william_p

<p>Currently I have...<br /> <br />Sigma 18-35 1.8<br /> Nikon 35 1.8g DX<br /> Nikon 50 1.8g<br /> Nikon 85 1.8g</p> <p>I came from a 28, 50 and 100mm full frame Canon setup and I'm finding that the focal lengths and the added weight are leading me to regret my decision.</p> <p>28mm is as wide as I like to shoot so coming to crop and losing the wide end wasn't an issue. I thought the sigma 18-35 would be the perfect answer to my problems, as 28 and 50 are my most used focal lengths, 100 was only for portraits, but I now know the sigma is too heavy.<br /> I decided to replace the 100mm with the 50 and 85, I thought I could just switch to the best tool, but neither are as useful as something in the 85-100mm range.<br /> I got the 35mm 1.8 dx due to the sigma being so heavy.</p> <p>I feel like the 20mm 1.8, 35mm 1.8 and 58mm 1.4 would be the perfect setup for me, but they're so expensive I may as well get the 28mm 1.8, keep the 50 and 85 and get an FX camera body.</p> <p>Does anyone have any recomendations for lenses? I don't mind the crop sensor, but the lack of purpose designed DX lenses is making me regret the choice to get a D7200. I love the camera.</p>

I had a 750d a little while back, so I know I'll be fine with the image quality, I just didn't enjoy the camera, hence the switch to Nikon. I only used the kit lens and the 50mm 1.4 while trying it out too. So no anti alias filter and good quality glass can only be better :) I've only ever had primes and f4 zooms on full frame, so I don't know the size of 2.8 zooms, that could be a consideration. I've also had a 5d classic while I decide what direction to go in, so I know I'm not on the hunt for ultimate image quality. Cheers people, I think I've convinced myself I don't need full frame. As long as ISO 1600 is relatively clean. I know ISO 800 was good on the 750d and apparently the d7200 is better.

I used to use only a 50mm and 28mm prime so the 18-35 1.8 fits nicely into that range. I mainly do street and a bit of landscape, but I only shoot for my own enjoyment, nothing serious. I actually hate ultra wide focal lengths, even 24mm I find too wide. I also shoot family portraits and events, at one time I had a canon 6d with 70-200 f4 which fit the bill well. I will miss the range from 150-200 though. As for the 35-50 gap, I've been a prime shooter for years, so I'm used to a lens change or two haha. The 2.8 equivalent depth field is more than enough for my odd portrait, even owning full frame I found it hard justifying buying a f2 135mm, so I'll be happy from that angle. When I had my 6d ISO 1600 was my limit for everyday shooting, but I had a 50mm 1.4 then, I also would go to ISO 6400 if it was the only option left available. Maybe I'll miss the high ISO performance, but I want to step away from primes anyway, so maybe I'll miss the wide apertures too. I think I'm about 95% set on the d7200. Cheers for the input :)

I'm planning to get a d7200 with sigma 18-35 1.8 and 50-100 1.8. I've been thinking about this vs a full frame d610 setup and was wondering if people could shine some light on my thoughts. I'm aware this is a very simple way to look at things and there's probably no way to truly compare them. Anyways... So a 18-35 1.8 is sort of similar to a 27-52.5mm 2.7 on full frame, compare that to a 24-70 2.8 on full frame.bThe depth of field is similar but the 2.8 is wider and longer. And iso 1600 on crop is similar to iso 3200 on full frame. (Is this true or am I making it up? Haha) Say I was shooting a full frame camera with 24-70 2.8 in a situation where my settings were Iso 3200, f 2.8 and 1/200sec. In that same situation with a crop camera with 18-35 1.8 I could shoot iso 1250, f 1.8 and 1/200sec. In this situation would the crop be the better low light camera, having less noise? I realise a full frame camera with a sigma 50mm 1.4 vs a crop camera with a sigma 30mm 1.4 and the full frame would wipe the floor with iso performance, but I only intend to own two zooms, no primes. So my question is would a crop with 1.8 zooms be a better option than a full frame with 2.8 zooms? D7200 has more and better features and it's zoom is 1.333 stops faster eliminating the ISO difference. Are my thoughts right or am I missing something? Cheers :)

Cheers people. I'm pretty much made up on getting the 24-105, having heard your thoughts! As for 24mm not being wide enough for some, I find it too wide. It can be useful for me, but 28 always felt more suited to my needs. Ruling out the 17- 40 L zoom wasn't hard. Thanks!

