Welcome Ron Reznick

[birddog114]

Welcome Ron Reznick,
Finally we have you onboard, enjoy your stay!

[xerubus]

Welcome Ron,

Looking forward to your input.... enjoy your stay.

Cheers

[Onyx]

let us all bow down to the master! Mr Reznick, I have been an admirer of your work, and I know our forum patron Birddog holds you in high esteem as well.

To have you join us on the D70users forums is akin to being in the presence of royalty!

[ajo43]

Welcome Ron. Thanks for taking the time to post on this site.

[fozzie]

Welcome - Ron .

Look forward to your expertise in assisting us aspiring photographers.

Cheers,

[Greg B]

Welcome to the forum Ron, if there is anything you need to know, don't hesitate to ask. We are all happy to help.

[Matt. K]

Welcome Ron
We are are a knowledgeable lot and here to help!!! So don't be afraid to ask!!!
Glad to have you aboard. This is a wonderful forum and you are bound to get a chuckle out of it and maybe pick up a few tips...like how to photograph a kangaroo in full flight down the main street of Sydney.

[Nnnnsic]

Excuse me if I sound rude at all in any way... but am I supposed to know who this is?

[phillipb]

It's OK Nnnnsic, I must confess of not knowing Ron either, but I've had a look at his site and he's got some really good stuff there, and guess what else, he's got Duck photos too, he's my kind of photog.

[Kristine]

Excuse me if I sound rude at all in any way... but am I supposed to know who this is?

http://www.digital-images.net/

[birddog114]

It's OK Nnnnsic, I must confess of not knowing Ron either, but I've had a look at his site and he's got some really good stuff there, and guess what else, he's got Duck photos too, he's my kind of photog.

phillipB,
Perhaps he know how to make Peking duck too!

[Greg B]

Welcome to Australia Ron.

[Matt. K]

Nnnnsic
It's me! Matt. K

[sirhc55]

Ron also wrote the ebook ”Digital Photography Acquisition & Processing Techniques” which I believe to be one the best ebooks around on the subject.

Chris

[Raydar]

It's OK Nnnnsic, I must confess of not knowing Ron either, but I've had a look at his site and he's got some really good stuff there, and guess what else, he's got Duck photos too, he's my kind of photog.

We sould know by now that D70 owners just love Ducks, or images of them any way!!

welcome Ron great to have you with us!!!!

Cheers
Ray

[Nicole]

Welcome Ron. I've got the e-book too. Ron's photos are awesome. Something to aspire too!

[Ron Reznick]

Some day, I'm going to have to get myself down under...

Ron

[birddog114]

Some day, I'm going to have to get myself down under...

Ron

Hi Ron,
August 5 is the D70Users Forum Anni. conference in Sydney, please planning to make a trip to Down Under for your workshops and meet our D70Users fellows. Lot of people are interested, and want to attend to your workshops

[Nicole]

So many great places to photograph over here too! I would definitely be interested in a workshop.

[Ron Reznick]

I can't be certain of my schedule in August yet, because until I get all of the processing done from last year's work, create the portfolios, and get the rep and the literary agent working, I won't know what the publishing schedule will be (and therefore what my writing schedule will be). Once I have all of that done, I'll have the meetings with the publisher and get things locked down. I would like to do this though.

Due to the extreme cost in both time and expenses required to go 'down under' from California, we'd have to have three groups to keep the cost per person down to something reasonable. A lot is going to depend on how many people are interested, and the final cost will be based on total expenses plus day-rate divided by the number of people in the sessions.

Here is information on sessions, in case you want to get some folks together. Let me know what you come up with, and we'll get things started:


—

We go into extreme detail regarding how the meter-modes work; why to choose one mode over another; how to use the light; how to estimate EV based on the scene; how to select a lens based on the situation and how to best use that lens given the subject and the situation; how to compose based on the subject and environment; what various combinations of aperture, lens and focusing distance mean to the composition, and a vast number of other things that you need to have a solid feel for how to get the most out of any situation.

I teach stable holding techniques for hand-held work that rival the use of tripods in many situations. I'll teach you how to best frame different sorts of subjects; how to track a moving subject if that is what we're doing; how to predict a shot before it occurs and make decisions that will allow you to be ready to shoot in a second or less (allowing you to get shots that passed you by before), and numerous other shooting-related tricks such as reading a histogram so you can retake a difficult shot and get it right the second time if it wasn't right the first time, and so forth.

