allan_jamieson2

<p>Never used the GW or GSWIII models but still have a GSW690II in the cupboard in good condition and must say that it is a very easy camera to use once you get used to it, usually used it with hyperfocal settings based on aperture but the focusing mark works well enough in practice. The inbuilt spirit level of the markIII version is probably the most obviously useful difference, it also has more plastic on the body too which might make it a shade lighter but the lenses are the same in both versions, either the 90mm or 65mm.<br>

At this stage as both models are completely obsolete, I think it would make more sense to find the best condition version of either model that you can with the lowest usage count, either model would serve you well</p>

<p>I'd try it if I could get it to download onto my business iMac, tried already three times and nothing happens, it just sits there with the download icon showing how far it hasn't got! Just wish that Apple would offer a physical DVD or USB pen copy even for £10 to £20, it would be much easier, especially when you have multiple Mavericks compatible Macs between home and work, I guess I'll just stick with good old Snow Leopard for now, for what I'm doing with it, can't say that I have any real complaints as it is stable and easy to use.<br>

I might try to get it on my home iMac once it has been out a few months and any incompatibilities with existing software has been fixed but will need to do some late spring cleaning on the hard disc as it is virtually full just now. Nice that Apple have for once given something away for nothing, that isn't something that they do very often!</p>

Can't say i've heard of any other Glen Coe's personally. I've visited that area about 3 or 4 times this year, its only a few hours drive for

me, it would be easy to list loads of places worth photographing in and around the glen itself. i'll list just a few if you have a good eye

you'll see the good stuff easily enough as you drive around.

 

Obvious starting point would be the southern end of the Glen, with various lochans on Rannoch Moor giving nice reflections usually

showing the Black Mount in the background. There are quite a few viewpoints for Buachaille Etive Mor which is the most recognisable

mountain in the area, Black Rock Cottage is one of those views, the waterfalls in Glen Etive that David mentioned are another. Glen Etive

has loads of interesting possibilities if you look carefully around you, check out the waterfalls and Dalness Lodge alias Skyfall in James

Bond. Loch Achtrochtan at other end of Glen is usually good for reflections. Various possibilities for views of the Pass of Glen Coe in

middle of glen and from old road which is now a footpath above current road.

 

Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe is pretty close, well worth a look going through Glen Orchy, Castle Stalker is also a good option, check your

maps, both close driving distance, you can drive along Loch Awe towards Oban and up coast to Castle Stalker and then round coast

back to Glen Coe again.

 

I could write pages on this area, I know it so well but this should get you started anyway!

<p>I used an L-408 for years with a Pentax 67 that I had without a metering head and it worked very well, maybe the spot metering angle isn't very tight but in practice it was tight enough, i.e. for metering the sky either side of the setting sun to get a decent exposure on transparency film. I didn't have many misses using this meter, think I still have it somewhere in the cupboard too!</p>

<p>Did mean 1TB drive not 1GB! Thanks for suggestions, not sure how fast it can transfer data but it is slower than the newer models in that respect i.e pre Thunderbolt or whatever Apple call it, definitely need to cut down the stuff on the hard drive and put the pictures on to a separate drive which should also probably be cloned too. So that might end up being the existing backup drive for general odds and ends with an additional drive for the images with a separate duplicate drive setup to copy the contents of the second drive. Probably better having two 2TB drives for the images I suppose.</p>

<p>Using an iMac 27 inch, with 1GB hard disk, (not newest model) am almost at point where disk is full completely. All data is automatically backed up to another 1GB USB plug in hard disk. I will sift through the images that are on the hard disc and delete quite a few that I don't need/want to keep but will need to find a better way of storing the images in future. I'm doing this more as a hobby these days but using a Nikon D800, hence large raw files which soon take up a lot of space.<br>

I could put the older stuff on DVD, making two copies of each DVD, hard disk could be changed and more RAM added too I suppose or is there a better setup to keep the Lightroom images on an external more secure hard disk? </p>

