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In reply to a few comments and Q's......
Ed - Google your nearest news/picture agency, or any in the UK for that matter. They usually do a 50-50 split on sales. Some people balk at that offer, but they can feed every single market and publication around the globe, something which a one man band could never do. They'll tell you how to get a pic to them.
Jerry - PR don't have the rights to sell unless they contact you and ask first. If you say no then they cant, simple! If you say yes, then you can negotiate your own fee, which they will either accept or decline. Anyway, they're not a news agency and wouldn't have the resources to ping out an image to the various desks around the country.
Simon - I use a camera to take still pictures and a video camera for moving ones! A flippant answer, but to go into each situation and which lens I use would take me ages, and it's not a science either
Simon - I agree with OldBoy to a degree... Most 'moments' have a build up period to capturing the key event. Take the siege on the Iranian Embassy. The cameras were already there and trained on the window ready to shoot as the blast went off. I was at a soldiers funeral last week (seems to be one a week at the moment) and although the key shots only last a few seconds you're already there to capture them. It's during that time that photographers WILL labour over composition, lighting lens choice etc. There's a misconception that news photographers just stumble on stories and great images. That only happens for hard breaking news, which is where I fully agree with OldBoy and image quality is secondary to the photo.
Simon - For the balloons I took up 2 D3's. One with a 70-200mm f/2.8 fitted and the other with a 28-70mm f/2.8. I'm not allowed to post process anything beyond basic sharpening and contrast adjustments so I don't. In fact if I use an ND Grad filter in a photo or do a zoomburst effect I have to state so in the caption so our clients know how the effect was achieved. I can't even render anything mono, which is a pain! As for Photoshop... I don't use it anymore as I have the basic contrast and sharpening tools in Lightroom.
On a final note, don't underestimate the quality of the images produced by photographers working for the 'fast' world of newspapers and TV. All my shots are news pictures, including the balloons, which the Daily Telegraph used fairly large!
Ben
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