Corn starch or translucent powder applied with individual cotton squares.
Raise your lights up and pull the glasses up over the ears so the lens tilts down to get rid of glare
The samples were done in less than 3 minutes as there were hundreds of people to shoot. The last thing you need is a lot of pp
I also have a chair that has wheels and swivels so I can move them where I want and therefore need to change the lights very little.

Always used an anti-static cloth (like for negatives in the darkroom) to wipe the insides of the film backs in the winter time to avoid any static electricity

It's all I've done my whole life - 45 years and counting. Unfortunately, I still choose to shoot the things that interest me and to work with good people which eliminates a lot of great paydays.
When I first started in the late 60's just fooling around, the older people who took me under their wings complained how 35mm ruined photography and how anyone could do it. Listening to them talk about police radios setting off their flashbulbs and reloading 4x5 holders and robbing film packs seemed like ancient times. Now I hear about digital making it more difficult. Not so if you're creative and can solve problems. Boring prom photos and some family type photos are better with someone's cell phone anyway. Weddings and other events are still available and pay really great without all of the album craziness we used to have. Good travel photos and product photos are just as good with a cell phone. What I'm saying is, a lot of the less creative and imaginative photography is no longer there for people with cameras. Photographers are always needed.

Had a D200 & a D300 and shot a ballet rehearsal in a gym with light yellow walls and a tan wood floor. The jpgs off the camera showed an enormous difference in the technology as the D200 walls and floor blended into one color. The D300 showed a definite difference between the wood floors and the light yellow walls. Both looked the same after PP in literoom but it would not have worked if I had to give the jpgs right away from the D200. That was 2008.

Try used Nikon D700 or D750 with an older, used 70-200 f/2.8. The D700 can be used with an off brand grip that snaps into focus quicker and goes up to 10 fps. Cannot use anything off brand with the D750. I haven't had good luck with any lenses other than Nikon.

Pole vaulter= D700 ISO 4,000 1/400 f/2.8

Dance (challenge, moving L to r) D700 ISO 1600 1/500 f/3.2

Dance (stars, moving r to L) D750 ISO 3200 1/1000 f 3.5

These and others I shoot are jpgs off the camera for immediate sale. I go into the menu and lower the contrast and when I'm lazy I just use the auto color (Nikons are great with auto color).

I've gone as high as ISO 12,000 on both cameras (night soccer which is usually on a less quality field than football). High ISO files have to be touched up in PP (add luminance, decrease sharpness in literoom)

The lenses you get in a 'kit' with a body aren't very good and usually slow - not meant for sports and low light action.

Raise your ISO until you get the shutter speed you need to stop action.

If you can afford the high end cameras some have mentioned (Nikon D5) then get it. You won't believe how cool it is to start getting 90% of your shoot in focus!

Learn about the zone system and understand it. So much easier with digital. My Nikon --- set picture control---- lower the contrast. This contracts the scene brightness range to tolerable levels so sky and shadows can at least have some details to work with in PP.
Know how to expose for the scene you want and move (if possible) to use the sun to your advantage or wait for cloud cover. The auto exposure settings on your camera are only valuable if you know how to use it. I find I am always adding exposure (+.7 to +1.7) with snow, water, and sky to make sure the entire scene is exposed properly and I still get the tiny ripples in the snow and water visible because of lowering the contrast. The flat files I get are easily made beautiful in PP. If the sky or snow is blown out it's not so easy.

I do believe there was a pet photographer with the last name of Lane (?) who did all of his photography from a wheelchair. Really tough to keep a creative person down !!

Same problems I had too - even with special chargers that cost a lot. Then I got these chinese rechargeable batteries from some canadian company. PKCELL is the battery. They are green and orange and, best of all, 1.6 volts. When I read about them they were supposed to be very tempermental so I got the charger that went with these batteries (normal chargers don't work) and they've been great for over a year with no batteries dying.

I shoot a lot of night football with the most horrible lighting possible. The only way to get the noise down results in less sharpness but a huge reduction in noise is to go to the detail section in Literoom and lower the sharpness and add luminance. The default settings on most programs are set really high and aren't what the average pro/semipro needs. Also, make sure that in your camera menu that you don't ramp up any contrast or sharpness.

I have a medium wacom and love it. it will take some getting used to as it isn't the same as tracing around an object on a piece of paper like when you're taking a dog out of one file and putting it into another. For regular retouching it's more precise and easier to use than a mouse and a lot less stressful on your hand. If you spend more than a few hours after a shoot doing retouching (for any reason), a tablet is a must.

