Web Hosting Sites for Photography

[Mike Farley]

I am sorry to learn that you have been having so much trouble and thanks for the explanation of what has been happening. I suspect that when you moved off the Pro level of support you lost the £100 for life option, which probably requires continuity to qualify. That does not excuse the way that they have mislead you about what the Unlimited option offers and goodwill on Zenfolio's part seems to be in short supply.

I am still working on my own website update, but the moment I am sticking with The Image File.

[Mata]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with Zenfolio. I think the bigger the company becomes more they start to lose touch with their customers.

I have dealt with http://www.create.net/ for last 5 years and never had any problems with them. OK they are minnows compared to larger hosting companies but customer service has always be top-notch. They are not geared towards photography style templates, otherwise I would be happy to start another site with them.

I am drawn to SmugMug from what little research I have done so far. Going to spend more time researching next week and choose one. The main issue is going to be what level of nudity they will allow?

If I can’t find one then I may have a bespoke one built.

I need to have one up and running in the next few weeks as I have thrown myself in the deep end!

I spent some time with the Gallery Co-ordinator at the Camera Club yesterday, discussing and going through the images and have agreed to do a 'Fine Art Nude' Solo Gallery Exhibition from 8th June to 3rd July with an open day on Monday 15th June.

I have to submit 50 re-edited images and choose about 35 depending on the frame size. Two images will be A1 or AO size. Choose a title, do a write up and About me bit. Will do a preliminary small scale print run to make sure the quality is good enough for display.

So much for have some time off.

[davidc]

Blimey, A1 and A0 are huge. What resolution did you shoot them in?

[Mata]

I shoot at the maximum resolution settings, which is at 52MB in RAW. There is the inevitable loss when cropping and processing.

I will have to check the quality when I do the trail print run. I am hoping to have everything ready by end of April. I am leaving enough time to make adjustments if something doesn’t work out.

My idea is to have two large images on the walls, one on the left and another on the right. So when you walk into the gallery your eye is natural drawn to one or the other straight away creating an impact. This will also break the gallery wall into four distinct areas, two on the either side of the main images. I can then have a variety of images that have a different look using the main image to break up the pattern.

[Mata]

Just came across this site

http://photo.net/

Not had much time to look around.

[Mike Farley]

I am still working on my own website update, but the moment I am sticking with The Image File.

A further reason to stick with The Image File is that I have just discovered that as a member of the RPS I get a £4 discount, which brings the monthly cost down to £1.19, for which I get up to 500 images. That's many more than I am ever likely to need.

Getting everything set up the way I want it is a bit fiddly, but so far I have had a good experience with their support. My plan at the moment is to go with a basic template and then do the tweaking later.

[Mike Farley]

I shoot at the maximum resolution settings, which is at 52MB in RAW.

It is not the file size of the image which will determine the quality, but the number of MP your camera has. The lowest print resolution which you can use without image degradation is 180 dpi, which equates to 8.65 MP for A3. As I recall, you have a 24 MP camera, so at a push you can get to somewhere between A2 and A1 with an uncropped image, but after that you are going to require some form of interpolation. Possibly something would be possible using the Photoshop resizing algorithms, which should allow you to double the size of the image, but at these sizes this is not something where I have any experience. Bear in mind also that at a normal viewing distance, an A1 or A0 image does not have to be that sharp, but people will notice if they are able to get close. Think of an advertising billboard, where posters have visible dots when looked at near to.

Earlier this year I asked pro tog Damien McGillicuddy how he fares shooting with a 16 MP Olympus camera and he said that printing to large sizes was not an issue as the print shops have "rasterising" processes which make everything come out OK. At the Landscape Photographer of the Year exhibition, I have seen some large prints made from compatively modest cameras, so I know this is possible. My advice is to choose your printer carefully, ask how they resize and see some examples before you commit even to a trial, but no doubt you will be doing that anyway.

[Mata]

I did some research before my meeting with the gallery co-ordinator. He was happy with the general size of the images that will fit the standard frame of 500 x 400mm. The issue is going to be with one particular image that I want to use. It may work or it may not. Will have to make adjustments if anything doesn’t work.

I am quite fortunate in that the gallery co-ordinator is photographer and also works for a commercial printing company. He has agreed to do the final print run under his name at his work which will also help to keep the cost down. We will do a small trial print run at the Camera Club where they have a high-end Epsom printer to fine tune any images beforehand.

The one thing I was disappointed was when he asked me about any behind the scene photos. The few I had taken I had deleted them. I know this a learning curve for me but it seems so obvious now but wasn’t so obvious before the Saturday meeting.

I think I will get a good quality (low light) point and shoot digi camera for behind the scene shots. Any recommendations?

[Mike Farley]

I think I will get a good quality (low light) point and shoot digi camera for behind the scene shots. Any recommendations?

Unfortunately, that's a contradiction in terms. Most P&S cameras have a small sensor to keep size and cost down, but you need a sensor with as large a surface area as possible to maximise light gathering capability. You do not mention a budget, but you could look at something like the Panasonic LX100 which has a m43 sensor and a fast lens or the Ricoh GR which has a fixed lens, albeit one which is slower than the LX100, but comes with a 16 MP APS-C sensor from Sony, who currently provide the best high ISO performance. Neither is especially cheap and you might be better off spending the money on another DSLR which would give similar results, especially with a fast prime attached, and provide a backup body.

[GrahamL]

I'm happy to put forward the APS-C Fujifilm XE-2 with it's excellent 'kit' lens; XF f/2.8-4 18-55mm (27-84mm as APS-C) for consideration.

I bought this combination for carrying around a couple of weeks ago and I've been very pleased with it, very good low-light performance. Very good for street photography too, has rangefinder looks. Light and compact; 660gms for the combination. It has a reasonable electronic viewfinder (1,040K-dot) but no optical viewfinder. It does have a pop-up flash as well as a flash mount.

Until the 31st March Fuji has a cashback offer of £100 on this kit as long as it's bought from one of their named suppliers, bringing the final cost down to £649.

My main gripe is that the 3" screen on the back doesn't switch off until you use the viewfinder, so a spare battery is a must, which are expensive unless you get the Hahnel equivalent at half Fuji's price. The other gripe is that camera produced jpeg pictures seem to compare poorly to those processed from Fuji's raw files. While these can be processed easily with photoshop I know of at least one photo-application (Dx0) that so far doesn't work with Fuji's novel X-system sensor's raw files.

There is a better sister camera, the X-T1. This is weatherproof and has a larger viewfinder in an SLR type central housing. Has had excellent reviews, but it costs £500 more. As it uses the same sensor & lens I went with the cheaper, lighter X-E2 body.

Hope useful, best wishes with the show!

Graham