We then travel back to base, transfer images, and I describe my workflow in great detail. You learn how to batch for selection; how to compare synched views of multiple shots and how to select the ones to manually process; how to rapidly organize files so that running a manual processing job is many times faster; how to process very quickly in an extremely consistent manner using the histogram and the image itself; how to properly set up your workspace; and a ton of other stuff that will make you capable of processing an image in a minute or less and getting consistent, superior results.

—

I've done a large number of different sorts of training sessions... from training beginners to training the staff photographer at Universal Studios. How the sessions go depends on what the client wants to learn and how much time the client can invest. I can transfer a tremendous amount of information quite rapidly in an understandable manner — I've taught several rather highly complex fields and am both articulate and used to converting technical information into plain English in a way that is both descriptive and easily-retained.

Typically, a client will come to me for either acquisition training, processing training, or both. Either the client will come here, he/she will bring me to them (covering the expenses), or we will meet in a special venue (with the client covering the expenses). Assuming that there is acquisition training planned, we discuss what we are going to be doing in detail previous to the shoot, I answer questions, describe situations and how to prepare for them and take rapid advantage of opportunities, discuss technique, and generally get the client ready for what we are going to do. Then we go out and shoot, with me walking the client through various situations, shooting in parallel with them, and describing exactly what I am doing and why I am doing it. I watch what they do, correct them as necessary, show them how to "see" a shot both before they take it and while framing, and discuss and demonstrate various options for taking various sorts of shots in differing conditions and why you would choose one presentation or technique over another. I put the client into as many different situations as possible within the shooting venue so they get as much out of the acquisition phase as is possible within that venue.

Once we have completed the acquisition phase, we discuss what we did (to make it stick), and go through a question and answer session based on the new knowledge gained while traveling back to base for the processing phase. We then transfer and batch-process the files, and I show the client how I select images for final processing. We then go through the processing phase in great detail. I teach the client how to read a Histogram, the processing workflow, and how to make rapid decisions and how to process in a consistent, repeatable manner based on the needs of the particular shot as shown by the image itself and the Histogram. If necessary, I also show the client how to set up their monitor and software so they can trust what they are seeing.

By the time we are done the client can read a Histogram as well as an image, knows how to make corrections for White Balance, EV, individual channel levels and gamma, and how to apply USM in an extremely rapid and consistent manner, and will have the workflow down pat so a typical image can be processed in a very short time depending on the complexity of the image. This speed will of course increase with practice until you find that you can work very complex images in a minute or less (some very complex images may take as long as two or three minutes to process properly, but most can be done in under a minute once you are good at seeing what has to be done and applying the techniques rapidly).

I have taken clients through gardens, cityscapes, National Parks, wildlife preserves, theme parks, museums, athletic events and a number of other venues for acquisition training — teaching scenic, macro, wildlife, stalking, street-shooting, architecture, Art, high-speed action, and people shooting. Some sessions go for partial days, some for one day, some for several days. It all depends on what the client wants to do. When we are through, you will know very well how to plan, set up, acquire, select, and process images.

Hourly rate is $100. Day-rate is $750 based on a 10 hour day. Additional time beyond 10 hours are $75 each hour. There are discounts for multi-day sessions. Expenses have to be covered if I am traveling to you or we are going to a remote location. The day-rate for group-sessions is higher due to the extra stress involved, but when split amongst a group the cost is lower... the overall cost of a group-session depends on the expenses when split amongst the number of attendees in the group — typical cost of a 3-day group-session is in the $800-$900 region for a high-expense venue or a small group (the cost can be higher for a small group in a high-expense venue), and between $700 and $750 for a low-expense venue or a large multi-session group.

—

Ron

[birddog114]

Hi D70Users fellow!
The $ figure on Ron post is based on US Dollar.

[Nnnnsic]

I think my heart just gave out.

[Ron Reznick]

Think of the expenses involved and the cost in time. I do these sessions for less than half what I make when I'm here, and sometimes even less than that, but I can't lose money doing them. These are typically 14+ hour days, and I pass on about three years of information in a 3 day session. I understand if you feel that the time is expensive, though.

