Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

Two different things have cropped up in these discussions...
A/ The shadow caused by the lens hood, from an in-built flash. and ...B/ A reflection from a shiny surface which was square-on to the camera shooting position. My suggestion of moving to the right or left, was to eliminate the reflection from the shiny surface, and will have NO effect, or bearing on the lens hood shadow. The way to get rid of the shadow, is to use another plug-in flash raised higher than, or to the side of the camera. These are TWO separate faults. The only connecting link, is that they both happen when using flash on the camera.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

And, as is often the case here, this is way beyond the question asked by the OP. The original question was simply about a shadow, which was clearly cast by the lens and could be eliminated by a simple shoe-mounted external flash.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

I agree. He didn't ask about the glass glare or even mention it. As a matter of fact he didn't even ask for a solution to the shadow. He just asked if this was normal.

Pablo8 Loc: Nottingham UK.

Well noted ...Rehess and Marcomarks.... My input, was to help the OP and others, to improve on their photography, by avoiding the lens shadow, and to avoid getting reflection flare-backs from shiny surfaces. I thought one of the main objects of UHH was to help others.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

My concern is that sometimes discussions like this can go on for pages and pages as members discuss fine points of photography with each other, and sometimes it appears that we left the OP many pages behind.

I understand and appreciate the comments that you and Mr. Shapiro made, but I also want to be sure that the OP knows that there is a simple explanation and simple solution for the problem he came in the door with.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

That's why UHH is a place where many threads go to die....

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

I am new to this forum but I have participated in other forums for a very long time and I have been in the business of photography for over 5 decades. In my experience many forums die, not because their members have extended conversations, write long posts and perhaps go a bit off topic but because of the rather rude, dismissive, and admonishing remarks that oftentimes plague theses websites.

I think people should keep in mind that theses online forums have the potential of being wonderful resources and are of free of charge. They are not, however, personal or paid consulting services that must only address the specific questions of a single original poster. Frankly speaking, I love to answer technical questions and help people troubleshoot but if I am going to take time to prepare a comprehensive answer, I prefer to find questions or supply extended information that would be of general interest and benefit to more than one individual.

I also find that there is absolutely no benefit in offering
answers to a troublesome issue without suggestions for a remedy and other alternatives to solve the problem. I could have said, in this case; “your built in flash is not compatible with your wide angle lens” and left it at that. How silly would that have been?

I also feel that is the OP’s business to follow up on his posts and make sure their questions haves been addressed and ask furtherer questions should he or she require more information or clarification.

Providing in-depth and extended answers to questions is NOT a waste of space or time, however, telling folks they lack common sense, name calling, too much sarcasm, taking time out to admonish folks who are trying to help and contribute information, and ongoing arguments pertaining to “Nikon vs. Canon” are definitely an abuse of the bandwidth.

Now! I am a newcomer here and this post is based on my observations as a “new set of eyes”. I have no power to insist on anything, I am certainly not an administrator or a moderator on this forum but I prefer to express my opinions when I think the MIGHT be helpful. Perhaps I have overstayed or over-spoke my welcome.

Sincerely, Ed

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

From what I've seen of your replies in various threads so far, I think you're just over zealous to help others by delving into detail that may be over the head of the OP, sometimes straying away on tangents. Not that there's anything inappropriate about your replies but people on here tend to expect posts that get to the point, answer the question, and not go on and on - unless it's in general chit chat. Even then I'm one who is regularly chastised for not abbreviating and communicating fully on a subject, sometimes with real life examples, instead of partially communicating with a couple or three sentences.

In the years I've been on here I've seen two or three recent college graduate know-it-alls come in here who decided they were highly educated and proceed to give us detailed lectures as though they were college professors on the "real story" concerning a photographic subject although they had little or no real world experience in using what they were discussing. Their grand standing usually resulted in a couple weak "Thank you" replies and many times just a silent awkward pause for a few hours or overnight, which to me signaled that people were waiting for that person to go elsewhere instead of saying anything. Those of us who have been in photography 40+ years, and long before the green lecturer was even born, don't want to scroll through enormous quantities of an amateur's "book learning" that we already know and we're old enough to have written the books they learned from.

We also had one newbie who decided that his future in photography was to build and fill a hundred short blogs with filler he wrote based on his supposed experience and then tried to send us via links to his numerous blogs to "study" what he had written. Having worked as a Google website analyst for a short time, I immediately recognized his 500 word fillers as just that. Quantity filler not quality. I think his presence here, and likely every other photo forum, was just blog stuffing with back links to his landing pages to improve his Google search rankings but he also thought he knew it all and that we should be his flock and him the shepherd.

