Most of you know that I am pretty confident with the things I know about. But I learned a long time ago to ask and learn about the other things. My friend Stephanie has been incredibly helpful in making me a better photographer. She has dedicated her professional life to educating both students and teachers to be better artists, or in many cases to be artists at all. After six years of teaching in a school environment, she moved to the Education Department of a well-recognized art museum. She has also just completed a MFA degree with a focus on illustration, and is already building an impressive portfolio in that field to add to her other work.

She currently uses a Canon Rebel and her iPhone to do the photographic work for her educational presentations and to build her library of reference photographs to support her illustration work. It is my intention to take her shopping for an updated camera and perhaps a couple of lenses to allow her to quickly, easily, and accurately do the photography she needs and wants to do.

If the target were to be something from the Nikon display, I'd know exactly where to start. But I would appreciate some insight from those of you who may have done this already. Heres what I already know:

This is high-volume work. Time is money. The ability to get images straight from the camera with correct color and sharpness is mandatory. So easily accessible and manipulatable picture control is mandatory.

On the other hand, she has the sharpest eye for color and tone of anyone I have ever known. So her images of museum works will likely be edited...probably while sitting in front of the originals. So those would be raw, most likely.

Again, my interest here is limited to Canon equipment, and the perspective is limited to those who are artists. I know I'll still have to do some filtering, but that's the request.

Thanks a million...in advance.

I want to open a topic that has been bugging at me for a while. Don’t know if it has been up for discussion on UHH but here it goes.

When I am out doing a shoot, I shoot so many images that I feel as though I am over shooting. For instance, I went to England on a pilgrimage back in the summer. I shot over 6000 images. Didn’t realize that I had that many until I got home. Then you have to load them on your computer, analyze them, decide which ones to keep, do PP, and so on. I can usually get rid of 60% of them just because they suck.

Trying to figure out how possibly shoot less. Or, just shoot to my hearts content. Has anyone had this situation and how did you handle it.

Just curious!

The more I think about, the more I become inclined to recommend a solid laptop against a full desktop.

A good laptop (cost is $1.800.00 6GB graphic card, 2 internal drives, 32GB RAM) cost slightly more but has serious advantages.
► Can be used anywhere
► Can us use all the peripherals a desktop does, including large screens
► Energy use is greatly reduced

Laptop display can be calibrated
If the laptop is 'touch screen' they can be used as primitive drawing tablets (Lack the pressure option)

Draw downs:
► Can be slower depending on CPU selected
► Smaller display (17")
► Less expendable (RAM & Internal drive).
► Keyboard is smaller and no dedicated numeric pad.
► Awkward (to me) touchpad
► Not all that attractive if ones creates videos or audio tracks.

What is your take on this?