philmorris

I'm always astonished when I read questions like this that for some reason, people seem to rule out using the lens cap that came with the lens for protection. Use a securely fitted lens cap to protect the front element; use a filter to manipulate the light. A lens cap will be a lot tougher and busting a lens cap is a lot cheaper than busting a filter.

 

I think camera retail shops are to blame for advancing the notion that for every lens purchased it would be a shame to have it ruined for the sake of the cost of a filter. I understand camera retail shops gross their largest mark up on filters. They buy them for a fraction of the price you pay for them in the shops. So if Nikon or whoever thought it would be smart to use a filter to protect the lens rather than a lens cap it wouldn't cost them much to supply one as standard.

 

If you still fancy a permanently fitted filter for some reason and shoot colour, choose a 81A or 81B; if black and white, a yellow.

Steve, I have the 50S. I don't have the 50 PS. I'm very happy with the sharpness of my 50S. I follow David Henderson's remarks about the Bronica lens system all over this site. I wouln't be surprised if he'll be along here soon and he'll tell you himself, but unless I am seriously mistaken, his take will be that whilst lab tests might reveal the PS as a tad sharper that the S and has the benefit of clickin half stops, the reality of photography is that wind, user error, eyesight and so on is more likely to influence the sharpness of photographs taken in the field. And in addition, if you already have 67 diam lenses you have a ready made collection of filters to fit the S, rather than having to shop for a bunch of expensive super-sized filters. Then there's price. A second hand S is very affordable.

 

In conclusion I reckon if the PS has an advantage over the S it is in the half stop settings and this may prove invaluable to dyed in the wool Velvia users; less so B&W shooters. To get around this I restrict my use of colour transparency film to overcast conditions and use Reala for colour work on sunny days.

Er Peter, that list of two. I've just re-read it. The list is of the people you have marked interesting, not of people who find you interesting.

That's weird Peter, because you're on my list of people I find interesting. There's your name coming up as clear as mud on my home page. Funny thing is, that the "mark this person interesting" link you'd expect to see immediately below your mugshot is unavailable to me. May be that's because I've already marked you down?

The doc from the Children's Hospital? You saw it. I've no idea why it vanished.

<p>I've got a title to propose for this thread. Actually it's not mine. I nicked it off Deep Purple. The best song "Machine Head" never had -</P>

 

<i>"When A Blind Man Cries"</i>

 

<p>Anyway, ain't it time this thread got lynched? Me thinks its hours are surely numbered. Then we can all drop to our knees in prayer and say Amen together<p>.

Thanks John. I don't wander in that direction all that often, so thanks for showing me what's what.

What is / where do I get to see a representative folder photo?

Pete and Dud (I mean Doug). Just worked for me as an in-liner.

People can delete their ratings? I thought this ability was disabled some while ago. In fact, as I go to check (my workspace > view your ratings) that's precisely what I'm told.

Mac, I'm sure you're a real nice guy, and I'll soon crawl back under my stone and happily resume my anonimity as a bitter and unloved wreck (Golly, I wish I'd never popped my head out). But a place where all those that "care about the process" can publicly have it out with the lousy raters and slurp up some of those really yummy generous ones? That's one seriously bad idea.

 

The fact is that Brian is exactly right. Those content to whinge are, in Brian's words "... so subjective and self-regarding..." I wonder whether those same people would join with you declaring that others who try to quieten it down are the "quit complaining police", for whom I notice you express "zero tolerance". Hmmm, such fighting talk.

 

I mean, please, we are talking the ever so ever so slight here. So is there really "nothing whingy about wanting to address a wrong, however slight". Isn't it all relative to how old you are. Or how much you had to borrow to pay for it?

Tony, the tendency to rant about low ratings and to demand explanations for low ratings (but not high ones though) has been around here since, it seems, the beginning of time. Worse, I notice a rising tendancy to post whinging comments in the raters portfolio. I think that's a sad reflection of the importance the moaners attach to ratings. So I don't approve of rantings about ratings. I see them as mildy amusing (in a shocking way) and inevitably pointless. It follows then that I doubt the validity of your statement that the recipient of a commentless low rate has a justifiable "right" to rant. I'd like to see the ranting stop. Rates are free gratis. It's allowed. You take 'em as you find 'em.

 

The same goes for rants about feedback on comments. Sure it would be great if a comment yielded some feedback, even a mere "ta". But if contrary to your expectations, your comment failed to generate anything from the photographer, it's probably time to ask yourself why. It's obvious you've reached that moment because you say you've had this thought. What are your conclusions?

