button and shutter button and told him it's 90% automatic. He took one photo with flash, looked at it on the tiny screen and says "go look in my dresser and bring me one of those white film containers with sharks teeth in it". So I did. He whips out his grandfathers tiny folding knife sharpened so many times like 1/3 of the blade was gone. He cuts the bottom off the film container, slices the side with his razer sharp blade... slides the film container over the flash and takes another photo. WOW!! Suddenly a dim dining room pic all washed out by the ugly flash had nice wood tones with perfect lighting.
He chuckled and says "this digital camera thing may catch on afterall". Then he hands it back and says "thanks but no thanks".
The man wrote the programs to turn 1950's machinery at his factory to CNC type accuracy in the 1980's yet did not own a personal computer. So he did not want a digital camera.
He did really dig the idea of the full frame type sensor on my D700. I showed him how the smaller sensored D7000 I had made for better crops but the bokeh of the full frame was so much easier to predict. He said "phooey on those plastic zoom lenses, go find old glass primes at yard sales". Glad I did.
One day he hands me his spotting scope and says "hook it to your camera, you'll love it. It was a Kowa TSN-822 spotter with a 10x-50x eyepiece and a tripod with a way to mount your camera too!!!! He'd used it at the shooting range to dial in his powder recipe for his reloads. The wife and I hooked our digi cams to it a few times and took amazing photos of baby hawks fresh from the egg, eagles fornicating, and a host of other subject matter only being in the right place at the right time can produce.
As a road inspector there are times we make paths through areas the deer and antelope played before the white man arrived. Birds don't pay you no mind if you sit still often enough and long enough. So birds ended up being my favorite subjects on days I got paid to watch grass grow. Sometimes I'd be 3-5' from birds doing bird stuff armed with a nice camera and a lens.
On one project I shot picks of a gold finch pluck grass stalks one at a time from a field, fly to a tree and build a nest all from like 25' away. Another was a juvenile eagle learning to swoop down and catch fish. Every day the thing would swoop down and belly flop to the water. I took pix 3-4 fps. Then one day... success! And I got pix! I was stoked for the bird , but then later more stoked with the photos. Bird nears water, bird grabs fish, bird flies away fish in claws. But my favorites were baby cows licking adults or doing other hijinx with other youngsters. That was a fun day.
But later on my favorite subject for work was to go find photos that tell a story. A sweaty fellow wiping his brow, a 75' tall steel cage being lowered into a shaft and guided by a 6' worker, a bridge being demolished catching chips flying off a wrecking ball.... the trick is to get the motion without blur.
Like you said, you have 1 try and little to no time to prepare. In my case those pocket guides and a couple of decades of practice later I can do ok.
But I'm picky who I'll shoot for. If the observer says "what is this?" as if to scoff I tell 'em "I don't do Olin Mills mass produced snapshots Bucko!" "When you want good photos ask me nicely and I'll consider it".
The folks I work for now know my style and send me out to do my thing with a couple of small demands. Win-win.
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