libor_sindlar

Yes, I have tried it once. It was with film body and I could see only a circle in the middle of picture. The rest was black. With digital body and 1.6x crop the result would be definitely better but I would still expect very strong vignetting.

 

The results were interesting. I cannot comment the quality because at 4:1 the depth of field is almost zero. Your subject would have to be very flat to have it sharp. The following flower has probably 6 milimiters and you see almost full original frame.<div></div>

If you want to use inkjet, you'll probably have to use an Epson one. They can print on a roll. Another possibility is to use minilab - Noritsu recently introduced minilab printer that can print on double A3 (30*90cm) paper. The results are quite good.

If you are brave enough, you can build <a href="http://www.sindlar.com/photo/flash_trigger/flash_trigger.html">your own optical trigger</a>. If this is too complex for you or just not worth the effort then buy similar trigger from Wein. Look for "Wein digital flash trigger". It should be around $70.

Yes, the 100/2.8 macro if VERY sharp. The question is whether it is needed on your 20D. When I compared it to my other lenses, it was above everything else with over 100 lpm (both center and corners). At F11 difraction already started to limit the resolutin to 95 lpm, at F16 it was only 80 lpm. However, you won't see any difference between extra sharp lens with 100 lpm and a sharp lens with 80 lpm on your 20D anyway - the 8MP sensor can resolve only something like 70-75 lpm.

 

For macro, it is great. For portrait it may be too long and it is hard to focus manually at 2-4 meters compared to 85/1.8.

I have seen many times somebody complains about ISO not directly visible. This sounds strange to me. I use analog EOS 30 and I can always tell directly from the viewfinder (from the time/f-stop combination) that I have loaded something else than ISO 100 film. Maybe, digital users think less about exposure but when I look out then my guess is hardly more than one stop from the correct exposure. I simply can't imagine somebody shooting at ISO 400 and not noticing the strage time/f-stop combinations.

Simple question - why do you want any new lens? I know 70-200/4L plus Nikon 5T or 6T can give very good results. The 100/2,8 Macro USM may be better but it depends on what exactly you are shooting. Sometimes, it is nice to have the possiblity to go from infinity to macro 1:1. In this case, the 100/2.8 is better. However, 70-200/4L can give you more working distance when shooting e.g. insect.

 

I would add 85/1.8 only if you really want to shoot at 1.8-3.5. At 4.0 the 70-200/4L will be the same (=very good). The only real difference will be that 85/1.8 can focus a bit closer.

 

I would add 100/2.8 only if you really expect to shoot macro. It is easier to take a 100g close-up lens and mount it when necessary than to carry a 650g macro lens.

 

I don't have 85/1.8 but I have both 70-200/4L and 100 Macro. Believe me, they both are GOOD ENOUGH. Even wide open. Stopping the macro lens is even better but after 4.0 it is way above the resolution of 300D (at least up to 22 where difraction starts limiting the resolution).

Well, I would probably not use FAT32 for storing 140TB of data. FAT is quite old file system and it is not very safe. Storing high number of small files can make the system very slow. The original idea of single table with allocation chains was OK for floppy or small HDD but it is really not good for >100 000 files.

 

I'm not 100% sure but I think that when I wanted to format my new 250GB backup drive, WinXP did not offer me FAT32. Only NTFS option was available. However, I know that at least 120GB should be OK.

I cannot help with 120 film. But I scan regular 35mm and there are three main things I always do:

 

1. I put the film for at least one day into a book and put several heavy books on top. This usually makes the film a bit more flat. Older films may need several days. I never scan any film the same day when I take it from lab - it always has to "rest" in a book first.

 

2. Some people recommend higher humidity. If you live in dry environment, try to use shower for couple of minuters to increase the amount of water in the air.

 

3. If you can set the focusing point, don't put it into the middle of film. Instead, put it somewhere like 1/3 from side. Instead of "good center, bad corners" you'll get "acceptable everywhere".

There seems to be an easy solution: Canon EF 70-200 4L. It is relatively light, not very expensive, compatible with extenders and finally has the same filter thread 67mm as your Tamron. If 2.8 is needed and you don'n want to spend too much, get Sigma 70-200 2.8.