<p>Had this problem a few years ago with a Sigma 50mm macro lens, I gave it a wipe with methalated spirit (methanol) which I use quite often for cleaning camera lense optics and mounts as it evaporates off quickly and usually does a good job. But in this case it stripped a big chunk of the coating off of the lens barrel and I had to do the rest of it to match, ended up black and a bit shiny with no writing on it!</p>

<p>Been having a persistent issue over last few weeks with Live View turning itself off within seconds of being turned on. Changed batteries to make sure that there was plenty of charge in them, tried with and without Nikon plug in Intervalometer and this still happens most of the time. Sometimes, it will work for only a few seconds, other times maybe a minute. I don't leave Live View on for too long at any one time, only a few minutes maximum at any one time to avoid any sensor overheating.</p>

<p>I have been using for all of that time a Sigma 150mm OS, experienced same issue again this morning and switched to my older Sigma 105mm lens and this time Live View seemed to work perfectly. Obviously, needs a bit more testing but just wondering if this kind of defect is more likely to be to do with the lens, rather than the camera? I've got a few other macro lenses I can test it with but I like the 150mm lens for its ability to throw more of the background out of focus than the 105mm can. The 150mm lens and camera have been working perfectly together since last year before this, I did notice that the camera was showing an aperture of f2.8 on the top screen and when I managed to get Live View on it was then showing f16, which is where it should have been. I will try cleaning all the contacts on camera and lens and see if that makes any difference. Just seems a bit of an odd fault, some kind of communications error perhaps?</p>

<p>The f8 rule of thumb is pretty much true with the D800 but for some types of photography like macro, f8 just won't give you that much depth of field for a non flat subject and you have the choice with lenses like the Sigma 150mm (I use the OS version) of sticking to f8 and not getting much in focus or doing focus stacking if you have a subject which is completely motionless. I took a lot of floral pictures this morning on my D800 with the Sigma 150mm macro at apertures from f14 to f18; not ideal for ultimate sharpness but anything shallower than that leaves too much just not anywhere near sharp and even in calm conditions the flowers are moving slightly all the time. The detail that I'm getting from that lens is incredible, sometimes you have to compromise a bit just to get the image in one take without focus stacking techniques. In a more controlled environment, focus stacking would certainly have a large quality edge as you would be using the lens at its optimal aperture of say f5.6 or f8.</p>

<p>Not had that issue but I suppose the bigger issue is that it is no longer possible to buy an upgrade to Photoshop CS6 from CS5. That option is no longer showing on the UK Adobe website and third party resellers are out of stock as well. I wasn't in any great rush to upgrade as I'd changed over to CS5 from CS3 when Adobe stated that you would not be able to update to anything after CS5 unless you first bought CS5 and then immediately after that they allowed people to upgrade straight from CS3 to CS6. Not a trustworthy company in my view, it is one thing to move to their new business model of renting the new software per month but I would have expected the CS6 upgrade option to have lasted a lot longer than it has. Goodbye Adobe!</p>

<p>I'm sure that its possible to track use of images online from individual cameras, there are websites where you can put the serial number of your camera and look to see where your images are actually being used. I did that with my last camera, a D90 out of interest but it only showed the images where they should have been. Maybe if you tried that with the D70S serial number you might find images from it on Flickr or similar websites and be able to work out who and where the current owner is.</p>

<p>Many amateur artists routinely copy photographs from calendars, post cards, internet etc and would not even consider asking for permission to do so. With commonly seen views usually nobody is any the wiser, not that it is entirely ethical. I used to have one artist who bought some of my photographs so that he could paint them, I wasn't too bothered as I did charge him a reasonable price. But, I have seen other people paint copies of images of mine that were very unique, taken from viewpoints that took a great deal of climbing up or down to get to. To me that is a rip off, as I had to do a lot to get these images. I met one of these copy artists once at a local art exhibition who couldn't tell me where the location was of the image of mine that he'd copied! However, the internet being what it is, as soon as people see an image that they like, there will be close copies made of what was up until then an original composition. There isn't usually an awful lot you can do about it. I like to be as original as I can be but sometimes you are just following along from countless other photographers, putting your tripod in exactly the same place and the only real difference between what you have done and what they have is the quality of the light and/or your camera equipment. But, if you are willing to look around there are usually other possibilities if you are just prepared to walk that bit further, do that little bit more than the photographers who cannot walk more than 5 minutes from their car.</p>

