nickjohnson

Edward,<p>

I'd like to avoid Reala because of its higher contrast and saturation (realative to Porta NC varieties). My goal is the widest latitude in my film so I can give it the Reala (well saturated) look in Photoshop. Reala was my favorite slow film for a long time until I got my hands on the Portra.<p>

The grain on Reala is larger (visibly at least to me with a 4000dpi scan) and the film shows less detail, but the grain is also smoother so less visable. Kind of a convoluted statement, I know, kind of like the comparison between Velvia and Provia 100. Resolution, grain, and sharpness!?!<p>

So, how about something a little faster. ISO 400 color? Suggestions? I again need the widest latitude, pretty good response to odd lighting situations, and it has to scan well.

Okay, not exactly, but hear me out<p>

I'm pushing for a three week road trip in a few months and I want to

shoot as much film as time and money will allow. This means about

$200 worth of film. I'd hate to have to buy 12 different types of

film and, especially on the ultra-fine grained, slow side of films I

want to carry just one or two. I'm sure I'll need something ISO400+

but I'm still working on that idea. I've had unbeliveably pleasing

results with Kodak's Porta 160NC for portraits, but sometimes I would

want more contrast (in comes photoshop), a slight boost to saturation

(in comes photoshop), or a smooth B&W look (in comes photoshop). Is

it unreasonable to think I can buy 25 rolls of this film and just re-

contrast, saturate, and B&W (lets not get into how to do it, please)

so I can mostly shoot without too much care?<p>

A little background: 35mm of course, scanning with a Nikon Coolscan

4000, exclusively digital printing, and I'm very comfortable and

meticulous in photoshop. I will dodge/burn those nasty areas that

don't fall in to my contrast wishes! I wan't to shoot everything

from handheld travel photos to five minute exposure traffic trails on

the same emulsion. I've been using Fuji Reala for the latter.

I've run at least 80 rolls through my Elan7 and haven't had a problem except that the eye control is fubar. Used to work. Need to send it in before warranty expires. Finals end this week, I'll have time soon.

The only wedding at which I shot, I had trouble handholding a 50mm focal at f/2.8 on 1600 speed film, but that was extreme. Still, I agree with NK Guy that a 400/5.6 likely wouldn't work well. Anything long gets difficult with all the guests scurrying around in the way of your shot. I've found that a moderately long telephoto, not even 135, can work well since hopefully people are okay with being photographed at a wedding.<p>

If you really want a nice L lens, try the 70-200/2.8 for almost the same price as the 100-400. This is seriously one of the best examples of L series quality. Just stop down a bit to get enough depth of field for the full face and you will drool over the sharpness. Its sharp wide open too, but my portraits with it a f/2.8 are too shallow.<p>

If you want to spring the extra ~$400, get the IS version. Its not as sharp with IS on, but its there when you need it. The difference is hard to see (IS on, IS off w/ tripod) but with people moving all about you probably want a faster shutter than 1/60 anyway.<p>

Sorry we had to shoot your idea down, but theres still plent of L goodness to choose from.

I hear people complain about the 16-35, so I worry, but today I was

talking to a well paid professional that said he's been working with

a 1n and a 17-35 and was thrilled with the results. He does stock

photo, portraits, calendars (just did a John Deere one of odd

mailboxes recently) so he seems to be concerned with image quality.

I've been itching for something wider than my 24-70L but also

question if anyone often really needs anything wider than 24mm. So

here goes.<p>

I'm pressing to spend a month away from home, on the road, going

wherever I can find a place to stay around the US. I have friends

who have friends. I don't know what I'm going to run into, but I

want to photograph it all. I'd love to do more traffic trails in new

cities. Look at my folder an you'd understand. Would I be well

served with a 16-35 (stopped down at least to f/5.6 usually) or is it

so bad that I really should consider a Canon 20mm prime and maybe the

Tokina 17mm prime as well? I really like the L feel and with a 1v I

can trust the sealing that I can go trapseing through a new town in

bad weather and still be able to shoot. Waddya think?<p>

Like I said, I don't know what I'm going to come up with but I feel

some good, lightly warped interiors with an ultra-wide might be of

great use. <p>

BTW, if anyone wants to let me borrow their 1D, 1Ds, or 10D for a

month, I do have a prefectly working set of kidnies with one to

spare. Happy shooting! :)

I'm not sure about your specific flash but <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cadmium">Cadmium</a> is this element on the periodic table. Cd is the abbreviation. Cad is the layman's abbreviation. Same thing. Personally I just use lithiums in my 550EX since I use the flash so rarely.

