As others have said, your difficulty might be from shootingnwith a shallow depth of field. Instead of shooting atblike f/1.4, f/1.8, or whatever you widest apwrture is… shoot at like f/8. This increases your depth of field, makes it easier to get what you want in the focal plane while manually focusing. Save wide open aperture for controlled environments/subjects when manual focusing.

The above and practice isnoretty much how you get better. The above at least eliminates a potential technical difficulty you might be experiencing.

Adobe is one of the worst companies ever.

They created a bunch of programs that have become commonplace in the business environment but then you cant use them unless you pay them constantly.

There is no justifiable reason, other than money, that they cant offer individual lifetime license for a given iteration of a program. Like why cant I just pay a single fee to be able to use this year’s iteration of acrobat pro indefinitely, with limited future updates provided.

Like I really gotta fuckin pay this company $20 a month to be able to use the pdf format efficiently?

Can ya at least let me get like 3-4 versions old software at a one time fee so I can at least edit pdfs and add signature blocks and shit??? I mean come the fuck on.

Shit should be a crime… image if you had to pay microsoft or apple a monthly fee to be able to log in to your computer.

Abode is one of the sleezest companies on the planet.

r/photoshoprequest

Like a lens that I own? Or would have to buy? Or like I can just pick any lens to use for the rest of time at no cost to me?

This is tough… im gonna have to give multiple answers lol.

• For a DSLR and currently I own it - Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G
• For a mirrorless and currently I own it - Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2
• Any lense at no cost to me - Leica Noctilux 50mm f/0.95

This has been kind of an interesting thought experiment for me honestly. I primarily enjoy shooting wildlife photography… so its interesting to see that it this scenario id effectively give it up all together for the sake of having a more all around lens. Yea… I could keep a 70-200mm f/2.8… but thats just kinda not long enough for wildlife photography and not a low enough f-stop for portraits for my taste.

IG? Facebook?

You havent expressed any aspect of vsco or flickr that is not meeting your needs. So “better” is unknown… i.e. we dont know what you are looking to improve upon from those platforms.

I’ve made a few prints of a photo I was really happy with which I’ve tried selling on Etsy, all of which remain to be unsold.

Supply and demand. Photography is an art form that has very little demand for “artistic” works. Most people who want to buy things like prints, do so out of self interest… i.e. they commissioned a photographer to take pictures of themselves or something they care about. People, generally, arent just getting online and searching for high res prints of trees or lakes or parks or anything for the matter.

Also any advice on growing my audience would be amazing, because as much as I love doing it for my own pleasure, I still want

Reality is, photographs are a dime a million. People scroll by literally hundreds or even thousands of photographs daily on their IG or Facebook and dont even notice or give them a second thought. So who cares what other people think or how many likes you get? Truth is, nobody really cares.

Pictures of my kids I took in the yard get twice as much social media response as pictures of a grizzly bear I tracked for 2 days and waited hours to photograph. Or a herd of bison I drove a dozen hours just on the hope that id catch them during their migration. Nobody cares… out of the thousands upon thousands of people that had laid eyes on those shots, of which are some of my favorite… one person said “these are some of the best photos ive ever seen”. Again, not to be cynical, but nobody cares lol. A like doesnt constitute a good photograph anymore than the excessive cost a food at a 5 star resturant constitutes increased nutritional values. The two are unrelated.

The reality is, if pictures arent directly related to the viewer… then nobody cares about your pictures for more than a few seconds. Very rarely history have pictures surfaced that render a massive amout of people awestruck. Ansel Adams, arguably the most renowned photographers ever, and I cant accurately recall a single one of his puctures in my head right now. Very vaguely, yes. But the truth ive seen so many photographs of landscapes that they all just kind of blend together.

Ultimately, nobody truly cares about your photography even remotely close to how much you do. Nobody thinks about it, looks at it, wants it on their wall, etc… as much as you. People are motivated by their own self interests. So if you want people to hold your photography to a higher regard, youll have to start taking clients and doing paid photoshoots for people. If you just want to gain popularity for your hobby… then start s youtube channel and focus more on the lifestyle aspect of it.

Ive been a photographer for like 15 years, and now moreso than ever photographs are a dime a million. Most people (in developed countries) are walking around with an excellent camera in their pocket in their smart phone. Of which they can also use to share any photograph they take with all of their friends/family/followers in literally a few seconds after capturing it. Theyll snap a shot, having it uploaded in 30 seconds, hundreds or thousands of people will scroll by it within the next few hours, some liking it some not but all completely forgetting about it within a matter of mintues or less, and the cycle repeats. Thats is the reality of modern day photography. People generally dont care, and they almost always forget about it.

Take photographs and upload them because you love it. Screw what everyone else things about it or how many likes it gets.

Set a time limit for yourself.

E.g. “I will only work on this shot for 10 minutes, and then I will not even look at it for at least an hour”.

When you come back to it in an hour youll either immediately know what areas could use a little more touch or you will be happy with it. If you do feel it needs a little more work, give yourself a 5 minute time limit for the touch ups… then dont look at it for another hour.

This method of constantly limiting your time and forcing yourself to wait and to do anything with the edits will condition you to feel the full weight of the amount of time wasted on needless fine tune editing, and force you to accept/hone your editing technique in the first 10 minute session for no other reason than the desire to not want to wait an hour to come back to it later.