<p>I know the lens you mean, I still have one that I used to use on my Olympus OM4, it was a fantastic macro lens, very, very sharp at macro distances but awful at infinity which is unlike more modern designs like the Sigma 50mm macro lens which works well at all distances. I have seen some examples of the Vivitar lens that are being sold on eBay with the lens mounts changed, so I guess in theory that it would be possible to have it altered for a Nikon F mount or maybe just try to buy one that was made with that mount originally.</p>

<p>Kind of agree with some of what Clive said, Jessops were a much better shop in the 1990's, the Glasgow branch in Sauchiehall Street was big, two floors, lots of stuff to see and usually busy. Then post film, shopping habits changed, less experienced staff to talk to and get advice from, that shop shrunk to one floor open and became a lot less interesting to browse and I visited it less and less. I feel sorry for the staff, someone might buy the brand name but chances are that most of the current stories will be closed.</p>

<p>The other sad thing is that most of the items shops like Jessops sell are made in Asia, we could make some of these items in Europe but minimum wage legislation means that this will never happen. No one wants people to be exploited but it is sad to see so many young people out of work, surely better to have them doing something and earning a wage, than sitting at home unemployed learning nothing. We all want the nice things in life but sometimes I wonder if politicians think all this stuff through before rubber stamping everything that the EU spouts out. Showing my age here, when I was 16 years old I worked part time in the local Safeways store, earning the stupendous sum of £0.93 per hour. I still worked hard there and bought my first car from my work there. I didn't feel exploited, you worked and you earned, you didn't work, you didn't earn; simple really. Now the politicians in Scotland want to push through the so called Living Wage which is even higher than the minimum wage. Nice in theory if money is free but private companies have to work very hard to survive these days. Not that long ago I had a business which employed 6 people, it took everything I had to keep that going, to the point when I wasn't even earning the minimum wage myself as I had to pay part time staff "Holiday Pay", plus a high rent, VAT on Turnover, not profits etc. With issues like that to address I am in no rush to ever employ anyone again and people should expect to see more businesses like Jessops buckling under this kind of pressure. Trouble is most of our political leaders have rarely ever had a real job (i.e. non public sector) and don't really understand what it is to run a business, all they want is more money out of all of us.</p>

<p>None of these companies are local to me, I live in the middle of Scotland and believe me apart from a few small independent stores, Jessops were the only store in town with a good range of stock. There are plenty of good independent camera retailers but they operate for most people as online dealers unless you are lucky enough to live close to them. Nearest one that I can think of in Scotland is Ffordes in Beauly, Invernesshire, only about 4 hours drive, most of the other large independents are down in England.</p>

<p>Jessops were the only nationwide camera retailer in the UK, without them there is only the internet or whatever you can find in supermarkets or shops like John Lewis. Jessops never recovered from the changeover from film to digital, people came in to get film developed, bought more film, looked at new camera gear and probably bought other odds and ends too. </p>

<p>More recently people looked at cameras at Jessops, then went home to buy the same item for a few pounds less from the internet. In this day and age Jessops could not make enough profit to cover their overheads:</p>

<p>(1) if you are renting expensive premises in prime locations in major towns/cities, your online competitors can operate from a warehouse somewhere much cheaper.</p>

<p>(2) Staffing Levels and Training. Jessops needed a lot of staff with product training to deal with customers enquiries, demonstrate products etc. That took a lot of expensive staff time. Online, you either buy from a website with no direct human contact or tell someone what you want, pay for it, much less staff cost/time than high street selling.</p>

<p>(3) Business Rates, as mentioned before, these are high for retailers with good locations with that money being taken off them and then spent by councils to support their administration costs. Lower rates are needed to help high street retailers survive, if that means that councils need to cut their size and staffing, then so be it. My own local council don't even clean the local streets or pavements, I guess that department could be closed down with some cost saving. And any time it snows, well, don't expect the roads to be cleared or pavements either!</p>

