rob_landry

Steve,

 

Your argument about DSLR crop factors and medium and large format is moot because medium format lenses were not designed and could not be used on large format cameras so the issue never came up; you either shot one or the other or you had two different systems. Also, both types of cameras were used for entirely different things.

 

With digital SLRs, there is considerable blurring of the lines because DSLRs look the same as their film counterparts, were designed to fulfill much the same role and *CAN* use lenses designed exclusively for 35mm. The problem is that focal lengths designed for 35mm were designed around that format and were very useful for that format. All of a sudden, your carefully selected lens collection, based on years of experience, becomes not so useful anymore. For many, the crop factor is a bastard child that just happens to be able to mount 35mm lenses. The other issue with cropped DSLRs, as mentioned previously, is their mediocre viewfinders. There is simply no comparison between the viewfinder of an F-series Nikon and that of a cropped DSLR. Looking through the viewfinder of my F4 is like looking at an IMAX screen in comparison to that of a D2x. Eye relief is also much better and I have a K split screen installed to further aid in manual focusing. Nikon does not offer even one manual focus screen for any of it's DSLRs, not even the $4500 D2x. The newly minted F6 however, has an entire plethora of interchangeable focusing screens and a spectacular viewfinder to go long with said screens.

Well, just got done viewing his entire gallery. I guess I must not be a fan of extremely low contrast, pastel/muted landscape images. Did not see any really striking compositions either. Nothing really here that strikes me in any way or that would keep me coming back. Certainly nothing that would do justice to thousands of dollars of the best gear on earth. To each his own I guess.

I don't know if what you're seeing here is genuine animosity towards Reichmann, I thinks it's more a lack of respect. People tend to respect those who display genuine talent, especially when they choose to speak with authority on a topic. Any time you have an individual that parades around with this amount of fancy gear that does not appear to have the results to go along with said gear, you're going to get a certain amount of disrespect. If this review had of come from the likes of David Meunch, Carr Clifton, Christopher Burkett, Franz Lanting etc., I highly doubt the reaction would have been the same.

Well, it's doubtful that Velvia is at fault here, although Velvia may not have been the best choice considering the lighting. Anyway, it is likely that the processing may have gone bad, especially considering that all 20 frames looked off in regards to contrast and color balance. Excessive contrast can be caused by problems with first and/or color developers.

 

By the way, where were these shots taken? Looks like somewhere in the north east.

I use the Kodak 5L kit and the results are as good as or better than my local pro lab used to achieve. I've never used any of the 3 bath kits, but from all I've read, they're inferior to the true 6 bath kits from Kodak or Fuji. Do a Google search and I think you'll find that the traditional 6 bath is a safer bet.

Ron,

 

I have not had any of the "oiling" that you spoke of and my processed film turned out fine. Upon thawing, I rolled the bottles across the counter to make sure the chemicals were mixed and everything looked as it should. I'm planning on processing again soon, so I will keep an eye out.

I agree with Ilkka 100%.

 

My opinion: cropped DSLRs are a kludge that were invented because of sensor cost/limitations, nothing more. No engineer woke up one day and said to himself: "gee, I can design and produce a 35mm chip, but nah, I'll pull this cropped DX chip outta my a** because golly it's got so many benefits over full sized chips". Yeah right.

 

Myself, no more DX DSLRs in my future. My D50 will serve my purpose for my quick digital 'fix', but for my serious small format shooting, I'm sticking with film. The wonderful Nikon viewfinders on the F-series Nikons, their amazing wide-angle primes, my 50mm f/1.2 are what separate FF from DX for me. Where are these lenses for DX?Nowhere. Whadda we get instead...a 12-24 f/4 zoom, no wait a 17-55 f/2.8 zoom that weighs as much as most cameras, costs $1200 and is still slow at f/2.8. Wow, excuse me if I'm a little under whelmed.

 

Nope, sorry, not convinced DX is the way of the future and if it is for Nikon, well, Canon here I come baby. At least with Canon, I could use my existing Nikon primes as they were intended with a simple converter. Hmmm.....

Yup, agree with Arnab; I should send my D50 to Nikon to have its pixels checked ;-) Maybe I'm too picky but then again I'm used to shooting LF.