Ron

[Nnnnsic]

No... I really think my heart just gave out.

I don't actually deal with the finances of this group... and whilst I understand your expenses, it's still something to leave someone like myself with my jaw dropping.

[sirhc55]

Think of the expenses involved and the cost in time. I do these sessions for less than half what I make when I'm here, and sometimes even less than that, but I can't lose money doing them. These are typically 14+ hour days, and I pass on about three years of information in a 3 day session. I understand if you feel that the time is expensive, though.

Ron

I know where you are coming from Ron. I am in business myself and I can remember one client complaining about my $50 an hour charge until I pointed out to her that her charges, in the brochure I had just completed, where $175 an hour. She paid me.

The same with photography - a few years back a friend of mine came out of the navy (where he had been an official photographer) and went into his own business. He did not get any work at all until he was told by another pro photographer that he was too cheap ($400 half day instead of $800) up went his prices and the work flowed in and that was in the 70’s.

Chris

[atencati]

Hi Ron, Welcome. I live in Sacramento and would love to atten one of your workshops. Do you have any up north or amI goinig to have o trave down there. I really don't care for So-Cal and avoid it if possible. Thanks again

Andy

[birddog114]

Ron,
I totally agreed with Chris and understood thru my learning on all your replies on DPR.
Say if people look at the workshops run by Moose or others, they will understand the nature of costing and value of the workshop, due to other costings involved in travelling, accomodation, sundries etc... for you as well.

[gstark]

Hi, Ron, and welcome.

Think of the expenses involved and the cost in time.

I really don't think that Leigh was commenting on the costs involved, or the need for you to charge for your time; he certainly knows what I charge for mine.

Many of us here also charge on a similar basis, and fully recognise the value of time, and that the time involved in face-to-face dealings with clients rarely, if ever, represents anything like the true time one expends in presenting classes (or whatever) such as these.

I find that the only time issues arise in this realm is where people don't truly value the worth of their time (or understand that their time has worth) and the upshot of that is that those people are rarely worth the effort of dealing with.

Enjoy your stay on the forums; I hope that you might become a regular contributor, and I can see that you have already provided some most valuable content.

[Ron Reznick]

Hi again,

It's always difficult to come up with the right fee when you're dealing with people in a non-professional situation. When working on a professional basis, there can still be some problems, but they generally know what the rates are for various sorts of work. I work in seven fields, some of which are rather exotic. Photography is one of them. My gear is expensive, the time it took to train myself is even more expensive. The costs of travel to distant places, and on-location expenses, along with the cost of lost time on-site, have to be factored in, less any discount I feel like giving the people. I discount my time pretty radically for training sessions, as I know that many people who take these sessions are not as familiar with the value of time as folks working in a professional environment in that particular field, plus I do them on a friendly basis rather than on a professional basis -- still, there are limits to the levels to which I am willing to discount my time.

Ask yourself this: what are three years of your life worth? What is your satisfaction with your hobby worth? Is it worth the cost of a lens?

Keep in mind that a large percentage of my students went professional and started recovering capital right away. Some already were professionals (e.g. the head photographer at Universal Studios), but were shifting from film to digital and could not risk loss of output quality while they were climbing the learning slope for a year or more. In each case like this, the cost of the session was far less than the cost of the time required to acquire the information and technique on their own (assuming that they could -- some of the information and technique I pass on is not available elsewhere), and they rapidly recovered the costs when working.

People who are doing this for fun can't recover the cost that way, but they can get more -- much more -- out of their time as well as a great amount of satisfaction by rapidly increasing the quality of their work.

Knowledge has value.

Those who are interested in this information, and who want to acquire much of it at a more reasonable price, might want to consider the eBook that I wrote.

Enough on that subject... I'm sure I've bored the hell out of all of you.

Ron

[Ron Reznick]

Hi Andy,

I'll be doing a session in Yosemite in late May. There will either be one or two sessions, depending on how many people are interested. If there is one, it will be May 20-22, if there is a second, it will be the 24th through 26th. Send me an eMail if you're interested...

Ron

[wile_E]

Hi Ron, welcome to the D70users forum.

I had a look at your website galleries - have to say, there are some AWESOME photos there. Amazing stuff - thanks for posting them for people to look at!

