mendel_leisk

<p>For the crop body, 50mm might be frustratingly "long", I'd consider the 35mm f2.0, for a (close to) normal perspective prime lens. I think you can only find the mark II now, which is pricier, has Image Stabilizing. The older version is kind of a cool "cheap" lens, if you can find it: very compact/light, close-focusses up to 200 mm distance. About $200?</p> <p>I'm using one of the older version 35mm f2.0 on full frame sometimes, it's nice there too, a modest wide angle. More-or-less identical perspective as an iPhone. :)</p>

<p>^ That's pretty slick. Every time I try something, ham fisted, it ends up doodoo. Not worthy, not worthy...</p>

<p>I'm using a regular thickness B+W MRC UV filter on the 17-40, no vignette. This is on a full frame DSLR, 5DMKIII.</p>

<p>I'm using some (obscure?) cleaner I got for glasses, from my optometrist:</p> <p>Protekt Lens Cleaner<br /> for anti-reflective lenses</p> <p>It has a vaguely ether-like aroma, works very well. I'll finish by just fogging with breath, final wipe. Then blow residual dust with a squeeze bulb blower.</p> <p>I just use plain (disposable) tissues, very light pressure.</p>

<p>Are you <em>sure</em> it's zooming to max? I'm not that familiar with MKII, have MKIII. I know with the latter you press the magnify button for ONE increment of zoom, then have to switch to the top scroll button (adjacent to shutter release button) for more zoom.</p> <p>This is a departure from older MKI I had (and a few previous EOS bodies) where you have separate plus (+) and minus (-) buttons. I prefer the old method better: easier, more direct, more intuitive.</p>

<p>Yes, made a point of using live view, on a walk. With quick mode focus there's not too much overhead. I especially like the exposure preview, and how it gives feedback (darken/lighten) as you try exposure compensation. Eats up the battery charge quicker though, lol.</p>

<p>Yeah, email Ed. He'll want to know, and will likely send you a fixed executable to test asap. The more info you can give him, the better.</p>

<p>Email the maker of Vuescan, Ed Hamrick. He'll get on it.</p> <p>When downloading the Vuescan executable, it's always a good idea to salt the files away. Occasionally a new iteration will introduce bugs, then you can always fall back 'till the bug is sorted.</p>

<p>I wish I'd stuck with Tri-X. Somewhere in the late '80's I switched to an Ilford film for a while, some sort of desaturated color film stock. Something was "growing" on it, by the time I got around to scanning it. I'm guessing some sort of crystalline precipitate, frustrating as heck cloning that out.</p> <p>With Tri-X scans I had a fair bit of dust and scratches though, some due to my sliding strips in my enlarger's holder. Live and learn.</p>

<p>Kodak Panatomic-X comes to mind. There was another Kodak film, even finer, needed special developer? Anyway, a link on Pan-X:</p> <p>http://www.photo.net/film-and-processing-forum/00CzLv</p> <p>I'm pretty sure this was Pan-X I shot, likely dilution B HC110 developed. Nice film:</p> <p> </p><div></div>

<p>I've always struggled, trying to get decent colour out of colour negative films. These were decades of saved films, scanning them myself. Currently I only shoot a little black and white, scan it myself. Unfortunately, scanners are hard to come by now. Some thoughts:</p> <p>1. Shoot (the color negative film) at the rated ISO.<br> 2. Try some slide film.<br> 3. Shoot black and white.<br> 4. Try getting your own scanner.</p> <p>I think you want to persevere with film, and that's worthy, still: consider switching to digital?</p> <p> </p>

<p>An advantage with the Vuescan tiff format "raw" too: you can crop, rotate, and "spot" it, ie: deal with any dust and scratches. As long as it doesn't include infrared data, the cleaning channel. And you can apply Vuescan's cleaning to the raw file. It's a mixed-bag though.</p> <p>The file's appearance if opened in Photoshop is extremely dark. But in PS you can set up a gamma 1.0 Proof Viewing Mode, and toggle it on/off with a hotkey, helps a lot.</p>