I.e. Its much more inconvenient to have to wait an hour to come back to finish something up than it is to sit there and lose an hour working on one shot. Youll eventually get tired of the inconvenience and learn to accept your edits for what you can produce in a 10 minute or less period of time.

Using the same techniques to get sharp photos in any situation (shitter speed appropriate to your subject/to get the desired end result, knowing how to gauge aperture well enough to get the entirety of your subject sharp but also still isolated from the background), a long lens, a tripod with the ball loose enough to pan freely, and shooting on continuous high.

Then of course, being very patient and taking lots of shots when an opportunity does arise. Wildlife photography is more akin to sports photography than any other type of photography, only way more unpredictable. You arent going to go out and just snap one shot and get exactly what you hoped to out of it like you could a portrait, architecture, landscape, etc. And even with sport photography, you know where the action is headed/going to be. Wild animal… pshhh… who knows what they are going to do lol.

Honestly, like 80% of the time wildlife photography guves me anxiety lol. Wondering if youve taken enough shoots to get the one you will love, worrying about missing out on an opportunity while its right in front of you, all while trying to focus and be patient enough to wait for the shot to be right… but never really knowing until it happens.

Then other things happen… like the animal just runs off unexpectedly and that moment you waited hours for is gone. Or you check a couple shots on the LCD screen real quick to see if youve got something that you like… just to get home and look at it in LR and realize the shot you thought was a banger if fricken out of focus. Or just the monotony of looking through 100s or 1000s of pictures of the same animal hoping to find one that you really nailed… but you dont lol.

I’ve had trips where I spent days traveling and days at a location… only to never get to encounter the animal i was hoping to photograph.

Wildlife photography is my bread and butter. Its very exciting to nail the shot you envisioned, but can very easily be a lot of miss opportunity… even when you are prepared.

and after getting diminishing returns and burn out by posting on Instagram

Diminishing returns? Are you sure you are a hobby photographer… because it sounds more like you are trying to build a brand.

Moms everywhere getting their dopamine fix posting cell phone pics of their kids on facebook… and this guy over talking about diminishing returns on IG posts. What does that even mean? You set yourself a monthly “like” quota or something?

Post on FB and IG like everyone else. Literally foundational tools for building a brand/sharing a photography hobby. If you cant make it there… you cant make it anywhere.

Ot would be considered a Non-refundable Reservation Fee or Non-refundable Deposit. Same same.

A retainer fee is something a person would pay to hold their status as a “client”. It is an indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity form of contractual agreement. I.e. “I will pay you a recurring fee to remain available for when I need your services”.

Summilux 28mm f/1.7.

Not a chance in hell would I take this job…

$300 for like 7 hours of your time… and 200+ prints… AND short notice… Fuck. No.

First off… you would be wildly underpaid for this type of shoot on a peice per hour basis alone… $300 for 7 hours for a wedding is $42 an hour. Even with this being your first shoot ever, with it being a wedding… $100 an hour minimum for EVERY expected hour of work. A seasoned wedding photographer could easily charge $200-400 per hour.

Then when you consider how short notice it is… like 8 hours out from the event… holy shit lol. If it was a concert or small familynphoto shoot, not a big deal on a short notice if my schedule is open. But a wedding… Now ive got to get my clothes ready, get all my gear ready for any kind of request that might be made on site, try to find a second shooter or just accept that im going to have to work way harder to get everything ill need, etc…

Then considering just how short that notice is… 8 hours? Thats today… that means everything I had planned today is shot and im working to get prepared for and to this job. Easily could quote an additional $500, or even double the hourly rate, for such a short notice job… and a wedding of all things.

Also, 200+ prints? Ok… easily charging cost of materials to include all the photo paper, cost of all ink used + cost of new ink cartridges set to go into my photo printer whenever what is left over from printing those 200+ prints runs out.

Then the potential client doesnt want to allow you to use your photographs for your own marketing purposes? Ummmm… no lol. If a client wants exclusive rights to my photographs, to the point where I am not allowed to use them in my own marketing… thats an additional cost as well.

This client sounds like an entitled b-hole who poorly planned for their wedding, or is just such a b-hoke in general that they ran off their last photographer at the last minute.

You know how hard it is to find a good wedding photographer the day of? Almost impossible lol.

Given all the factors at play, this is easily like a $2,000+ job.

Tell them “No, thanks. Im already booked for today” now, and save yourself the headache that would come later. Dont do it.

I’ve got a lot of cameras not listed below, but this represents what my general path of progression has been.

• Nikon F
• Nikon FM2
• Hasselblad 500 c/m
• Lumix TS1
• Cell phone
• Nikon D3100
• Nikon D7200
• Nikon D850

At this point, I’d felt like I’d reached the pinnacle of whatever I’d need from a dedicated camera with the D850. Everything purchased after this point was for fun/hobby photography.

• Sony RX100 VII (wanted to try out a compact daily carry)
• Sony a6000 (wanted to try a mirrorles interchangeable)
• Sold Sony RX100 VII and a6000
• Fujifilm X-T4 (teplaced the 2 Sonys)
• Leica Q
• Leica M240

I have been using a Canon Pixma Pro 100 for a handful of years now. Prints pretty quick, and you can use 3rd party in cartridges that are mikes cheaper that Canon branded ones. Can print up to 13x19.