[mudder]

G'day Ron,
Just jumped in on the forum (been missing it for a couple of days, sob sob), and just wanted to say welcome to our little part of the world...

Also, I had a gander through your gallery and must say I would aspire to take some nature shots like that one day, hope you enjoy your stay with us...

Cheers mate,
Mudder

[Ron Reznick]

Hi guys,

I thought you might want to check out some shots I have up in the blind -- these are my temp directories, which I use for posting images on DPreview.

http://www.trapagon.com/temp/

http://www.digital-images.net/temp/

a few sample shots:

[sirhc55]

The only critique Ron that I can make on your photos is wow! I love the shot of Tower Bridge in London - reminds me of my time before Aus. Thanks for posting.

Chris

[Onyx]

Amazing shots Ron, no surprises there. You are one of few pro photogs that don't mind posting large-ish pics. Most of the others - B Moose Peterson, Thom Hogan, et al stick to 640x480 thumbnails which is quite annoying IMO...

I suggest you spend less time on DPReview and more time in our forums.

[Mj]

I trust there were no pelicans harmed in the making of that first shot???

Thanks for sharing Ron.

Michael.

[the foto fanatic]

I love the depth of colour in all of these images - there seems to be a terrific amount of latitude in the exposure too.
On average Ron, how much time would you spend in PP for shots like these?
I have your eBook, and it discusses your PP techniques in a bit of detail. Whatever the time involved, the images are outstanding. Thanks

[Geoff]

Hi Ron,
I adore the photo of the two birds (what are they?) with one of them with a fish/ray in it's mouth...simply stunning..in fact all your shots are stunning, it's a pleasure to view them! Don't wonder far from our friendly forum!


Geoff.

[Ron Reznick]

Hi guys,

Thanks, Chris. The Tower was a somewhat tricky exposure but really beautiful. I couldn't resist :^)

Onyx, I think the difference is in the level of possessiveness. I don't mind if folks use an image for their desktop, and I trust them to contact me for a license for small-ish prints or website usage. I don't usually post anything large enough to make a big print of any quality though -- they have to go through procedures to get those. I want the image to be capable of being examined in detail, and from a 2.5 year survey of the screen resolutions, I have found that folks tend to run 1024x768 or larger screen res, so I post 900-1000 pixel images so they can enjoy them.

Michael, you're a funny guy :^)

The typical time through Capture processing and Photoshop post-processing is about 2-3 minutes per image. If you hit the exposure and are close in the white balance, things go quickly. The average time in the processing phase for shots that I nail is about 30-40 seconds, but if the shot needs some help that can jump to between 90 sec. and 2 minutes. After that, in post-processing it's usually pretty rapid unless I have to do touch-up (dust bunnies), rotation, perspective cropping, etc. Usually, it's just resize down and USM, then save to JPG 9.

You get the best color saturation results when hitting the exposure within 1/3 stop.

Whoops! I almost forgot you, Geoff!

Those are an White Ibis with a Horseshoe Crab, and a Snowy Egret being jealous of the catch... shot at Ding Darling refuge in Florida.

Ron

[Killakoala]

For me, the one thing that stands out in Ron's images, is the sharpness.

I guess that it is a combination of quality lenses and some clever USM PP.

I took a photo similar to the Tower Bridge shot you have there, but it does not look any way near as sharp as yours.

I suppose that i will have to read your book so i can figure out how you did it

Ron, thanks for posting those pics. The quality is something i will have to aspire to.

[dooda]

What is an ebook?

I like the look of this one, and think it's time to read something in depth like this.

[Hlop]

I took a photo similar to the Tower Bridge shot you have there, but it does not look any way near as sharp as yours.

Try USM:
Amount: 65%
Radius: 4
Threshold: 3

You'll get very strong sharpening mostly suitable for architecture images

[Ron Reznick]

The eBook is a CD with a PDF file (the book), and several folders, totalling about 500MB of files including tools such as color charts, greyscales, etc. for training your eyes, a large number of NEFs and TIFs, settings for Capture, and other items necessary for the training. The book itself goes into exhaustive detail on acquisition techniques, compositional styles, methods of judging color and greyscale luminosity to allow you to hit exposures accurately, workflow techniques, and a very detailed dissertation on processing techniques and post-processing operations. It's quite inclusive.

Ron