I'm not implying that that's what you're doing, and your replies are informative and accurate, but don't be surprised when you get awkward pauses after your writings, and people reply to other responses around yours but not to you, etc.

Your goal is to help newbies, and I appreciate that, but there are people on here who are professionals earning major incomes by shooting and filming Hollywood celebrities, models, etc. There are people here who have operated very successful local area studios making six figures a year for decades. There are lots of us who have done photography part time for decades. What I'm saying is that the audience in each thread is made up of photography-interested people from every walk of life whether that be brand new with their first camera or very seasoned with several $40,000 camera rigs who are just here reading as they sip on something relaxing.

Things are different in today's world of tweets and text messages. People expect short and to the point. For Type A personalities who choose to live with no full understanding of anything but a surface knowledge of many things to just "make it through" that kind of communication is perfect. And unfortunately there are lots of those in the world and on here. You can't "take time to prepare a comprehensive answer and prefer to find questions or supply extended information that would be of general interest and benefit to more than one individual." without many viewers with short attention spans falling over on their desks asleep or criticizing you for your attempt at sharing knowledge.

Just sayin'...

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Sorry to hear all of this, however it’s nothing I did not expect. I am also sorry that you made assumptions about someone who you don’t even know (me)! I am not overzealous about anything that I do! I only enjoy helping folks because when I started my career in photography there were many advanced amateurs and professionals who took out the time to mentor and encourage me. I am not looking to accumulate brownie-points of any kind from any organization such as Google- whoever- whatever- etc.

I don’t know why you mentioned money issues or earning power; I don’t profit from any of my online activities. Professional photography has provided me with a decent living for all of my adult life and again, this has nothing to do with any online forum. I never talk down at any photographer of any status or ilk and most of my posts are in simple language that just about anyone with any camera can understand. I also understand that everyone who is interested in photography should enjoy their involvement in the craft as the please from folks who just like to accumulate expensive gear, family snapshot and vacations shooters to advanced enthusiasts right through full time professionals. What’s more, nobody on this forum or any others is forced to read anything I write and if they are not interested in what a have to say, they can cut me off in a mouse click! I have not intention of putting anyone to sleep when reading any of my posts. It is certainly not my fault of certain folks have limited attention spans or (heaven-forbid) suffer from narcolepsy. Anyone can scan through any of my material, extract what they like and forget about the rest- I don’t call surprise quizzes or even expect a “thanks”. I am certainly not a rookie know-it-all and I love to learn as much as I love to teach and inspire people to do their best work.

Funny thing- you wrote (on this thread) more to me about what you think my goals and motivations are, than I wrote about how to troubleshoot the OP’s problem. My suggestions were right to the point- as were yours!

If you actually speak for all the members on this site as to their non-tolerance of more detailed posts and most folks just insist in very short and hyper-concise answers- well- I can accommodate them; I used to write user manuals for photographic equipment in the army- they paid me for that. I do not doubt you veracity for a second. If your assessment of this site is correct, I am definitely on the wrong forum.

Sincerely, Ed

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

This is the lens or hood causing the shadow.
at10mm could well be the lens.
Use a flash that is removable and sits higher to solve this.
I have a Sigma 12-24 that has no hood besides the built in one and on my 7D at 12mm I see the lens shadow. I use the Canon external flash which eliminates this completely.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

We have people of all types on the forum, but many deal only with short posts, and seldom take the trouble to read a complete thread before they answer. Many threads go way off topic.

That said, brevity is generally a good thing, unless the content really does warrant a very long post.

Unfortunately, in the internet age, there really is no word count or column limit, and so many people write articles that are both long and poorly focused, so many give up about a third or so of the way through any given piece.

We also live in an age where many want instant gratification, and even that frequently takes too <expletive> long!

I hope you stick around, but trying to distill you posts, or at least split them into sections might make them less daunting.

As you may have noticed, this thread went way beyond the OP's question, and after a while of things going off topic people wander away, so your wisdom may be lost in a dark corner somewhere, no matter how insightful and valuable it may be.

Best wishes, and take care.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Well gentlemen- it’s the holiday season- peace on earth and goodwill toward men and all that good stuff- hardly a time for disagreement, arguments and confrontations. Perhaps this is the season for actually making memorable photographs rather that talking about making good photographs.

As they say in the poem; Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. Happy New Year too!

Ed
:mrgreen:

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

A good end to this sub-discussion.

The same to you!!