The problem with the classic supply and demand rule in regards to film is that both Fuji and Kodak are huge, publicly traded corporations. So in order for supply and demand to work for them, it has to work on a massive scale; investors want to see increasing sales, not steady sales.

 

As far as film going the way of the Dodo, not likely. Some small, privately owned company could easily make and sell B&W film and make a profit. Color film is another animal, but if the equipment could be acquired cheaply enough, it could be done. Most likely Fuji will still maintain some of its film lines (Velvia etc.) out of tradition, even though that part of the company may not be contributing to increased share value. Kodak, being of the ultra-capitalist mould, unlikely. So, the supply and demand model is still somewhat alive, its just that publicly traded companies dance to a much different tune. These companies are not interested in quality, niche products, they want to target the average Joe; hence digital's success.

Judging by the other responses you've received to your "verifiable, relevant news", I don't think it was taken very seriously. This news is kinda like the boy who cried wolf; after a while people just don't care anymore. Anyway, despite this news, Fuji has seen fit to release two new emulsions at PMA 2006. Guess they don't read USA Today.

Let the scanner warm up for 20 minutes to half an hour before launching the Minolta software.

.[. Z ,

 

Let it go man, just let it go. Get some counseling or something, call Dr. Phil; it's not healthy to obsess about this so much. Maybe try posting an actual photography question or topic instead of trolling about film's demise. Don't worry about film or digital, just go out and make images. Let the film users shoot with film and let the digital guys shoot with their digital cameras. Despite your (or USA Todays') intervention or opinion, the future will find it's own way. The only thing you can be sure of is death and taxes; the rest we'll just have to wait and see.

Me too!

I doubt you'll see a D80 in the near future. For one, Nikon can't even supply any D200s to the market and that camera was announced back in November. Second, Nikon NEVER competes with itself and if the D200 is 10MP, they will in no way release a 10MP, D80; perhaps an 8MP camera, but what's the point of that. Who'd upgrade from 6 to 8MP? Does Nikon even have access to a suitable 8MP sensor? Regardless, even if they did release a new DSLR, you most likely won't be able to get your hands on one before Q4 anyway. You'd be better served by just getting a D50/70 now; that's 6-8 months of shooting you could be doing. Lesson: don't wait to purchase a DSLR if you need one, cause you'll be waiting forever (especially if it's a Nikon).

I think your question may be moot unless you are extremely dedicated to finding film to purchase because 8x10 transparencies are not easy to come by. Astia 100F in 8x10 is almost impossible to find, Velvia 50 has been discontinued and I believe the new Velvia 100 is only available as a special order (Fuji only does a run when enough orders are received and I believe there is a minimum box requirement (wait times probably range in months). Provia 100F is supposed to be a regular stock item, but I don't think anyone actually carries it, even B&H doesn't stock 8x10 anymore.

There's no doubt the D200 is a better, overall more refined camera, but if you're just starting out, buying a D200 may be the wrong choice. The D50/D70 does pretty much all the things the more expensive D200 does, it's just that the D200 adds a little more convenience. As far as picture quality goes, I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference. Just because the D200 sports 29% more pixels doesn't mean you get 29% more resolution (hint, pixels don't tell anything about resolving power; scanner m'fers have been playing this game for years). From the comparisons I've seen floating around, I'd say the D200 probably delivers no more than 10% higher actual detail (I suspect its AA filter may contribute to this).

 

While I've always advocated buying the best equipment you can afford, with digital cameras, I have a hard time doing so because of the short product cycles and the speed at which advancements are being made to camera bodies. Unless you are going to work that camera hard over the next 2 years, shooting thousands of frames, you may be better off buying a lower end model and spending your money on lenses, a good tripod system and having prints made. This notion of buying a camera to last quite a few years probably won't work with the majority of users; in 2-3 years, a newer model will be out at half the price (D80-D90??) that will eclipse the D200 in every way. Like computers, staying on the leading edge of technology is very costly and unless you have a real need, can be a waste of money.

I store my E6 working solutions (in plastic bottles) in my deep-freeze at -22 Celsius. Froze a bunch over 6 months ago and just processed some film last weekend with great results; no noticeable changes with a test roll. I can't imagine a whole lot of oxidation occurring at that temp.