Nikon appears to be doing everything possible to get us to pay the extra 25% (and more) for their Nikon USA products. If you have a high shutter count on your D750 and want the shutter replaced, you can't get it done by Nikon. I was told they would not repair it unless it was broken. When I told the obviously flustered Nikon rep how pros work to prevent breakdowns in the middle of a season, he finally said to send it in with a note and maybe they would do what I wanted (I guess all Nikon people wait until their engine seizes before adding oil!). Authorized repair places are given the parts but not the software from Nikon. Repair places have always repaired gray market but Nikon seems determined to mess that up. Make sure that if Nikon won't repair it that you go to an authorized dealer or you wait months while they get the parts from Japan or Taiwan.

Try a used D700. I have it as a back up to my D750 but when I did use it I got up to 8,000 ISO with night soccer (with some help in literoom). Then get a 24-70 f/2.8 and a 70-200 f/2.8 used/older models to keep costs down. I would try to stick with Nikon lenses because that split second extra the camera takes to read non nikon lenses means you miss the shot.

You have to understand that the everyday black and white film (unlike tech pan, ISO 25) all of the film was very low in green sensitivity and high in the blues. Without an 11A yellow/green filter to render the tones properly and get some density in the skies, we would burn it around the edges to make sure our photos would not bleed out into nothingness. Brings your eye to the subject of the photo. As one who wax pasted the photos, ads, and written word to large, blue graph paper and delivered it to the printer, we never had time to put a simple tool line around a photo to help separate the whites in the photos (skies, beach sand, etc.,). Nowadays, lines can be put around photos in seconds digitally when necessary. At the NYTimes, we were shooting color film a while before the paper printed color but the color negs converted to black and white seemed to have much better tones in the skies. Now all the lies and falsehoods are in the written word.

As a journalist and as a photographer shooting a massive amount of children under 18, I've ALWAYS sought permission from the parents even if I didn't need the child's name. (newspapers almost always need names). Whether you are outside, in a school, in a hospital etc., the laws of common courtesy always apply. If the parent with the child is running from an abusive spouse would you want to be the one who leads some idiot to them once the place the photo was taken is published? What would you want some photographer to do to your child if you weren't there? I give my card and usually have some tags designating me as the official event photographer so the parents can make an informed decision. I ask every time I shoot my neighbor's kids - even though if I just shot them yesterday - in case anything has changed. Yes, we all hate that halfway through the shoot somebody comes up and says to please delete them and their children.
I started shooting at this event and this 7 foot guy stands up and says to please delete it or he'll be in real trouble. Turns out it was Charles Smith (NY Knicks) who was playing hooky and not traveling with the team because he had an injury. Should I shoot it and get high marks from all my colleagues (NY Times) and be banished from ever being around this guy again or just let it go? He was from Bridgeport, CT. and my constant travels there might be less smooth in certain areas (it was some foundation that Charles started to keep unwed mothers in school - had to get permission from everyone there and the people who worked there.)
I think that we also confuse the idea of some publicity seeking politician or hollywood B lister who won't get out from in front of your camera in a public place. They're famous but even then they sometimes just want to be with their family or shop in the store and not be bothered so I walk away. You will also become known for being co operative and easy going and will get far better pictures with some help from the parents and no fearful looking kids in your photos.
I ended up being the first one to shoot the Yale Professer (Gelertner)?(sp) after he received a package from the Unubomber. I would really like to think it was because of my skill but it was probably because I am a bit more sensitive towards my subjects.
If I see a great shot and take it I always show the shot to the person while I ask approval. Once they see I'm not some half wit I almost always get permission. That is far different from the president, or some other public official or someone going into court or other place and that's what the story is all about. I hated doing that and began to fade from journalism when I started to get assigned things that the reporters thought was great but turned out it was the wrong guy or whatever. Makes me sick to think that I may have contributed greatly to someones unwarranted downfall. There's so much fake news and dumb news (yes there is!) that we are no longer greeted with anything

I would assume that anyone asking questions about focus stacking and HDR has some basic photography knowledge. That's not always the case. I'm also assuming that the tweaking of the camera has been tried and was not to your liking. I have seen BEAUTIFUL night scenes done with 3 files and it looks like the difference between a 110 negative and an 8x10 negative. All that work for one special photo was worth it. I do not have that kind of luxury of time or the patience (and maybe no images worth the effort!) so I change the settings in the camera to help. If you know and understand the zone system and how that works, you can use it to get what you want. Almost everything I shoot, I go to the menu in my Nikon shooting menu and to set picture control and in the Neutral setting, lower my contrast almost to the extreme left setting (-3). With that, I at least have a chance to shoot an old rusty bridge against a bright sky and can get detail in both. It becomes a lot easier to use a brush in literoom to darken or lighten areas that need some help than to even attempt to fix something shot with factory settings. Contrast can be added in post. D lighting is for super extremes so don't use that.