 

<p>It can happen on the D800 too but it has a little shutter which can be pulled over to shield it, don't know if the D600 has this feature? However, such light leakage is usually only an issue with long exposures, you shouldn't find this an issue in normal usage. It did happen to me recently on my D800 but that was with me using a ten stop ND filter, some stray light came in through the viewfinder leaving circular marks on the image.</p>

<p>Regarding the comments on the Nikon 28mm f1.8g, I bought one of these back in July and have been very happy with it, no strange focusing issues at all, just very, very sharp images with my D800. If the new Sigma 35mm f1.4 resembles the Nikon 28mm f1.8g in this respect, it will sell lots of copies and deservedly so. The Nikon 28mm f1.8 g is one of my favourite lenses. There will always be a few rogue examples of any product and it may well be the case that some people have been unfortunate enough to buy bad copies of the Nikon 28mm f1.8g and complained about this issue online to the extent that people think that most copies are affected with similar issues. </p>

<p>How about the Sigma 105mm macro? I'm using one of those (last version) on a D800 and have been pleasantly surprised at its performance both at macro distances and at infinity, hard to imagine sharper images really. Not the lightest lens but of its type pretty good. I've also tried an old manual Tamron 90mm SP lens on the D800 too, bitingly sharp, light but fairly unpleasant out of focus highlights with a strange colour to them, probably just the pre digital lens coatings. I'm guessing the newer AF versions of this will have equally sharp performance but with better coatings.</p>

<p>Just wondering whether there are any particular stock agencies better to deal with in the UK than others. I've got a huge amount of old images, many 6 x 7cm and 6 x9cm medium format which might not be so easy to market these days without scanning first. I'd probably pick the best of them and get them professionally scanned. Plus a lot of good full frame digital images taken more recently. I have worked full time at landscape photography in the past, these days it is just a hobby, not looking or expecting to make that much money from it but any income helps pay for my photography equipment etc.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The Live View issue with the D800/e is a shame as it doesn't take much magnification in Live View for the whole image to become very blurry indeed. Saying that, using it carefully, I have managed some remarkable macro images using Live View, that would not have been possible without that technology. Think back to 35mm film days when Velvia was King, look through a small viewfinder focus as well as you can using your eyesight stop down a bit, use a cable release, get the film developed and hope for the best. I did manage good macro images then but Live View makes such images achievable virtually all the time if you take a bit of time over it. The only issue being how quickly diffraction kicks in with the D800, I think I will need to learn focus stacking to get the best out of the camera for macro shots, stopping down too much will definitely lose some resolution and image quality.</p>

<p>Thinking about the Live View issue, when I first got my D800 I used it virtually all the first week taking macro images because we were having some unusually late frosts combined with a good amount of wild flowers coming into bloom. Battery life was as low as 150 shots on one occasion when I used Live View for every image. I thought at first that my camera was faulty as there was no information out there on how much battery life you should get using the camera in that way. Assuming that Nikon have deliberately reduced the resolution of the screen image for Live View, might that be to increase potential battery life over what it would be if the D800 gave us a full resolution view without any interpolation? Because like it or not using Live View a lot will dramatically reduce battery life, if a "perfect" Live View could be achieved with the D800 but reduced battery life to 100 or less images would people accept that or start moaning about poor battery life instead. It would be nice to have the option to test a D800 with Live View similar to that used in the Canon 5DIII and I dare say that newer models will address this issue, not sure if a software upgrade or hack can make Live View work without any interpolation but there must be a reason why Nikon made Live View on the D800 work the way that it does at present.</p>

<p>I went with the D800 when it first came out, mainly because of the fuss that Nikon made about moire being possible with the e version and not really knowing at that time how likely that was to be an issue before any proper tests were online between the two versions. That and the fact that the e version was around £200 more and was going to be another month or so before it became available.</p>