 

I mainly freeze my chems for convenience; it's a lot easier (and more accurate) to mix the entire 5L kit at once and freeze into 1L sized bottles than it is to try and draw off small amounts of chems from the concentrates every time I want to process. When I processed last weekend, I simply took the 6 frozen bottles from the deep-freeze, placed them in the sink with hot water, they thawed out in 45 minutes and I was ready to process. No need to haul out my graduates, and other related mixing crap and no need to try and evacuate air or find smaller bottles for the concentrates; easy as pie.

Well, I processed some film using chemicals that had been frozen in my deepfreeze since my last post. I thawed the chems by sitting the bottles in hot water in the sink for 45 minutes. There was a minute amount of precipitate in one of the chems but rolling it along the counter a few times, they re-dissolved. All chems looked the same as when fresh and most important of all, the film looked great and matched the test roll.

I've looked through the D2x viewfinder at my local shop, and while it's pretty easy to manual focus, it is definitely smaller and more cramped than the finder on an F series Nikon or the likes of the Canon 1DsMkII. Only you will be able to decide if you can live with it or not.

www.naturephotographers.net

 

Great site, with lots of good info and discussions about techniques, locations and quite a few large format shooters hang out there.

 

Naturescapes.net is okay, but like Dpreview, tends to be too equipment oriented. Endless threads about the newest pro DSLR or high buck Canon telephoto lenses.

In regards to the D100 crops, it appears that there are some interpolation artefacts. Shooting .jpg and sharpening before upsampling is not an optimum workflow. Any artefacts introduced by these destructive edits will be exagerated.

 

While, there is an increase in detail over the D100 (which has an aggressive AA filter), I don't find the difference staggering; there would likely be less of a difference between the D70 and D200. The D200 is only delivering an extra 864 pixels along the long side, hardly earth shattering (actually a 28% increase). In fact, for me, one disappointment in the D200 is that it didn't come with the D2x's 12.5 MP sensor (getting 4288 pixels on the long dimension would have been nice). Of course, with 12.5 MP, the D200 would likely not have been $1700. The D200 is definitely a usability upgrade though; MLU, build quality, better viewfinder etc.

Wow Van, I dunno, buying the best body while skimping on glass, seems kinda backward to me.</p>

 

<i>"It's not like he won't have excellent glass to use with it, it's just a single focal length that he can't cover."</i></p>

 

Well, with a D70 and the right lens, you get the shot. With a D200 and the wrong lens, well you can probably do the math...</p>

 

Hey, whatever floats yer boat, but I'd rather have a D70 and the 17-55 than a D200 and a gap in my lens range.</p>

 

Isn't it funny how the D200 hasn't even been out for 48 hours yet and already the D70 is useless for serious work. I know quite a few photographers who have been very successfully shooting D70's for their wedding work.

Ilkka,

 

I'm not too sure how much the eyepoint is affected, but there is a lot of discussion about it on Dpreview and Nikonians. From my brief reading, it sounds like those using it are very satisfied and that all seem to say that the full viewfinder and metering display along the bottom remain visible.

 

That is such great news about the new screen. Hopefully Katz Eye will develop one for the D50, cause I really didn't want to purchase a D200 yet (still shooting too much film); the finder is really the only quibble I have with the D50 at this point.

Ilkka,

 

Great info. I don't know if you've heard or not, but apparently, one can use Nikon's DK-17M eyepiece magnifier on the D50/70 cameras for a 1.2X magnification of the finder image. Perhaps this coupled with your new screen would see an even greater increase in viewfinder usability.

SW,

 

You can try to sell some of your 35mm SLRs on Ebay; just put a reasonable reserve price to see what you can get. You never know.

Keep at least one of your 35s and start shooting some film here and there, shoot it along side of your D70. I do this with my D50 and it's nice to have a film back-up of a keeper. I did this the other day for a landscape shot. I shot the scene with the digital first and then shot it with the F100 and Velvia. Upon getting home, I immediately played with the D50 shot and got the image to where I was pleased. A week later, upon getting the film developed, I found that the film shot was much more to my liking (color, contrast etc.), so I scanned it, matched the slide and got a better result. The Minolta 5400 also delivered more resolution and the foliage and bark on the trees had much better detail; the D50 was mushier in those areas.