Don't believe in ICC profiles of minilabs too much. First, there is problem with chemistry, new paper revisions and machine to machine deviations (for bigger companies with more machines). Then, every print size can be printed on different paper. You profile 4*6 on Kodak Royal but 8*12 may be printed on Kodak Endura. Finally, for many machines there is no way how to turn off automatic changes. These changes (usually perceptual conversion to the color space of the machine) are based on the colors from your image. Therefore, they behave differently for ICC profile targets (gamut must be significantly reduced as the machines can't print bright colors from the chart) and differently for normal photos without very bright colors.

 

While the profiles will give you a basic idea how the image will look like (you will for example see that there will be no pure green - it will turn into yellow-green or brown-green, yellow will go to orange). But you will not be able to see how much this will happen with your photos. I have tried to profile several labs from Agfa, Noritsu, Fuji but the results were simply not good enough for real use.

Forgive my stupid question. Are you building a public list of something you don't understand or do you just want to get the basic knowledge? The first case does not seem to be a good idea. If you already know something about CMS then you probably know most of the basic links like www.color.org www.drycreekphoto.com www.brucelindbloom.com www.dl-c.com www.pantone.com www.creativepro.com anyway. You could also read at least some books like "Bruce Fraser: Real World Color Management", "Color Management for Photographers : Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users" or "Real World Adobe Photoshop CS"

As usually, nobody knows for sure. To be honest, I don't expect any new prime and any digital body between 20D and 1D. However, 300D may be replaced as it is already 1.5 years old. It may get ETTL-II, new sensor, faster processing but it will be still somehow crippled not to cannibalize 20D sales. Maybe, we can see a new consumer EF-S lens to fill the gap between 18-55 and 18-85 USM.

 

...but these are all just speculations :-)

I was thinking about similar problem. I wanted something to replace 50/1.8 for digital body. Here are 4 main factors (for me): <br>

1. after 1.6x crop it should be similar to 50mm <br>

2. it must be fast for low-light (in the worst case 2.8)<br>

3. it must allow small depth of field<br>

4. close focus distance should be less than 0.4m<br><br>

 

The result are 28/2.8, 28/1.8 and 35/2. I would forget about 28/2.8 as it won't give me anything important that I can't do with my zooms. So only 28/1.8 and 35/2 remained. Out of them I would probably choose 35/2 because it can give me more shallow DOF and in my country I can buy it for half the price of 28/1.8. Also, 35/2 should be a bit sharper.

Simply use PC3200 DDR and it will be OK. They will just run as PC2700.

 

Regarding the maximum memory for PhotoShop: Windows (NT/2000/XP) by default can give only up to 2GB to any application. There is a hidden switch (at least in w2k) that can move this limit to 3GB. If you have even more memory, the rest is used for other applications or for system (especially for file cache).

 

I think that 1GB should be enough - unless you often work with files >100MB.

Depends what exactly is portrait for you. The best portraits I have ever made were done by 50/1.8 somewehere between 1.8 and 2.5. They are a bit soft but the shallow depth of field make the people (children in my case) pop up.

 

BTW, I'm shooting film, so my choice for 20D would be 35/2 or any of the fast zooms like Canon 24-70/2.8 or Tamron 28-75/2.8 (if the Canon is too expensive for you).

I just want to disagree with the opinion that we just miss wide angles on APS-sized DSLR. That is simply not true. The whole system of lenses was built with normal 1:1 crop in mind.

 

Example: if I want to make portraits, I can choose from 85/1.8 100/2 or 135/2.8. These lenses were optimized to have nice bokeh and to allow easy manual focus in 2-3 meters. Now, if I want to use something similar to 85/1.8 then I have to use 50/1.4 but I won't give me the same shallow depth of view and also the 85 wide open will be sharper than 50 wide open. Similarly, I made a lot of photos with 50/1.8 wide open. If I don't want to spend too much for 35/1.4L then I can replace it only by 35/2 but with twice bigger depth of view...

 

I agree that missing really wide angles for DSLRs with APS-size sensor is the main problem. However, too big depth of view is another one.

 

Anyway, APS-sized sensors will probably stay here for a long time. We can disagree, we may not like it, but it is the only thing we can do.

This may be a stupid idea but since ETTL-II can use the distance, the pre-flash output may be also different. For example, when I used my Metz 54 MZ-3 for macro, the results were horrible overexposure. I just suppose that 1/32 of full power was too much for the sensors at such short distance and therefore the camera did not know how powerful flash is needed.