<p>I am very happy with the D800 in all things except the huge price drop in the UK after I had bought it! Funnily enough the price gap between the e version and the plain D800 is much more than it was at launch, looks like the e version will probably hold its value better long term and give a tiny bit more sharpness straight out of the camera than the D800. Either way I doubt that you would be unhappy, choosing again I would probably have taken the e version but the images that I am getting from my D800 are very, very sharp straight out of the camera. Most important thing is to use the best lenses that you can, a D800e with poorer lenses will produce inferior images to a D800 with better lenses, the different filter setup is only part of the story, good technique also helps.</p>

<p>Years ago when I first became interested in photography, my first good camera was an Olympus OM4. I loved the way that camera handled, all the controls just where you needed them and nothing more than you needed. I've had lots of cameras since then, most sadly bigger and heavier than that OM4, bloated with features that I neither want nor need. If Olympus had brought out a full frame version of the OM4 I would have been very interested or even an APS sensor version. Micro four thirds I tried when I bought a Panasonic GF1, I wanted to like the camera because of all the good reviews that it had but when it came down to it my small Panasonic TZ6 gave me images virtually as good as the GF1 ( even as jpegs compared to GF raw files) and my Nikon D90 blew them both out of the water. After that I sold the GF1 and am not keen to revisit that format again, even though the OMD is a newer design with a better sensor than the GF1.<br>

I'm now using a Nikon D800, which is bigger and heavier than most DSLR cameras but it just gives me so much better quality images with incredible dynamic range. I've still got a Panasonic point and shoot, this time a TZ30, which actually is in many ways a poorer camera than the TZ6 funnily enough, with to my eyes poorer quality images. I will probably get a small Nikon camera such as the D5100 or maybe the D5200 if they come down in price as a lighter weight alternative to the D800, with the benefit that lenses are interchangable.</p>

<p>Whatever camera you use when it comes down to it what matters most is that you actually have the camera with you when you see something interesting. If your main camera is too heavy for you or you are out for a walk with photography as an incidental, then a good light weight camera that you can carry with you without having to think about it could make all the difference. For many people that camera is the OMD, for others it is something different. By this time next year there will be fresh options available, don't worry too much, just find the best camera that suits your needs and take plenty of photographs.</p>

<p>Personally, I wouldn't worry about it too much, get some decent lenses set them to f8 and start taking photographs. Remember, diffraction will kick in below f8 and most lenses on the D800 are at their best in between f5.6 and f8, doesn't mean that you can't use f11 and f16 occasionally, just that it isn't always beneficial to do so as overall image quality will start to degrade.</p>

<p>For my D800 I'm using the Zeiss 21mm, Nikon 28mm f1.8g, 50mm f1.8 g and Sigma 105mm & 150mm macro lenses. Yes, there will be occasions when a PCE lens would be helpful but on the whole it is possible to manage without one. Choose the most important part of the image and focus on that if you want it to look at its best, with ultra wide angles it is pretty easy to get near to far in the scene all sharp without using f22. If mountains are really distant it will hardly be noticed if you focused for the foreground with a wide angle lens. By all means experiment a bit and see what gives you the results that you want.</p>

<p>PS Forgot to say use Live View to look at what happens with small alterations to focus or changes in aperture on the important parts of the scene that you are trying to capture. It kind of works, just not as clearly as one might like though, hopefully future models will have better Live View resolution, things get fuzzy pretty quickly when you start magnifying.</p>

<p>On full frame cameras like the D800 there are technical tests which show diffraction having a marked effect by f11, with f5.6 to f8 being the optimal point for best image quality on most lenses. I've got a D800 myself and am trying to keep to f8 for most landscape images only going smaller than that with macro images, where you will find much less depth of field than a DX camera would give. When I had a Pentax 67II I used f11 most of the time and that was the sweet spot for that format. Larger formats than that need smaller apertures still but full frame/ 35mm format usually won't need very small apertures, honestly in most cases a smaller aperture than f8 isn't going to be beneficial, be very sparing of f22 unless you really need every last bit of depth of field.<strong><br /></strong></p>