I've recently decided to rid myself of my excessive photography equipment collection. I'm quite minimalistic at heart, but have suffered from GAS in the past. Owning too many cameras has been stifling, so I'm in the process of putting an end to it. I've came to the decision to own a FF EOS DSLR, a 35mm EOS SLR, 3 lenses and a 35mm dedicated scanner, and nothing else. I don't use tripods, filters or flash. When it comes to the lenses, I was going to get 3 primes. My natural focal length choices would be 28, 50 and 100mm. However, for low light I would always drift towards my 50 1.4 and for portrait/shallow depth of field my 100 2. I came to the realisation that a 28mm wouldn't have a specific role, other than being wide. With my old Minoltas a 28mm f2 prime was a no brainer, as zooms weren't great back then, but nowadays zooms have progressed, as has ISO performance. What can a 28mm prime offer me that a zoom can't? The 28mm 1.8 has a wide aperture, but I don't need that if I have the 50 1.4. The 28mm 2.8 has IS, but I don't shoot video and again, I have the 50 1.4 for low light. So all they offer me is their small size, low weight, sharpness, CA control, less vignetteing, cheaper price and distortion correction, but L zooms are sharp and handle distortion etc well and according to reviews the 28mm 1.8 isn't great at these. Another factor is price. I'm not about to drop a £300 28mm and go out and buy a £1500 24-70 2.8 ii. I've got my choice down to a 28mm 1.8 (£200-300) or a 24-105 f4 (£400-500). If you can't tell, I'm leaning towards the zoom, I've been having the conversation in my head awhile, but I just want to see if there's any angle to the argument I haven't thought of? Giving up... Weight Size Aperture Cost Image quality? Gaining... Convenience IS (Give me a wide aperture any day.) How often would I need a wide and fast prime vs a good zoom and a fast standard prime? I hope writing my thoughts down is coherent enough to make sense. Thanks!

Cheers, you have some nice images in your rb67 landscape gallery. If that's the results you can get from the v600 then I think it'll do fine for my needs :) Thanks, people!

I'm looking to replace my canon 9000f, I've had it 5 years, and last year it decided to rip itself apart. Now the whole scanner is screwed down onto a piece of wood, to hold the motor in place, It works as well as it ever did, but I was never hugely impressed by it. Now it also looks hideous, so I'm allowing myself to replace it. I also have a plustek 8200 for 35mm and as you can imagine, it blows the canon out of the water with quality. I'm not looking to spend dedicated 120 film scanner money, I'd probably say around the £200 mark. I'd also rather not get another canon 9000f, as again it wasn't that amazing, I dunno if the mk2 would alter in anyway from my mk1. I just found it to be unsharp, blotchy and terrible with colours (though I usually only shoot ilford hp5 nowadays, so not a great issue). Digital dust removal isn't important to me, I've always preferred to do it myself (when I do shoot colour). I'll only be scanning the odd frame, no contact sheets or bulk scanning. I won't be printing big, so a flatbed is good enough, but I still would like to get as much detail as I can. 40cm X 40cm or there about. It'll be mainly used for b&w, but good colour rendition would come in useful from time to time. I shoot 6x6, so a scanner where a 3rd party has designed some good film holders would be great. The canon one is designed to be used with all MF formats, so keeping the film flat isn't as straightforward as my plustek 8100 35mm holders. The £200 budget isn't set in stone. Basically I know that the epson v700/v800 are probably the best flatbed scanners around atm, but I would like to know if there are any cheaper options that do just as well with b&w film, and would handle my needs well, or whether I should spend a little bit more. Due to me not really rating the canon 9000f, I feel like its competitors might not impress me either, so paying more might be the only option, unless there's a gem of a scanner about? How is the v600? Thanks :)

<p>Thanks! The more images I've scanned, the better I'm getting. Starting to be able to pull the detail out of the shadows and I'm also getting better colours. :D</p>

<p>Here's a scan from the negatives I collected today. I'm pleased with the results. I think there were a few things I actually needed to over come, and I still need to working on post processing negative scans, but there results are far better than I was getting.</p> <p>https://www.flickr.com/photos/gwp90/25547088524/in/dateposted-public/</p>

<p>https://www.flickr.com/photos/gwp90/26045397862/in/dateposted-public/<br /> Just updating this, incase someone finds it useful in the future.<br /> I ended up buying a plustek 8100, as my canon 9000f decided to die. Definitely a marked improvement on the sharpness and blotchiness of the images (there's scratches on the negative that the plustek can pick up, that I didn't even realise were there on the canon). The colours and contrast seem a little off, but that could just be me, I'm fairly new to scanning colour film. Though, I forgot to mention this, the negatives were clearly rushed through development, when I picked them up in June 2015, as every roll had a kink (more like a fold) in them and a lot of the frames had chemical stains on them.<br /> Anyways, I finally got around to jumping on the train to Newcastle, last week, and tomorrow I will be heading back through to pick up my negatives. I'll upload an image at some point. If it's not good, then the issue will clearly be me as everything has been changed (film brand, film scanner, from consumer lab to pro lab, built in light meter vs sekonic). haha. Fingers crossed...</p>

