Last Post Wins

[Darrell KSR]

Atta boy!

[BigBluePappy]

So, there is still some hope for the rest of us as well?

[Darrell KSR]

So, there is still some hope for the rest of us as well?

We're checking the rule book.

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[blueboss]

I think Pappy is in the lead now.

[Darrell KSR]

So my daughter wants me to take pics tonight of dessert cabaret, and I want to video instead. What to do....

I can video but it won't be high def. I can take pics but the high def video is with the camera I'm used to taking pics with.

I could video with my cell phone, which takes very nice videos, and I'll be close enough, but I'll have no tripod.

What to do....

[blueboss]

So my daughter wants me to take pics tonight of dessert cabaret, and I want to video instead. What to do....

I can video but it won't be high def. I can take pics but the high def video is with the camera I'm used to taking pics with.

I could video with my cell phone, which takes very nice videos, and I'll be close enough, but I'll have no tripod.

What to do....

Swing by and pick up a tripod


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[Darrell KSR]

I have a tripod. But not a cell phone tripod.

It's complicated.

[dan_bgblue]

Duct tape the phone to your forehead and sit nice and still

[blueboss]

I have a tripod. But not a cell phone tripod.

It's complicated.

The suspense is killing me.


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[dan_bgblue]

Not me. I am willing to bet a soft drink of your choice that I know why the tripod he has is not a cell phone tripod, but duct tape "could" make it one

[blueboss]

Not me. I am willing to bet a soft drink of your choice that I know why the tripod he has is not a cell phone tripod, but duct tape "could" make it one

The suspense of what option was used for videoing the event, and how it turned out.


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[dan_bgblue]

His absence in this thread causes me to have concern that he is all tangled up in a roll of duct tape.

[Darrell KSR]

Selfie stick cell phone. Used not for the normal purpose, but sort of a vertical monopod. Worked great, but my photos were horrible. I mean extra bad.

I got out of my seat, walked to the side entrance, and thought I was close enough. I wasn't. That tip about being close for action photos with my camera was never more evident than last weekend.

Today I get a chance to redeem myself, but I hope somebody else will have a better camera. Taking prom pictures of not only my daughter and her date, but at least one other young lady and her date. I am terrified.

They will be outside, around 4:30 pm, so I hope the good time, decent lighting (I hope) and being outside will help.

My daughter doesn't know the difference, but her friend competes in beauty pageants, her sister was runner up Miss Alabama, etc. and they've had great pictures before.

I wish Dan or Roger or Badrose or somebody else was here today.

[dan_bgblue]

Oh goody, please let me guess the conditions you encountered. Ladies wore light colored gowns and the escorts wore dark colored suits? At that time of the day the sun would be around 40 degrees above the horizon and they did not want to look into the sun and squint so they wanted their backs to the sun? Maybe due to the placement of the buildings or other backgrounds they preferred to have in the picture background, they chose to stand side beside with the sun striking them from the side, throwing half their faces into shadow? Last one is they decided to stand beneath the shade of some giant trees with the sun dappling thru the leaves.

[UKFlounder]

Poster below this is a fool

[UKFlounder]

Collected $650 in donations at a place I volunteer today and helped another trio of visitors find new information and some other leads. That made it a good, fun day.

[Darrell KSR]

Oh goody, please let me guess the conditions you encountered. Ladies wore light colored gowns and the escorts wore dark colored suits? At that time of the day the sun would be around 40 degrees above the horizon and they did not want to look into the sun and squint so they wanted their backs to the sun? Maybe due to the placement of the buildings or other backgrounds they preferred to have in the picture background, they chose to stand side beside with the sun striking them from the side, throwing half their faces into shadow? Last one is they decided to stand beneath the shade of some giant trees with the sun dappling thru the leaves.

Dan, if you were behind me watching, why didn't you step up and fix everything!

Pretty close. What made things worse is, as poor a photographer as I am, I have learned small little tricks. Like when you want something big in the background, you don't have the subjects stand next to it, but close to you, and pull the background in. But when you have 10 couples (more than I knew would be there), and (no offense intended to the ladies who may read this) the mamas who insisted on positioning the couples everywhere, it resulted in some weird photos. Fortunately, I managed to grab my daughter and her escort, and her friend and the escort she had, and moved them away from the group and other couples when they were doing some really dumb things.

Still had plenty of the "head scratching" ones, but on the whole, they were kids having fun. The photos were very secondary. I get it.

[dan_bgblue]

Fortunately, I managed to grab my daughter and her escort, and her friend and the escort she had, and moved them away from the group and other couples

For that ability you receive a photography gold medallion with clusters.

Still had plenty of the "head scratching" ones, but on the whole, they were kids having fun. The photos were very secondary. I get it.

20 years from now, they will look at the photos and think, God, did I really do that?

[CitizenBBN]

Just didn't want Dan to get his hopes up too much.

