Google Power
Sunday, June 24th, 2007
My friend Dilip has a nice story about how google got him some work:
Ok, so the story goes like this. There is this girl who is generally browsing the net for interesting pictures on flickr and thinks it will be cool to work on some portraits of herself with a Photographer who is more of a Hobbyist than a Pro. Why?
Because she is ticked off with the Flat pictures the studio people give her and the exorbitant amount of money they charge. So she goes on the net, opens Google and searches for “Chennai”, “Hobby”, “Portraits”. The fourth link on the first page comes down to “Flickr - Dilip Muralidaran” and she sends me an email and figures out if i would be interested in working with her.
What more does a portrait freak want?
Hi Richard,
Thanks for blogging this. It was fun doing this shoot although i regret the lens problems.
I can’t wait to buy the 50MM F/1.4 and start portraits again. The Kit lens does not do any good for portraits. I need to check out what the 85MM F/1.8 costs like in india and decide what i really want before i buy.
I hope the 85MM F/1.8 is not of a plastic build and is better than the 50MM F/1.8 one. I’ll visit the canon dealer here and torture him as usual with dumb ass questions of mine.
Luv,
Dilip.
I’ll vouch for the 50mm f/1.4 as a fantastic portrait lens (for the 1.6x non-full-frame cameras at least) - I’d expect it would be more like an 80mm lens on a lower-end DSLR that isn’t full-frame, like my XTi.
The 50mm is fast and the f/1.4 variety provides a smooth and attractive bokeh. My favorite for indoor portraits. I have to thank you, Richard, for the introduction to what is still my favorite lens.
I also like the 100mm f/2.8 macro lens for its razor sharpness although focus can be a bit slow, and depth-of-field can get very shallow for both beautiful effects OR unintentional out-of-focus parts
Dilip: The 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 are similar lenses and both are much sturdier than the “thrifty fifty” you have/had. I think the 85 will be better suited to portraits as it will let you get back further and so, catch people a bit more relaxed.
Richard,
That sounds very promising. I’m gonna have to try that for myself first hand and see how it suits me. The 50MM F/1.8 II was great but its not reliable. The reason why that lens was messed up was because of a freebie UV Filter that was mounted on it when i got my camera and initial set of lenses etc.,
In the process of removing the jammed UV filter (when i replaced all of my filters with HOYA and Marumi ones) the lens was ripped apart and apparently its not all that in place when put back together.
I’ll probably rent a 85MM for a day or a week and see how it goes and decide what to buy.
Luv,
Dilip