We receive many questions from photographers and aspiring photographers so we have come up with this hand dandy list of answers to the FAQ.
Please note that if you email us, as much as we love to hear from you, we may not be able to respond right away or sometimes not at all. Please understand that our clients are our top priority and we handle photographer questions once our clients work is complete.
Mono y Mono: If you would like a personal consultation to sit with us and pick our brains, we offer one on one for $200 per hour. We can teach you about how we photograph, our secret post processing techniques or how to make killer coffee (which is an essential key to success).
What cameras, lenses, and lights do you use?
The following items are in our bags:
Canon 5dmkii Two of these
Canon 5d. Four of these
Canon 28 f/1.8.
Canon 35 f/1.4. Great wide angle lens
Canon TS 45 f/2.8 Tilt shift lens for oh so much fun
Canon 50 f1/2. One of our work horses
Canon 50 f1.4.
Canon 85 f/1.2. Eric’s “make you look damn good lens”
Canon 85 f/1.8.
Canon 100 f/2.8. Macro lens for rings or detail shots
Canon 17-40 f/4.
Canon 24-70 f/2.8. Two of these
Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS. Two of these
Canon 580Ex II Four of these
Canon 580Ex Three of these
Sony Video Light Great for low light portraits or detail shots
Sandisk 4gb & 8gb A bazillion of these
Overall we prefer to use prime lenses. For a portrait or engagement shoot, we use primes lenses exclusively. For a wedding, we use prime lenses for 80% of the day. And for the real fast paced parts of the day when we have to, we use our zooms like the 70-200 or the 24-70.
What computers do you use? Once you go Mac, you will never go back.
Eric’s Station: Macpro dual core 2.66gz- Primary editing station
1st Monitor: NEC 2690 -26 inch- used for anything needing precise color
2nd Monitor: Apple 30 inch
Brooke’s Station: Macpro dual core 2.66gz- Primary editing station
1st Monitor: NEC 2690- 26 inch – used for anything needing precise color
2nd Monitor: Apple 24 inch Having two monitors makes album designing easier
Eric’s Laptop: Macbook Pro 2.53ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 15 inches- used for running all the admin of our business and life. Without it, he would be lost, naked on the street.
Brooke’s Laptop Macbook Pro 2.26ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 13 inch – used for email basically
Eric & Brooke’s Cell Phones: We both have iphone’s. They sync our contacts, calendars and all our business information. And they just rock!
All computers are maxed out on RAM.
Eric is a tech junky and pretty much buys anything the day it is released. Brooke does not care so much and is gladly accepts the FREE hand me downs. And this is no disrespect to Brooke, she really prefers it.
What actions do you use?
At this point in our career, most of the actions are custom built by us for our specific taste. When we started we used Kevin Kubota Actions a lot. As we learned more, we dissected different actions and made cocktail actions of our own. We recently started playing with Jesh DeRox colorshift actions, he is a creative genius.
How do you get such vibrant colors colors and pop in your photos?
It’s funny, I remember when I was starting out in photography, when I admired someones photos, I always wondered what equipment they used. I thought if I could get the same setup, I could take amazing photos like them. It took me a long time to realize the key to a great photograph is light, good light, and using it properly. Learning to see light is not an easy thing to teach. It’s learned by trial and error, shoot a lot and then analyze the results. The best secret I ever learned about seeing light, is to hold your hand up in front of your face. Slowly spin in a circle and watch your hand. You can see the light change depending on the direction you are facing.
Assuming you get it right in the camera, the next most important thing is post processing. We shoot in RAW and get our images 70% to perfection out of RAW. The remaining 30% is done in photoshop.
The equipment can be helpful at times, but overall takes a backseat to proper use of light and good post processing.
I hope this was helpful
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