I couldn't agree more as well. There has to be some upper limit on file size otherwise things would get out of control but I don't think enforced compression was ever more vicious than the current version. The guideline (not absolute rule) here is the photo should not exceed 100K.The pain is the compressor flattens uploads both above and below the 100K mark. Why-o-why the <100K pickie should cop it is beyond me. I've looked around for an explanation and never been able to find one that I understood. I've read Gordon Richardson's article and his and others' contributions to similar threads but have always ended up with brain ache. So I've taken to sizing my photographs to 120K prior to upload, because trial and error has taught me that when they go through the PN squeeze most will emerge around the 70 - 80K size. But not all come out this way. Some, primarily those with large monotone spaces, get beaten down to 20-30K. One or two stay above 100K. Oddly, a couple of weirdos put on weight and others take on a peculiar pink or greenish tinge. Ideally we could be trusted to upload photos not exceeding 100K but I recognise fly-by newbies and the clueless on the ability to re-size will download regardless. It would be nice to know that having used save to web optimsed at 100K, the picture will look like we thought it would. Couldn't this compressor thingy be injected with a tranquiliser and only ever woken by an alarm reporting an incoming 101K + upload? Alternatively, could someone spell out in simple terms exactly what should be done to make the most of the 100K permitted?

Jessops = UK for sure. And if Jessops do not offer a trannie to CD service I'd be thinking about Standard Photographic. Standard Photographic are based in Leamington Spa and trade under a variety of names (visit standard-photographic.com), another of their sites being fujilab.co.uk. Buy a roll of Sensia and get a mailer. The mailer is addressed to Fuji-Processing. They will charge you about a fiver for scanning your slides to CD at the same time as they are processed. For a tenner or so they'll scan 36 slides you select and which can be a mixed bag of slide types and procesing dates. Once they've processed and returned a roll to you they will enter you on their customer database and you will be provided with a unique customer number, personalised labels to attach to your films, order forms and pre-addressed envelopes. That way, if you prefer to use say Veliva or Provia, you can have the same service. You'll pay extra for the non-processed paid processing obviously. Standard Photographic do the same for other E6 films process-paid or not. Last time I visited them I saw their certificate of business names and I think I'm right in saying they do the process-paid end of Agfa's and Boots business.

I used Standard Photographic before I got myself a scanner. It's their scans you see from the early days of my folders (inc. my POW). Thing is, unless you are local to their lab, you do end up paying a lot in postage. Fortunately for me they're just five minutes drive away so I dropped off and picked up later. Not all scans were perfect - I mean well dodgy especially slides with high contrast, (say one in every film) and there's no chance of a re-scan (though being a personal caller I was able to swing things). Its catering for the mass market, but 95% come out fine and the service represents good value for someone unwilling to buy their own scanner. Sooner or later you'll tire of someone (or some robot) doing it all for you and want a scanner of your own.

I reckon that if I stumbled across a pamphlet of these, I¡¦d buy it. They wouldn¡¦t have to be by you Ilan�º What I say goes for Dave¡¦s series too. The interest for me is that there are a great many of them, each different in a subtle way. How an individual or family felt it beneficial for an otherwise neglected piece of highway furniture or whatever to be decorated by a commemoration. In a lay sanctification of a place at which a family¡¦s way of life moved from bliss to cataclysm. So that the place might in some way be absolved of its sinfulness and also so that it might be remembered and treated respectfully by passers by.

 

In each picture there is all of this. One doesn¡¦t need to know names or read words to appreciate the deep significance each place holds for someone somewhere. And it affords an opportunity for reflection. Like a quiet walk around a cemetery. I think that was the curiosity that took you to these places too.

 

As I said before, I have taken pictures like this; of grottos, shrines, wells and such places others have deemed worthy of respect (which I gladly go along with). Here¡¦s one I took just yesterday. For poor Eamonn Maughan struck down in 2001 at the age of 35 on the A423 heading north into the village of Marton, Warwickshire.<div></div>

Ooooops. So I'm hopeless. So here's the full frame...<div></div>

Try it Lex. It worked for me! And you know how they knocked them out with that stone feel? With the little bumps on the body? Weren't those bumps the first to reveal accidental clouts. Any way, I'm well pround to have two XA2s. I think of them as the most user friendly pals I have. Here's a shot from last Sunday. Setting up the Kings Norton mop fair for the following day. Something they've done every year for the last 400. And a little bit later a 1:1 of the scan. They all look decent (not outstanding, but decent) to me.

About 20 years ago I had an XA2. But then I misplaced it and never knew where it ended up. My wife says I got it for her. Whatever, I never forgot the fun and speed of use and having seen so many shots go to waste for want of a camera to hand, decided in the last month that I�d get another. Of course in the last 20 years there has been an enormous rate of development and I did some research before deciding what I�d get. The choices were pocket digital, pocket autofocus or pocket RF. I own a Ricoh 500GX and had found that in the time it took me to correctly focus and set aperture, the kind of picture I was hoping to be able to capture had passed me by. So an autofocus P&S, like a T4 or Mju (now my wife does own one of them) seemed the way to go. But I lost my rag with the shutter delay and learnt that the Mju wasn�t on its own in that regard. All the autofocus P&S cameras suffered from this delay it seemed. So too digital.

