Magazine quality image

[Johnsonanna02]

I have a canon SL1. I’ve taken some AMAZING photos on it! I’ve been asked to take photos that will be posted in a magazine but want to make sure that the quality of the SL1 is good enough. If so, what suggestions are there for the best quality? It will be in an Agricultural magazine so my subjects will be cattle.

[cicopo]

It's easily up to the job as long as you don't need to crop deeply & shoot in large fine jpg or better yet RAW or both. The editor of a magazine I contribute to prefers that I send him the RAW files but he has used lots of my jpg's too. I've had photos used in a major magazine many years ago shot with a 3.2 Megapixel Olympus C3030 camera. You're task is to get nice exposures in sharp focus. This puts some of the emphasis on whether you have a good lens (or lenses) but the body is more than good enough. 

[ScottyP]

It's getting the cattle to sign a model release that will be hard. 

[ebiggs1]

"The editor of a magazine I contribute to prefers that I send him the RAW files but he has used lots of my jpg's..."

Wow, I never run across that.  They have all been jpg in my experience.

[RobertTheFat]

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cicopo wrote:

It's easily up to the job as long as you don't need to crop deeply & shoot in large fine jpg or better yet RAW or both. The editor of a magazine I contribute to prefers that I send him the RAW files but he has used lots of my jpg's too. I've had photos used in a major magazine many years ago shot with a 3.2 Megapixel Olympus C3030 camera. You're task is to get nice exposures in sharp focus. This puts some of the emphasis on whether you have a good lens (or lenses) but the body is more than good enough. 

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Don't take this as gospel, because I'm not a lawyer. But I suspect that it's a lot easier to prove copyright infringement if you're the only one who has the RAW file.

[ebiggs1]

Most magazines are printed with Offset Lithography. It is the most cost-effective process. This is the technique used for printing most magazines. WHat it is composed of is up to six colored plates that deposit droplets of ink on the paper. This has a limit as to how much detail you can get out of a photo.
A more advanced way (more expensive) is Flexo. It is more versatile because its use of photo-etched plates which bring the ink right onto the page . Knowing which process your publisher uses will determine what they require.

[ebiggs1]

"...if you're the only one who has the RAW file."

In my somewhat extending experience with publishing photos, it is the author or photographer in this case that certifies they own the copyright.  Not the magazine company.  I never run across any publisher that asked for the Raw file.

When you work for a large publishing/printing company like I did, they own the copyright.  You sign your rights away to them when they hire you.  You own nothing.

[RobertTheFat]

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ebiggs1 wrote:

"...if you're the only one who has the RAW file."

In my somewhat extending experience with publishing photos, it is the author or photographer in this case that certifies they own the copyright.  Not the magazine company.  I never run across any publisher that asked for the Raw file.

When you work for a large publishing/printing company like I did, they own the copyright.  You sign your rights away to them when they hire you.  You own nothing.

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Didn't you also moonlight as a wedding photographer? I would hope you didn't have to surrender the rights to those pictures.

I used to switch copyright notices, depending on whether I was shooting for work or for personal use. Of course it's a little different when you work for a public agency anyway, since whatever you do for them is effectively in the public domain.

[ebiggs1]

Robert, I wouldn't call it, "Didn't you also moonlight as a wedding photographer?", moonlighting !  At least it, seemed like a full time job besides working for Hallmark full time.  If I was on company time anything I did belonged to them.  I believe this to be commonly the norm for this type business.

In my private business, once the client bought the photos they also bought the copyright to them with certain restrictions.  Their payment got them a printed copyright release that specified those restrictions.  Basically they couldn't sell them but was pretty much free to do whatever else they wanted.

My web site is still up but hasn't been upgraded for a long, long time.

[RobertTheFat]

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ebiggs1 wrote:

Robert, I wouldn't call it, "Didn't you also moonlight as a wedding photographer?", moonlighting !  At least it, seemed like a full time job besides working for Hallmark full time.  If I was on company time anything I did belonged to them.  I believe this to be commonly the norm for this type business.

In my private business, once the client bought the photos they also bought the copyright to them with certain restrictions.  Their payment got them a printed copyright release that specified those restrictions.  Basically they couldn't sell them but was pretty much free to do whatever else they wanted.

My web site is still up but hasn't been upgraded for a long, long time.

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I may not have been entirely clear. I meant that I hoped that Hallmark wouldn't have had any claim to the pictures you took in your wedding photography business. Companies sometimes make unreasonable demands on the intellectual property of their employees, particularly in regard to patents. The presumption seems to be that even if you came up with an idea on your own time, it must have been because of the intellectually stimulating environment you enjoy at work. That's an argument that would (or at least should) be harder to defend in photography, where what matters is the fact that you took the photograph, not when you thought it up.