<p>We live in "greater" Vancouver, albeit out in the suburbs. David Wong's given you lots of great ideas. Just to throw in a few more:</p> <p>Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, downtown.</p> <p>Out at University of British Columbia (UBC): Nitobe Gardens (Japanese) and the UBC Museum of Anthropology. These two quite close to each other. Both a bit of a drive though, out at Point Grey.</p> <p>Bring along plenty of $ for parking, wherever you go in Vancouver, especially the city proper. The last few decades have seen a steady escalation in the price and ubiquity of pay parking. Same thing for admission to most any of the venues. Sad really, I don't like to dis' my (adopted) home town, but...</p>

<p>I think there's validity to the scanner "raw" file. Vuescan says:</p> <p>Hey: I've got this data from the scanner, would you like me to create a tiff file from it, with no messing around? Later on, you can "scan" from this file, do anything you like with it, any adjustments, within Vuescan. The results will be exactly the same as if you did this at the time of scan.</p> <p>Or, would you like me to process the data, with whatever you <em>currently</em> think is the best way to do it, and discard the raw info?</p>

<p>I used Kodalith a bit, found if I developed it with regular darkroom paper developers it produced a passable continuous tone image, either contact printing or enlarging.</p> <p>Shoot some b/w negative film and contact print it with Kodalith and it's associated high contrast developer?</p>

<p>Thanks. :)</p>

I've got the lluxury of a windowless powder room. Makes things easier.

<p>Ah, figured it out: I've always activated Live View by switching the little toggle on the Start/Stop button counter clockwise, to the little red icon (which represents a video camera!). Then snapped a picture. This is forcing the camera into 16:9 cinematic mode I guess.</p> <p>Now, if I leave the little toggle at 12 oclock, and just push the start/stop button, problem solved, lol.</p>

<p>Reading the manual a bit: I have aspect ratio set to 3:2. The camera seems to be ignoring this, producing 16:9 ratio.</p> <p>Maybe a firmware update would resolve this?</p>

<p>And here's the result, outputting a picture with Adobe Camera Raw in Bridge, it's cropping beyond the bands. Help!</p><div></div>

<p>I've had very limited use of live view, and I <em>think</em> it was working ok at some point in the past, not completely sure. I could pour through the Manual, but that thing is intimidating, and I'm hoping someone will bail me out.</p> <p>What's happening: when I take a shot using Live View, say landscape view, then view the result, there are odd bars running along the top and bottom.</p> <p>If I process the raw file through ACR, it crops everything outside of the bars. A typical image is 5760x3840. The Live view images are 5760x3240, so 300 pixels trimmed off top and bottom.</p> <p>Here's a shot of the camera back, viewing the image:</p> <p> </p><div></div>

<p>About 5 years back I boxed up all my darkroom stuff, donated to a thrift store. Then I got the bug again, have been developing a few (well, very few) films lately. Only thing:</p> <p>I bought a new 35 mm canister, and it's got a different locking mechanism. My old real had a clip at the center. As long as you were reasonable careful with alignment, got the leader cupped and in there, pushed down the locking spring and fed the leader in, you were set.</p> <p>My new reel has a couple of hooks you have to snag into the sprocket holes. With every roll I've had a heck of a time getting it right. Start to sweat, getting exasperated. I've persevered, but I'm kicking myself for giving away my old canister.</p>

<p>Use a bounce flash? Has to be indoors, with lowish ceilings. I've used Canon's low end flash, even it's capable of tilting up, anywhere from 0 deg to 90 deg, bouncing the flash off a ceiling, preferably near-white. Works well, gives your shots a diffused daylight look, no red-eye, no harsh flash shadows.<br> Currently the low end flash would be Canon Speedlight 270EXII.</p>

<p>Yup. Read this post yesterday, thought what's the point, but yeah: jpeg is compressed, and size <strong><em>hinges</em></strong> on the complexity of the picture.</p>

<p>Handbrake might work for you.</p>