These are great links . Really good information here. Thank-You! I couldn't help feeling during this shoot with the light stands, umbrellas and two flashes that somehow I was working too hard, lugging all that to the location and back and so forth. Seeing how I may have replaced all that nonsense with one on camera flash is very illuminating. Sorry couldn't help the pun.
I've read so much about always using off camera flash that I never thought to do that. I can see with proper bounce technique the on camera flash can be indistinguishable from off camera flash and it sure would have been a hell of a lot easier! The main positive side of that getup is that all the civilians thought I must be an Uber Photographer when they saw my setup with the stands and umbrellas

Yes, things improved for one woman after she powdered the areas. Thank-You

I am a hobbyist photographer always looking for opportunities to try new things. Our company wanted to do a new org chart with photos for personnel along side their job title and duties. Personnel were asked to get a head shot done or the photo used on their badge would be used. I volunteered to do the head shots for free for the practice. Folks were very appreciative and I got about 50 victims. I had a chronic problem, especially with the ladies and some bald guys with an annoying shine coming from their faces and foreheads. A lot of the photos came out great, some will need some PP to be usable. Here is what I did:
Canon Rebel T5i
85 mm 1.8 lens - handheld
2 flash stands with all manual speed lights with 32" shoot through umbrellas
Hot shoe flash controller firing flashes and adjusting their power.
Stool, dark blue background, (a sheet pinned to the wall)
I positioned the stands pretty close to the subject, pointing at 45 degree angle and down at the subjects. I did the same for each flash so it was a mirrored set up. I was shooting in a large white room with a low white ceiling.

Camera settings:
1/200
f\8
iso 200
hand held
I maintained these general settings and only adjusted the flash power as needed.

This affected the ladies the most. One was sort of freaking out. I take it ladies hate to look shiny. Most of the time the subject was forgiving and appreciated the favor. The bald guys were ok .
about it. One of the women powdered herself up and came back for more tries. I tried lots of things; lowered and raised the stands, moved them out, moved them in, changed angles and so on. Nothing quite seemed to do it. All in all I got reasonable to great shots of everyone eventually. It doesn't feel like I could produce work that I could charge for doing this yet. Would the portrait guys mind giving me some pointers and pointing out my lame brain moves? I'd like to try it again sometime with a better set up.

This one is Awesome. Sirui. Strong, smooth, tough. SIRUI P-326 6 Section Carbon Fiber Monopod. I did get a tilt head for it and don't use it. Manfrotto 234RC Monopod Head

We call it "cloning out"[ in Lightroom and Photoshop. Look for a clone tool. YouTube it. You are choosing a very poor location to take the photos from. Stand in front of the pole. You have a fence in the foreground, some cars and other crap around and in the shot with the pole. You are trying to get the mountains which are large and permanent. Pick a good day and get the shot from in front of that pole. Why post process a bad composition? Use your feet and get to a place where is nothing between you and the mountains. Get it right in-camera. quote=NMGal]I have both Photos (Mac laptop) and Affinity available for post processing. I do use Photos for cropping and light adjustment. However, I am at a loss with Affinity. I like to take pictures of cloud formations over the mountains west of me, but there is an offending telephone pole there. I am sure there is a way with Affinity to erase the pole and wires but can't seem to find it. I admit I hate working at a computer and easily get frustrated. Is there a simple way to make the pole disappear? Thank you for any help. I have tried to move my position and zooming but by the time i do, the moment is gone.[/quote]

Adobe has muddied the waters with it’s Lightroom product. It used to be just Lightroom. Then they came out with their new cloud connected Lightroom called Lightroom CC. Those of us that had been using Lightroom all along were now being told we were using Lightroom CC Classic. Lightroom CC Classic uses the storage on your computer, Lightroom CC is cloud connected and that subscription is $20/mo and has some newer capabilities and a new look to it. Unless they have changed it again, you can’t use your own storage with the new Lightroom CC cloud based product.

That was an odd comparison; a lens to a camera. The Nikon has a 35 mm equivalent of 2000 mm so a 300 doesn't go near that no matter what you do. I have the camera and here is my take on it. The 2000 mm zoom comes at a steep cost. The crop factor on the camera is 5.6, (5.6x smaller than a full frame camera. There are often debates on this forum over full frame vs crop sensor cameras and this sensor magnifies the issues around reduced sensor sizes. It is a tiny sensor called a 1/2.3 inch (6.2mm x 4.6mm). It is a point and shoot that does not support raw. Images that you get at 2000 mm are acceptable but do not hold up to pixel peeping. Since the images are pre-cropped 5.6x they are pretty stretched out already and any cropping you may want to do will reduce image quality to less than acceptable. It is a good travel camera, easy to carry around and the image quality is very good. It shows a lot of ISO restraint when on full auto so it can be trusted. This camera is easier for me to hike with when out shooting wildlife but does not give me nearly the image quality or flexibility that I get with my crop sensor. This camera is not really capable of professional wildlife photography. I should not expect it to be. But for casual needs, the zoom and image quality that you do get is very good indeed. quote=MiroFoto]I have recently compared Nikon7100 with Tamron 19-300 to Nikon P900. The size is almost the same, the weight also. But again ...apples and oranges. However the ultimate zoom/quality plays winner = Nik900. I may be wrong.
M[/quote]

Not a good title. That gets into the territory of the picture ought to be telling the story. I don't need to point out to you that what you see here is an apple and a banana on a table with a nice lace cover.
Still lifes have no specific subjects, locations or animals that should have to be explained, unless they are truly unique pieces such as old jewelry or an antique grandfather clock. Then specific info about those pieces would work if included in the title.

Nope, Title. "Great Tailed Grackle with a bug" A caption might go on to include the location, date and time taken and so forth, maybe the story of how I got the shot. The judges want enough in the title to provide some basic specific details. A caption is more like a story that goes with the image. We are required to include a detailed title in the actual file names of our submissions.

I belong to a club with active competitions and titles are require on entries and many of them can be completely excessive but the judges regularly spank us on titles so I get why that is going on. A title does not a make a photograph better. I am on Flickr and Instagram a lot and I hate pictures that only have IMG_8693 on it. In my opinion if the picture is not telling the whole story a Brief title helps. Wildlife images should include the authentic name of the species. Same with flowers and plants. Food should be named. Cool, exotic locations should include the name of the place and of significant landmarks. A title makes the appreciation of the image better and more satisfying and educational. “Oh, that’s what the bird is…”Oh, I gotta go there, that looks cool… or, I gotta order one of those next time I eat out” These golfer images plainly tell the own story, title not necessary.

I have this camera and it is already the longest zoom available on the market with a digital zoom so you can really get into some blurry territory. I too miss the raw and hope they would include that. I have not heard or read anything that makes me think they would upgrade it already. It was introduced March 2015. That is exactly three years ago so maybe...

I kept my dslr in a drybag. It is a pain. I would rather use a pelican case so I can get to it easier. This Guy Galen Leeds seems to have written the book on the subject so to speak. He lays it all out on this beautiful site:
https://galenleeds.com/kayak-photography/ Try to pick a telephoto zoom that you can leave on. It is quite nerve wracking to change a lens on the water.

Thanks! it wasn't all that difficult either.

Thank-You!

*Thinking*