 

I�d heard / read the XA was the superior camera, largely because of the extra degree of control but the focusing was soooo fiddly on such a small camera. But whilst the lens boasted f/2.8 (a touch faster than the XA2s f/3.5), the camera�s top speed was just 1/500 sec compared with 1/750 on the XA2. On focusing, the three choice zone focusing was a doddle. I think the close focusing zone has a zone of focus of about 3 feet to 9 feet; the midway zone about 5 feet to infinity and the far zone about 9 feet to infinity. In other words, selecting the midway zone would cover virtually all choices. And as luck would have it, Olympus had the midway zone as the default setting

 

There was one other thing. On Ebay, the XA was going for about £80.00. The XA2 was going for about £25.00. So I got an XA2. It cost me £22.00. The day it arrived my wife wondered why I�d gone and bought such a thing. I explained all its virtues and then learnt that the XA2 I�d lost was in a draw at home under a pile of girlie clothes. A quick mess about and a pair of new batteries had the old XA2 back to life. So now I have 2 fully functioning XA2s and so long as I�m awake I�m ready to take pictures wherever I may be. And I think the XA2 produces decent quality pictures. At least I think mine are.

A comments only gallery would be a bonus. But only on the basis that it attracted more worthwhile comments. The ability to comment AND rate presently exists. The common, site-wide preference is to just rate and move on to the next. To comment requires time. Time to study and figure and yet more time to articulate. I'm not so sure that by having a comments only gallery will necessarily increase the number of comments posted to each photograph in such a gallery. For this to happen there has to be a change in the common preference and I think that's expecting a little too much. In other words, I suspect that a comments only gallery would simply be visited by a handful. Probably by those people who are commenting already.

 

Most comment prefering photogs know who the regular comment contributors are. And I think that in turn leads to comment wieding photogs slapping most of their comments on other comment wielding photogs; where it's likely to be appreciated. Thus we end up by having an unofficial sub-category, probably of the kind envisaged Bob, but without having to force anything, no expectations, nor having to outlaw ratings. I personally don't despise ratings. They provide a moments fun. I can smile as happily at a 2:2 as I can a 6:6. It's all fleeting. If I was in a competition I'd view that 2:2 differently. Fortunately I'm not. You could say that I've opted out. But it would be wrong of me to say I don't have some pleasure in seeing my picks appearing on TRPs. It's just that I don't scheme to get them there and if they make it great. If they don't it's no big deal. I'm stimulated by written opinion and real inter-photog communication. We all comment for free and I'm grateful for whatever written feedback people leave. Even the 2:2, in its own way.

Great point Leanne. Yeah yunno, I think there's some possibilty that some people might be shy about having their picture on the internet. The same goes for peoples' homes or so I was informed by certain owners. Thanks. But that wasn't the point of your first post was it? All this about wondering...

 

To come back to the question, it seems to me that if I place myself in a situation where I am at risk of harm I am in large part to blame for my own predicament. And as a photographer I should like to think, bringing every sensory antennae to the job in hand, that observational and people skills would alert me beforehand. And with that I can modify my behaviour to suit the situation, exercise some discretion or simply leave. A ruck in the street can occur for a dozen reasons but for it to originate with photography the photographer must first have been observed to be photographing in some sort of underhand, suspicious way. That's why I think it's best to not even be noticed. It's not that difficult either. Most pedestrians go about with blinkers on and only those who draw attention to themselves get noticed.

 

So if you do get noticed, in all likelihood the objector will be the person who twigged they were being photographed. Some people may feel a little peculiar to have discovered they were being photographed but rapidly shrug it off, move on and get on with their business, leaving the photographer to get on with his. For the odd occasion when a person is sufficiently upset to want to make a big deal out of it, is it really likely that he will first say to himself that before he causes a scene he would be well advised to establish if the photographer was a "real" one or not? And if so is it likely that this same person has a working knowledge of the camera brands and systems favoured by "real" photographers of the street in order that he might distinquish the "real" from the "fake"? The fella's using a Leica M3? All well and good. He's most welcome to stay. He's got a DSLR? Lynch him.

