Friendly strangers used my 5D to snap this shot of PennyClick and me :-)
Yeah, you couldn't have done that. You should have let them keep the camera.
It was a stealth photographer. There are a few of those scattered around in national parks and other tourist places. They know all about every camera ever made, and have amazing talent and intuition about framing the perfect shot.
Nice photo of you two. Congrats on having a real "keeper" of a shot to remember your trip.
You guys let others touch your cameras and lenses? :-)
In the National Park, I am constantly asked to take photos of a couple or a group. Most of the time I comply, but not always. It depends on whether the light conditions will allow an acceptable photo result. People are sometimes surprised when I move and rearrange and reorient the people in the scene.
Tourist: Hi, that's a nice camera, will you please use our camera to take our picture?
Richard: No, the light isn't any good.
Tourist: Blank stare.
+1 Well said. That's happened to me dozens of times. LOL!!!!
I have sort of a different issue.......every time I'm somewhere there are people with cameras, they just assume that because I have this big, clunky DSLR that I'll know how to use their weird little mysterious boxes.
Live view gives me horrible vertigo, I have trouble even knowing where the shutter button is, and honestly........more than half the time, I can't tell whether the damn things have taken the picture!
I have a few times where we've asked for help, and half the time, people get the deer-in-the-headlights look when they see the camera we have.
Funny stuff!
Yeah, I recently sold the ol' Powershot and *almost* had to dig out the manual to remind myself how to do basic stuff like zoom-in/zoom-out...and yeah I love how freaked out people get when they're asked to take a pic with a dslr! Most stare helplessly at the LCD on the back and have to be shown where the viewfinder is. Then they go 'OMG it's soooo heavy!!!' Which is why I always make sure any strangers have the neckstrap around their necks and not hanging uselessly down around their wrists.
And that's with Nikon gear. Gawd ferbid you gave them a 5D with the L series 70-200 up :-0
You guys let others touch your cameras and lenses? :-)
In the National Park, I am constantly asked to take photos of a couple or a group. Most of the time I comply, but not always. It depends on whether the light conditions will allow an acceptable photo result. People are sometimes surprised when I move and rearrange and reorient the people in the scene.
Tourist: Hi, that's a nice camera, will you please use our camera to take our picture?
Richard: No, the light isn't any good.
Tourist: Blank stare.
+1 Well said. That's happened to me dozens of times. LOL!!!!
Meh. They don't care. They're not DPCers who pixel peep to the nth degree. They just want something that reminds them of being there.
You guys let others touch your cameras and lenses? :-)
In the National Park, I am constantly asked to take photos of a couple or a group. Most of the time I comply, but not always. It depends on whether the light conditions will allow an acceptable photo result. People are sometimes surprised when I move and rearrange and reorient the people in the scene.
Tourist: Hi, that's a nice camera, will you please use our camera to take our picture?
Richard: No, the light isn't any good.
Tourist: Blank stare.
+1 Well said. That's happened to me dozens of times. LOL!!!!
Meh. They don't care. They're not DPCers who pixel peep to the nth degree. They just want something that reminds them of being there.
For reference, see Facebook vs. DPC.
True statement, you bunch of socially awkward penguins.
OK I have a plan for those who are lucky enough to go on vacation to a spot where picture taking for memories is a must--get a pocket camera before you leave. Most of the pocket cameras have face recognition and smile detection. You can set it up to recognize & highlight your face. If it has smile detection it will take the shot when you smile. And let us not forget auto-focus & steady-shot. Just put it in their hand the right way & point out the shutter release button. Then you don't have to hand your big camera over to someone who doesn't know what a viewfinder is but might have an inflated idea of the resale value. "D
In the National Park, I am constantly asked to take photos of a couple or a group. Most of the time I comply, but not always. It depends on whether the light conditions will allow an acceptable photo result. People are sometimes surprised when I move and rearrange and reorient the people in the scene.
Having said they don't care in an earlier post, I do agree that if they're backlit, I'll ask how to force the flash, but if they don't know, I'll still take it. I'll also compose to put them in one corner while I put the landscape feature in another.
I just hand that friendly stranger my iPhone or my wife's P&S when they shoot a shot of my family. It works fine and for what it is intended, the quality is usually pretty good. But the composition of that photo that the stranger takes is a completely other thing...
You guys let others touch your cameras and lenses? :-)
In the National Park, I am constantly asked to take photos of a couple or a group. Most of the time I comply, but not always. It depends on whether the light conditions will allow an acceptable photo result. People are sometimes surprised when I move and rearrange and reorient the people in the scene.
Tourist: Hi, that's a nice camera, will you please use our camera to take our picture?
Richard: No, the light isn't any good.
Tourist: Blank stare.
I'm glad I had put down the coffee mug before I read that! Genius...
yes i can pretty much attest to those things too... lol i feel for us camera geeks ;O) trouble is these days anyone with a camera can get a good picture if they only take time out to learn but most rely heavily on the face detection built into even dslr's now and throw them off easily by just changing a dial setting... lol ;O) i at least educate my friends on the basics of composition :O)
Friendly strangers used my 5D to snap this shot of PennyClick and me :-)
This is a great shot. Knowing Bear, he had this set up perfectly and all that needed to come along was someone reasonably steady to act like a human tripod.
So its probably a combination of setting the thing up perfectly, and being the judge of a steady hand.
Friendly strangers used my 5D to snap this shot of PennyClick and me :-)
This is a great shot. Knowing Bear, he had this set up perfectly and all that needed to come along was someone reasonably steady to act like a human tripod.
So its probably a combination of setting the thing up perfectly, and being the judge of a steady hand.
Thanks, and that's pretty close to what happened, Paul. Robert had offered to take a picture of two women who were photographing each other and set them up in this spot for a shot. They offered to reciprocate. I sat down, Robert focused his camera (he uses the separate rear focus button), handed it to one of the women and joined me for this shot. It's one of my favorites!
In terms of "the light" I've seen Robert get people to move to a quite different spot than the one they were in after they agree they would like him to take a picture of them. He'll just say something like "the light will be much better over there". They don't seem to mind.
In terms of "the light" I've seen Robert get people to move to a quite different spot than the one they were in after they agree they would like him to take a picture of them. He'll just say something like "the light will be much better over there". They don't seem to mind.
I'd be tempted to just pop up their onboard flash ... ;-)
It's simple, when I go on holiday I employ the services of a professional photographer to follow us around and take stunning portraits of us!
I'm surprised you lot didn't think of that! You'll happily spend $1000 on a lens then pass it to a complete stranger, probably a bumbling buffoon, and expect studio quality shots:))