Quentin,<p>

Thanks for your input. I've heard things about custom profiles and suspected one might help, but how would I go about getting one? Are there any free profiles that I can download or do I have to buy one from someone like Inkjetmall.com? What about making my own profile? Should I just give up and wait until I get a 2200?

I printed a few 12x18s on Premuim Semigloss paper last night and when

I see them this morning they look like the saturation needed a good

kick and the blacks are only dark grey, though they seem very black on

the two computers on which I edited them. All in all it was just

light. I'd hate to have to reprint them, and I expect my audience

wouldn't know the difference. However...<p>

 

 

Has anyone had similar issues? I've heard that the Dmax of the

printer is a little to narrow. My settings: Premium semigloss paper,

with the highest resolution settings, and ICM set as my color

magagement mode. Should I be using sRGB? I've found all those with

the slider bars to get the color wrong, but maybe to make the image

look nicer I should choose one of those. Any experience would be

appreciated.<p>

 

 

Also, I'm looking into getting a 2200, but is the Dmax any greater

with the new inks or will I still be dissatisfied?

Just last night I blew up some 35mm scans from a Nikon Coolscan 4000 to 12x18 after running them through Neatimage. I found there to be a noticeable loss in sharpness, but a removal of objectionable grain and more importantly the rbg noise found in the shadows. After an unsharp masking I think they look about as sharp is they did origonally. Know that I was scanning Kodak Max 400 (Sorry, I didn't have time to go buy any <b>good</b> film). The negs weren't all that sharp to begin with, so I don't expect the prints to be either.

Jack said that you'd never be happy with anything but a 1v after you use it and he's right. I tried the two bodies thing with a lens on the 1v and one on the Elan7. I cringed when I tried to look through the viewfinder on the Elan.<p>

Also, these complaints about weight are unfounded I say. You just need a good aftermarket stap. I did a three mile (or so) AIDS walk on sunday with my 1v and a 70-200/2.8 IS and only felt a little calf soreness afterwards. A few times I ran back and forth looking for that guy that was smoking on the walk.<p>

"Well, this ain't a walk for cancer" my friend said. Anyway, if you can carry a child around Disney World for a day then this camera and a long lens should be nothing. It doesn't even need to use the bathroom.

I've noticed the my shots with a 70-200 IS + 2x TC (the canon one) at 400mm is quite soft wide open (f/5.6). It looked like I was shooting with my old kit lens, if not worse. Sure, it would work but the shots wouldn't be nearly as sharp at f/5.6 as it would be wide open without the TC. I know this is obvious, but the quality difference is obvious as well when you look at the shots with the TC. I've never used this Sigma zoom, so this is all I can tell you.

duh. bulb mode. looks like I can do this on the cheap now. new question: what power setting should I put the flash on? 1/64? 1/128? Should I use a softbox and at what distance do your calculations address? I expect to shoot ISO 400 film.

My current setup for this will be a 1v and 550EX trying to capture a

spray of water. Focal length should be pretty normal (between 35 and

70 I expect). Not exactly frozen, but I want the water to be pretty

well defined. First of all, will 1/250 of a second be enough for

this?<p>

 

 

Second, the actual shot. I hope to shoot the flashed water on a black

background so I only have the water. Then I can photoshop that on top

of a person getting hit, so it looks like their spit (or blood, or

whatever) is being knocked off their face. Thing is, I can't see how

I could do this with direct flash. I've thought about getting a shoe

cord (or better yet, if I'm going to buy anything it would be an

ST-E2) so I could pull the flash around and not flash the black

background.<p>

 

 

I was hoping that someone has tried to do odd things with their 550EX

and could share thier experiences. Again, the water is not the focus

of the image, just another layer to be added to the final image.

I just got a BP-E1 for my 1v yesterday and noticed that it, first of

all, didn't have a shutter button, or for that matter anything but

extra battery capacity. Useless I tell you. It also didn't feel

like a vertical grip. There's just no extra handholding mass to grab

on to. Heck, the BP-300 for my Elan7 feels better than that. I am

dissapointed. So...<p>

How does the PB-E2 compare in terms of the feel? Is there a real

grip or just an extension of the bottom of the body? Is there a way

to disable the motor in the grip, keeping the pleasant sound of the

internal motor (I heard the PB-E2 is very loud)? I know you can set

the film advance speed to low, but I don't know if that then makes

the usual noise of the camera.

BTW, I've been reading far too much about these filters tonight and I noticed some complaints about glare, flare, and annoying things like that. So, my first intention for shooting with these filters is a traffic trails shot (look in my portfolio, I have a bunch) but this time around sunset, so I could have a dramatic sky. However, if all the car headlights are going to be streaking through the frame would this be a concern for glare, expecting a 24mm lens stopped down to f/11 and probably just one filter attatched by a wide-angle holder?