[dan_bgblue]

I have been in Darrell's shoes more than I care to remember and faced every one of the above predicted scenarios. I had more expensive and flexible photo gear than did Darrell, and in some cases, I doubt that my efforts were as good or better than his were. I quit attempting to do what he did, unless I could have full control over the process. I have not had a call from friends or relatives to take pictures at events like that in years. ;-)

[Darrell KSR]

Dan, my wife and middle daughter were there with me. They had to keep telling me to just let it go. Would've driven you nuts. I was even told, "that's good enough," when I was trying to explain to them that they needed to come away from the big sign they wanted in the background. So I just took the picture. Will be a nice picture of a sign.

The worst may be the pictures they wanted in the doorway of a downtown building, with the sun shining on half of one of the couple. The face looked two-toned. Hair, too. Of course, there were near-identical buildings on the opposite side of the street, with similar to identical doorways, and the sun wasn't shining in the face, but oh, well.

Nice young African-American man and his was the worst. I made a limited attempt to edit the photo later, and gave up. My son came in and saw what I was doing, and started cracking up laughing. That's when you know you failed miserably. I went back and forth trying to lighten the side of his face that was not in the sun, to darkening the side of the face that was in the sun, and then tried to match his hair the same way. Forget his tuxedo....that just wasn't going to happen. I'm sure that you could've handled it fine, but for me, with my limited skills, why not put me in a position to succeed and make the setting user-friendly? You know I have nothing other than a basic camera, and very limited knowledge even with the basic, non-DSLR camera, so why make it difficult for me? For anybody?

I have some things that come in my office sometimes, and I tell them it was a law school exam question, it is so convoluted. I thought some of the photography settings would be similar for advanced photographers. For me, I just waved the surrender flag and took pics.

Some of the pics came out ok, so maybe they'll be happy enough. It's a pretty neat area, Morris Avenue and downtown Birmingham. Have a "cobblestone" road (it's really a bunch of bricks that make the ride very bumpy, but they've been there a million years, as have the buildings), so there's some nice background settings. There's an old, established restaurant in downtown Birmingham, "John's," that has a large wall on the side painted colloquially, "It's nice to be in Birmingham," that is pretty cool for a backdrop....assuming you don't go rest against it, which is what they insisted upon doing, for the most part. Except for the "good enough." That just about made me laugh out loud.

They missed opportunities for pics with the "City Federal" Building sign in the background I would've loved, the stairstep tunnels that they used to get to the places they wanted would've been terrific, any of the Railroad Park areas (you can often see those pics from the Birmingham Barons' tweets, pics, etc. at the downtown Region Park), the train which runs behind Morris Avenue, and a whole host of of other neat things.

But we have a nice pic of a wall with kudzu crawling all over it. If you squint real hard, you can see my daughter. Trust me, it's her. She's the dot on the right.

[CGWildcat]

Attachment 5493 I had trouble positioning this couple once. She would not listen at all!

[blueboss]

That's just creepy


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[PedroDaGr8]

Damn I love LED bulbs wya more than fluorescent. The local power company shifted their subsidy from fluorescent to LEDs and it made them damn cheap (around $1 a bulb). I am really loving the "filament" cadelabra LED bulbs. The house I am renting has a lot of open light fixtures (chandaliers and what not), so these bulbs are a must. When they are on, you would be hard pressed to say they are not traditional incadescent bulbs. Same color, same filament look, same output (only difference is they use 4-5W not 40-50W).

[CitizenBBN]

Pedro and Dan and others, i've been meaning to ask you guys about LED bulbs for photography again. I have checked out the strip LEDs you recommended, and for the smaller photo booth I think they'd work nice, but I'm curious about bulbs that work for photos but also can be hung up in my 12' warehouse ceiling and replace the florescent bulbs.

I did homework on the K value (I think that's what it is) etc., just wondering if anyone had a favorite brand or configuration.

My plan is to put them up then just hang a sheet or something to get the diffusion I need. Also to reduce the electric bill, which is shockingly high for the new building and I figure a lot of that has to be the ancient tube lights and ballasts (place was built in the 60s, a lot of them look to be nearly that old).

I wont' do them all at once, but will need to do some over time. The place is huge, the warehouse alone is 30K sf, and I bet 2/3rds of the lights up there are dead. It's enough to see for us still, and I won't replace them all, but I think long term it would pay for itself to go to LEDs.

[PedroDaGr8]

Pedro and Dan and others, i've been meaning to ask you guys about LED bulbs for photography again. I have checked out the strip LEDs you recommended, and for the smaller photo booth I think they'd work nice, but I'm curious about bulbs that work for photos but also can be hung up in my 12' warehouse ceiling and replace the florescent bulbs.

I did homework on the K value (I think that's what it is) etc., just wondering if anyone had a favorite brand or configuration.

My plan is to put them up then just hang a sheet or something to get the diffusion I need. Also to reduce the electric bill, which is shockingly high for the new building and I figure a lot of that has to be the ancient tube lights and ballasts (place was built in the 60s, a lot of them look to be nearly that old).

I wont' do them all at once, but will need to do some over time. The place is huge, the warehouse alone is 30K sf, and I bet 2/3rds of the lights up there are dead. It's enough to see for us still, and I won't replace them all, but I think long term it would pay for itself to go to LEDs.