 

If ETTL-II knows in advance that the distance to subject is 2m then it may use less powerfull pre-flash. If the distance is over several meters or if bounce flash is used then stronger pre-flash may be used.

 

just idea :-)

I have no experience with digital SLR. However, the best portraits I have made were all done by 50/1.8 somewhere between 1.8 and 2.8. The shallow depth of view simply made the faces (or just eyes) pop up. Therefore, for DSLR I would choose something like 35/2, 50/1.4 or a fast zoom 28-70/2.8.

I don't know what it typical but for Canon film bodies the delay is

65ms for EOS300, and 75ms for EOS30. These times seems to be always the

same (with exception of second curtain synchronization).<br>

<br>

I measured the delays when I built my E-TTL compatible optical <a

href="http://www.sindlar.com/photo/flash_trigger/flash_trigger.html">flash

trigger</a>. If I remember correctly then my Olympus C4000Z had

approximatelly 100ms between flashes.<br>

<br>To measure the delay, then simply take a photodiode and connect it into microphone input of soundcard in your PC. Then use program like WaveFlow to analyze what happens when you take a photo using flash.

If you already have 70-200/4L then I suggest to buy Nikon diopters 5T or 6T. You need a step-down ring 67->62mm. 5T is 1.5D and will give you 65-50cm working distance and up to 1:2 magnification. 6T is 2.9D and will give you 35-30cm working distance and up to 1:1. For DRebel the magnification is even 1.6 times bigger.

 

I use them both but 5T is more often (I shoot butterflies and don't really need 1:1). The advantage to Canon 500D is half price with the same quality. I have now also 100/2.8 USM macro - but had no time yet to really compare them (butterflies just appeared this week here).

After trying NS4 I downgraded back to NS3. While the speed may be slightly higher, the new SW use 100% of my CPU and I cannot do anything else on the machine.

 

NS3 needs about 500MHz CPU to be able to use ICE at full speed (at least I don't hear any pauses). With my current 2.4GHz CPU it takes only 20% of speed and gives me enough power to edit the images during scanning.

 

NS4 uses 100% of my 2.4GHz CPU. If I run NS4 with normal priority then time to time I hear pauses. If I increase the priority, I cannot work on the machine any more.

 

..I'll have to try XP with hyperthreading. Maybe it will allow effective scanning and editing at the same time.

Do not believe that ISO 200 on your camera is really ISO 200. To avoid

overexposure problems, many camera manufactures will write ISO 200 but

in reality it is just ISO 160. The small adjustment in Photoshop is

smaller problem than if something is overexposed to (255,255,255). Just use histogram (or better look at the image in Photoshop) and find what aperture works best for you.<br>

<br>

The color balance seems to be right - but I don't know what was the

original color. In case of problems, you can always use Photoshop to

fix the colors. If you shoot often with similar configuration and you

cannot simply solve color problems with white balance in your camera then you can also use <a

href="http://www.sindlar.com/photo/gray_balancer/index2.html">Gray Balancer</a>

for semi-automatic gray/white balancing.

2Volker

DMCA is US law that is valid only in US. I think the guy who made the hack does not live in US. Different countries may have different habits - for example according to law in my country I have explicit right to modify any software if it is needed for its proper functionality. Of course, it is not clear what exactly is "proper functionality" in case of firmware that artifically restricted some functions :-)

I've created several softboxes. Both small ones for macro (just 20*30 cm made from small plastic box) and bigger ones (up to 50*70 cm). Forget about normal 200W bulbs - you will have way too much heat inside. Instead, use fluerescent tubes (bulbs?). A 25W fluorescent tube is similar to 130W bulb and you won't have problem with heat. The only disadvantage is that fluorescent tubes cannot change power and 130W is not really much.

 

Instead of replacing flash by the bulb every time I suggest to make the back side of your softbox slightly bigger (I have 15*20cm) and use it for both the flash and the fluorescent tube at the same time. The upper part has a hole for flash, the lower part is used for the modeling light. It is much quicker and more convinient. You won't notice the small shadow created by the bulb when it is inside softbox.

 

I don't have good experience with DIY modeling light and umbrella. Softbox worked better for me.

I use 70-200 F4L plus 6T and 5T quite often. I have no problem with focus on EOS 30. Are you sure that your subject is in the "right" distance (with 6T it is 25-30 cm from the lens). Is there enough light and enough contrast?