NK Guy,<p>

I've leant toward the Cokin filters <b>because</b> they were so cheap that it seemed I could get some really nice control in exposure on negative rather than having to do it half assed in the darkroom. Looking on 2filter.com, it seems that the Hitech filters aren't that expensive either in the 85mm P size flavor ($30 for the ND grad). But how does Cokin compare to Hitech. It seems if Hitech sounds better then I would have no qualms about spending $10 more per filter to get superior sharpness. If I'm going to set all that junk up the end result better be damn clear.<p>

More importantly, how does Lee compare to Hitech, with Lee being over twice the price. The fact that Hitech still calls it a "Neutral Density" tells me something. Would I ever care if I had Hitech and not Lee?

I guess and off-shoe cord would be cheaper than the MR-14, or maybe an ST-E2.

I'm tired of screwing around with those overlight bright skies and

the dark landscapes, so I'm thinking about getting a Cokin filter

system (mainly the split ND0 .6) but I worry about my 24-70. Not

that I want to shoot wide open (f/5.6 or f/8 maybe) but still at 24mm

I worry. Who has used Cokin P filters with this lens? I have also

seriously been considering the 16-35 as my next zoom, but should I

even expect to use any Cokin (X series sounds expensive) filters on

the 16-35?

I've decided to take the plunge and get a real macro lens but I can't

decide which, namely because I haven't seen any real reviews of

either. One user comment here on photo.net said that the Sigma and

Canon flavors are nearly identical in sharpness, etc. So why would

someone go for a Canon rather than a Sigma.<p>

I also expect I'll need a flash and my 550EX won't cut it I expect,

so I thought about a MR-14EX. Just seems like that big 72/77mm

filter thread that a ring light would get in the way of the image.

Something else... how does the focal length, therefore working

distance affect the quality of the ring flash?

I recently moved from an Elan7E to a 1V (well, keeping the Elan as a backup) and I haven't missed the eye control yet. For me, the eye control worked on the center five points but catching the outside points rarely worked. Well... some days it did, some days it didn't, so I went back to the * button focus and recompose method that I'm still using on the 1V.

Umm, I'm pretty sure that Fuji S3 blurb was an April fools joke. Any other source than dpreview?

The blow-up potential depends mainly on the quality of film. Walgreens "Studio 400" vs. Kodak Portra 400NC; the Walgreens would look like junk at 5x7 (no cropping) while I could make an 8x12 of the Kodak cropped and still be happy. I've noticed that Walgreens 200 looks like Fuji Superia 1600 that I left in a black car under Miami sun for a week.

Tamron vs. Canon:<p>

Don't even try. Maybe they might be comparable if you use a Canon kit lens, but otherwise you're wasting your time putting a Tamron lens on such a nice body. I am not a Canon snob, but I really only trust Canons, Sigma EX series and primes, and Tokina primes.

Everyone will say first start with a 50/1.4 or a 50/1.8, which will both make a good 85mm portrait lens. Add an 85/1.8 which makes a ~135 full face lens. Maybe a good 28mm or so lens would take care of normal viewing angle. Any wider than that and you might start to get expensive. The 20/2.8 isn't that bad.<p>

If you had to start out with just a few then the 28mm (maybe 20mm) and the 50/1.4 would give you an excellent starting point, just leave you a little wanting of working distance with portraits.<p>

If you'll accept a zoom, the 24-85/3.5-4.5 would be a fitting choice for the 10D, give you the ranges you need, and stopped down give equal performance to those primes mentioned.<p>

Your other question about the aperture range: the lenses will go down to f/22 or f/32 or something really small, but when marketing the lense most people don't care about how small the opening is, they care how big it can get, therefore Canon will advertise the maximum aperture and hide away (I can't even find the data) the minimum aperture

To answer your last question first, this is the "focus and recompose" method that I've always used with my EOS cameras since that first Rebel I borrowed. Generally, you can half-depress the shutter with the central focusing point right on your subject and the camera will AF on that area. Keep the button down halfway and recompose to however you want it to look. It may sound complicated but it really becomes absolute second nature after a month of shooting.<p>

There is also on some cameras (10D included) the ability to change the AF button to somewhere else, in this case about where your right thumb would sit on the upper right corner of the back of the camera. Press the button and it will AF. This focus and recompose is kind of moot when you talk about using eye-controlled focus, which I think works well in most situations with good bright lenses.<p>

Now your first question: it is kind of difficult to manualy focus with that type of screen unless you have very good eyes. At least, that's been my experience. Some situations are easier than others, but in an instance when AF will fail because of low light, I've found my eyes can't do much better.