Sorry, I've been a bit confusing with the images. The first 35mm shot is mine and it's not sharp, the second one is just a frame I found on Flickr, to show a comparison with mine and then the 3rd link is from my rb67, to give a comparison of two different ways in which they've been developed. (I never developed any 35mm colour at home, so had to use medium format as the example). As it stands, I pretty much know it's not my gear. I'm thinking exposure or development is where the issue lies. I've seen an article where someone has under exposed portra 400 by 3 stops and over exposed it by 6 stops, the results were very good from -2stops to +5stops. I have a holiday in tomorrow so I will go out and shoot a roll, with my light meter, and then hop on the train and get it developed. Hopefully I can update this thread, with good news, by the weekend :)

<p>Thanks, I'm actually looking into doing this atm. I've got some fuji superia 400 35mm and kodak portra 160 120 at home. It should be a nice selection of films to compare afterwards. I'll go out with my Sekonic and nail the exposures and hopefully that will have been the issue. We have a professional lab in the north east, that everyone seems to love, so I'll hopefully have the issue resolved after a visit to them. If not, then I'll have to send some film out to be professional scanned and see if that's where the issue lies. Hopefully I'll be getting beautiful results soon. It's so fustrating having a nice image that doesn't turn out :(</p> <p>Thanks :)</p>

<p>As of recently, I've began to shoot street photography on colour film. However, I haven't been impressed by the results I've been getting out of the film.</p> <p>My Image:<br> Kodak Portra Iso 400 - Developed at Max Spielman<br/> http://www.flickr.com/photos/gwp90/25314742506/in/dateposted-public/ </p> <p>Flickr Example:<br> Kodak portra 400<br> </p> <p>My image has been scanned at 4800dpi, using vuescan, a canon 9000f and then post processed in photoshop and lightroom. I've been locking the expose and the film base colour, before I scan, to get accurate colour reproduction. However, the images lack saturation and have a colour cast (when scanned), the sky is blotchy and the grain is very noticable.<br> The example image, of mine, was shot using a minolta x300 and 28mm 2.8 minolta celtic lens. I'm not sure what the settings were at, however I do know it was a small aperture around f11-f22 and the focus was preset (to get the foreground and background in focus) and the camera was set to aperture priority. I was in Spain, around mid day, in summer, my main reason for using a narrow f stop was simply because 1/1000 shutter speed wasn't fast enough to allow me to shoot wide open in the sun, I only had one camera body and it had iso 400 in it, so I couldn't shoot iso 160, and I'd left my nd filter in the uk. I had the settings balanced, so the aperture priority could select shutter speeds where I didn't need a tripod to shoot in the shade (to prevent camera shake) and it didn't overexpose in the sun (because the shutter speed couldn't go any faster.)<br> First off, I have two minolta bodies and I see the same issue arise with both (It's also happened with a pentax spotmatic, with 55 1.8, I used for a little while). I only use well regarded prime lenses (24 2.8, 28 2, 28 2.8, 35 2.8, 50 1.4, 100 2.5, 135 2.8, 200 f3.5). I preset focus and tend to shoot at f8 with everything in focus from 5m - infinity. (I have no issues with this on my digital camera)</p> <p>I've ruled out defraction as the cause for the unsharpness, because I don't always shoot narrow apertures.<br> I've ruled out preset focus, as I don't always use it, especially when I need to shoot wide open in low light.<br> I've ruled out my scanning technique, because I get sharp results out of Black and White film. (and I shot some negativess with a macro lens, on my dslr, to make sure they weren't alot sharper than I was getting with the scanner).<br> I've ruled out shutter speed, because I always keep one eye on my exposure.<br> I've ruled out any faults with my gear, because I use a wide range of gear and get the same results.<br> I've ruled out film type too, because I don't always shoot kodak portra 400. Even my portra 160 had noticable grain, blotchyness and is unsharp. The fuji stuff I shot years ago, in uni, has the same issues.</p> <p>This is an image I shot years ago, when I was teaching myself to develop my own colour film.<br> http://www.flickr.com/photos/gwp90/25048010250/in/dateposted-public/<br> It was shot on a mamiya rb67, with a 180mm lens, on a tripod, on kodak ektar iso 100. I know it will have more resolution, better tonality and will reproduce colours better, simply because of the format size. However, I see a noticable improvement? that I can't help not attribute completely to format size. I stopped developing my own colour negatives, because I wasn't shooting enough colour film and the quality control needed was sucking the fun out of developing, for me.</p> <p>So... Finally... My question...</p> <p>Can Blotchy, Unsharp, Grainy Colour negatives be a result of bad developing? The only thing I haven't changed since university, is the film lab I go to, to get my negatives developed. It's convenient, reasonably priced and fast...</p> <p>Or is my technique not good in areas?</p> <p>Thanks, if you've managed to get to the end of this post. Sorry for its length. I hope you can shine some light on my issue and I can learn something from it :)</p>

<p>Thanks Stephen, I was expecting people to comment hardware and software recommendation lol. I've tried vuescan in the past but couldn't get the hang of it haha</p>