 

Being one of those "Joe Soaps" ("and incidentally the photog of "Pub Lovers" which you Leanne, seemed interested in on Tuesday but then trashed on Friday) I have no doubt that your invitation to respond here is primarily to take the opportuinty to once again proclaim yourself as a "real" photographer and elevate yourself from the masses on PN to whom you announced your departing a day or so ago. Leanne I assure you it is insulting in the extreme to be informed that only you and your kind should be allowed to photograph in the street. Allowed, because when you take photographs you take them to record the times you live in, lovingly enveloped with your art and vision, whereas when I and the brutal unwashed masses who couldn't possibly have any serious interest in photography take them, we apparently do so for grubby ratings on internet websites.

 

Yes most legal systems currently favour the artist. But invariably those systems do not set out to define art nor artists save in the very loosest terms So how would you, as a "real" artist, seek to be protected from the infestation of unworthies? So that when a citizen comes across someone wielding a camera in the street they will instantly be recognised as a visionary such as yourself? Is this your special interest? Would your answer be to see the law modified to ensure only licensed persons are permitted to carry cameras in public places? And if so who would you choose to bestow these licences and using what criteria? Or would you prefer to see minilabs obliged to submit all pictures produced by common laymen to the newly formed photo department at the local police station so that they can be examined to establish if anyone in them may have had a bit too much to drink and unwittingly found themselves in a compromising situation. Whilst those containing the precise same people, but being the product of real artists of course and therefore immune from all officious scrutiny, hang roped off and guarded in the gallery next door. Could anyone get more elitist?

 

As for the folks in the street and their right to be able to carry on "secret" love affairs and such like, sure they have rights. A right to carry on the love affair in public and a right to take a risk of being discovered. Well until someone with dictatorial clout withdraws those rights.

 

Your claim that your views are at one with the common people is astounding. As one of the great unwashed I think I'm in a better position to express a view on this one than you are. Your head's far too high in the clouds. Right thinking people (ie the vast majority of the general public) will recognise that any person with a camera has as much right to use it in the street as another has to operate say a mobile telephone. Some might even stop in their tracks to allow you to complete the picture so as not to get in the way of it.

 

Watch out Joe Soap, watch out the HCBs of tomorrow. Keep on doing what you're doing today and you won't have a future. Heaven help us if Leanne Newton, with her out of step assessment of the opinions and preferences of the general public, admiration for her elite and loathing for hammy amateurs, should ever take control of a Ministry for the Arts.

 

You gonna give us that evidence Brad asked for?

Thanks William. A timely reminder that mine is set to expire on 3 September also. I've just renewed using PayPal. A piece of cake.

Yeah you miseries. Dump anything by Burgess and show us Erin's pickie. And do it now before I get really mad.

Well listen Leanne, that�s fine. I got on my high horse because ... well everyone who�s read this far down knows why. I�m right behind you on protecting literary, musical and artistic works from misuse. Likewise free speech (the courteous kind of course), respect for one�s fellow man and all those other things that ensure society is made up of nice people. I�d like to think I�m one of those nice people and I reckon you are too. So here�s my hand. What say we shake eh? :)

Ho ho, good one Leanne. Don�t you think this last post of yours, about bitterness and hostility, sits rather uneasily against your earlier one today threatening legal action and your dig at my understanding of the law of copyright. Assuming you realize I�ve been a lawyer for quite some time now (just look a few posts up), I suppose you might get rather hot under the studio lamp if I suggested you should go seek out a book explaining which end of a camera to look through. So excuse me if I�m a little intemperate.

 

That aside, we all have much to celebrate! Your copyright has not been infringed (or �not yet� as you prefer to say - I see you like to add superfluous words � �future� being another - in order to create a state of apprehension at PN). I guess you feel uncomfortable in answering the remainder of my question to you though. Regarding my post to the rude replies thread, specifically in the context of critiques that might rank as educational, if you were to take care you would have noticed that I referred to the need to obtain consent from the photog for a picture to be utilized in the way I suggested. That's a fairly important oversight you made wouldn't you say? Further and no doubt owing to your extensive working knowledge in the field you will have come across the notions of [1] fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review and [2] legitimate educational instruction and examination. Were you never supplied with a copy of a photograph at college for study purposes? The idea I suggested was a million miles from commercial exploitation. Thankfully it is concepts like these that have lead to the foundation of places called lending libraries. Most have a very useful section marked "LARGE PRINT".

Leanne, are you saying your copyright in one or more photographs uploaded here has already been infringed? If so, infringed by what means, by whom and with what loss? If on the other hand you are simply apprehensive of a situation where your copyright might be infringed because of what you describe as the shifting sands please explain precisely what you understand by the shifting sands and what it is about the shifting sands that causes your apprehension. Lastly, what steps have you taken / do you propose to take in preparation for the worst and in order to protect your copyright? As someone who finds it necessary to give advance warning of the legal consequences which would follow an infringement, wouldn't you say it would be irresponsible of both you and the administrators of photo.net to allow your photographs to remain on photo.net a moment longer?