There are THREE major considerations: Correlated Color Temp (K value), CRI (Color Rendering Index) and R-value. K number tells you the rough color temperature of the output. Incandescent bulbs are around 2000-2700K (halogens are closer to 2700K, while non-halogen are around 2300K and low wattage non-halogen bulbs being closer to 2000K), the sun at noon is around 5000K. Most people find the lower K values more easy on the eyes, the higher K values can cause more glare, that being said a high-CRI 5000K should be pretty neutral feeling in color. CRI and R-Value are linked, R-Value is only specified in specialty lighting. Both are measures of how well the bulbs render color. CRI is a measure of how well it renders most colors, but it was later discovered it is a bit weak in the red-brown region. This why R-values R9-R14 became important because these specifically evaluate the performance in those regions.

For a photo region you are going to want it to be bright but more importantly, you want it to have a really high CRI. The CCT is not as important because the camera will compensate for that with its white balance, white balance can't compensate for colors it can't see though. This is why CRI is important for photography. For the rest of your place, I would look for a CRI greater than 80 if possible but focus on warmer brighter lights.

I have some recommendations but I think they are on my other PC. I will try to post them later when I have a chance.

[PedroDaGr8]

Pedro and Dan and others, i've been meaning to ask you guys about LED bulbs for photography again. I have checked out the strip LEDs you recommended, and for the smaller photo booth I think they'd work nice, but I'm curious about bulbs that work for photos but also can be hung up in my 12' warehouse ceiling and replace the florescent bulbs.

I did homework on the K value (I think that's what it is) etc., just wondering if anyone had a favorite brand or configuration.

My plan is to put them up then just hang a sheet or something to get the diffusion I need. Also to reduce the electric bill, which is shockingly high for the new building and I figure a lot of that has to be the ancient tube lights and ballasts (place was built in the 60s, a lot of them look to be nearly that old).

I wont' do them all at once, but will need to do some over time. The place is huge, the warehouse alone is 30K sf, and I bet 2/3rds of the lights up there are dead. It's enough to see for us still, and I won't replace them all, but I think long term it would pay for itself to go to LEDs.

OK, there are a few major considerations to keep in mind. LED prices have fallen a lot right now and will likely fall a good amount in the near future. I expect them to bottom out in the next year or two. This is for industrial lighting, for home lighting costs are getting closer to bottoming out, they might have already at $1/bulb I don't think I want much cheaper than that.

Anways, if you can't wait here we go.

• BigAssLights (from the makers of BigAss Fans). Likely, well out of your budget. They are extremely robust "Impact-resistant, single-piece construction that doesn’t flicker when you run it over with a truck (or anything else)." Some of their high-bay models are crazy bright with a maximum output of 52,000 lumens. These lights are highly respected for being very robust, very high quality and very long lasting (most have 50-100yr life ratings for 70% lumen retention) but also used to be pricey (not sure if they still are). That being said, they work with you from start to finish to design your lighting layout to maximize your employees performance and minimize lighting costs. The lights are actually made in the Lexington.
  
  
• RabLighting. - Another industrial lighting supplier, makes a lot of high quality stuff. Safe, bright and long lasting (and on the pricier side). THey make indoor lighting, high-bay lighting, outdoor lighting and pretty much everything in between. With these, you would be responsible for eyeballing the installation yourself or hiring a lighting designer to help ensure you don't end up with sub-optimal lighting. I would expect a couple decades
  
  
• Fixtures: you can find a wide range of "fluorescent" fixtures that actually use LEDs. From FEIT at Costco, to house brands at Home Depot, Sams Club, etc. THese all perform very similarly, though some have the High CRI that you would like to have in your warehouse. Their life is likely around a decade or so.
  
  
• Replacement Bulbs: These will run around $20-50 a piece but many can be plugged directly into yoru old fluorescent fixtures with zero modification. Their life span tends to be shorter due to so much circuitry incorporated into the bulb itself. This is especially true of the ones designed to work with a ballast (also a ballast failure can stop light production until it is replaced). 1000bulbs.com is well known for making these but there are a variety of good sources. Look for ones with LEDs from Nichia, Cree, Philips, etc.

[blueboss]

I found a 1.9 lb bag of Sour Patch Kids at the store today for $3.00.

Sadly I'll be sick of them after the first lb.

The orange ones are crazy good..


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[dan_bgblue]

I once found a 5 lb bag of mixed Jolly Ranchers at a big box store. I feel your pain

[CitizenBBN]

Thanks pedro, I'll check them out. I have your post where you helped me with the K value and CRI, and it looks like the strip LEDs have much higher options for CRI than some of these lights but maybe I live with that.

One good thing about our new auction gallery location. One of the local dealers for those RAB lights is a few buildings down from me. I'll go check them out.

My electric bill is pretty high given my use, I think b/c of the large number of old ballasts. Most of them are dead, but there are probably well over 1,000 florescent lights in the building, most a single T12 4' bulb. I assume we'd be brighter than the sun if I replaced them all, but there's no need, but just replacing what we do use with LED is sure to help, just not sure how much b/c I haven't done the homework. But I do need lots of good diffuse light for the photo areas.