david_senesac

Hi Bob,

 

The point is increased visual perception. Admittedly given the limits of the information it may not be something others would readily be able to aply to activities in a useful way. As such I expect many will consider such an instrument uninteresting thus my floating this thread to see what others might think.

 

For the photographer it would not be of any direct use connectivity wise to their photographic gear thus any benefits would be mental. However photographers of nature often have a keen sense of the natural light and thus I see this as something complementing one's camera sensors which might add another dimension to understanding natural light.

 

The key here is not to have it priced against expensive spectrophotometer or colorimeter graphic instruments. The prices for which are more about software used to output and process information. This tool would not have any outputs thus no software function. Only internal rom firmware to run a tiny integrated chip design. Thus it would be a much less accurate, simpler, and thus low cost tool. There would be product development cost overhead which would need to balance against the expected market returns. Thus your point is well taken that in order to keep costs low, it would require enough customers which at this point is certainly debateable. Someone with some marketing vision would need to take that gamble. -David

Noshir,

 

I thought about doing exactly what you did but suspect there may not be much difference from what the scanner already picks up if the depth of field is significant. So big question is, do you see a noticeable or significant difference between a slide put on your new holder versus simply using the one in the box? An experiment ought to be easy for you to do and will possibly save others time building something up. -David

For several years I have thought about an cost sensitive electro-

optical consumer product which I personally would like to have and

which has certainly been technically feasable. I would like to know

what the rest of this community thinks about this idea.

 

This would be a small sized device which has similar functionality to

ones camera spot meter sensors or a photographic light meter but not

oriented towards analyzing the gray scale scene values for a

film/digital image exposure but rather simply the light of nature.

It would provide a small LCD display of the color and light in terms

of one or more color models. We are not talking about scientific

accuracy here but rather modest accuracy with consideration to

keeping cost low. Certainly would provide values interpreted per the

HSB color model of hue saturation brightness and maybe RGB. The light

intensity maybe in terms of candellas possibly with numbers and or a

little bar graph. Would need to automatically switch light intensity

ranges.

 

Since it would not have to deal with the usual photographic needs and

rather just an indication of the level and hue of light, it could be

simple, small, and consequently inexpensive. Might be built into the

functionality of a small monocular or binocular since one would need

to look into a viewer to zoom and select narrow angles of view. Might

use auto focus. A central circle might be the area sensed. A more

advanced model might also show a color wheel on the screen with

crosshairs indicating the position of color.

 

Alternatively a small LCD screen like used on digital cameras might

have a central circle area which read out such continuous light

values. However I find viewing LCD screens in strong outdoor light

difficult thus suspect an analog tool would be easier to use,

smaller,and probably be cheaper to build.

 

So what would make this useful or interesting to someone? Have you

ever looked up into a deep blue sky high in the mountains and

wondered how deep blue it really was? Or when looking at a colorful

sunset or the dusk dawn colors wondered likewise? How green are

those trees? What hue are those flowers? What about the fall leaves

on those aspens? And just pointing it at everyday objects and

suddenly having a new more exact perception of colors and the

intensity of light? I personally like to think curious people would

find a product like this to be a wonderful little toy to add a new

facet to natural experiences. -David

For those landscape and nature photographers that shoot with a

digital camera or scan their film and then edit images in a tool like

Photoshop. Do you increase color saturation or contrast controls to

enhance the images beyond the experience that was shot? This is just

one facet of the larger issues which have long been discussed here

and elsewhere. But I see saturation as the essence of much of what

the debate has been about.

 

Note when one adjusts contrast the result is similar to adjusting

saturation. By increasing these levels moderately the result is

almost always a more attractive image. For those which consider such

manipulations part of their freedom with the art form, that is their

choice and is valid as such. Personally the body of my work is from

the attitude of recreating nature as reasonable as possible to the

way I experienced it, which may be in the minority these days, but

again it is my freedom of choice to work within those limits. For

example never went to Velvia. As such I won't use such enhancements

but rather look at my originals, consider the limitations of film and

light, then attempt a reasonable match even though the result almost

always is less aesthetic. Such matching is approximate.

 

I like knowing that other outdoor photographers and persons who are

experienced enjoying the visual natural world will recognize the body

of my work as consistently believable. That is more important for me

than a greater appeal to the larger masses who haven't enough

experiences to know better. -David

Sales and marketing departments for consumer electronic equipment companies have always approached the consumer as the dumb prey. It isn't about being fair and honest but rather a game with profit as the prize. Compared to more advanced equipment sold to business and commercial firms, consumer equipment specs educate the prey as little as possible while trumpeting in the most obnoxiously loud ways the latest buzz words and their specs. Each company is aware there is much more that could be told from a knowledgeable engineer's perspective but the sales/marketing guy (broke in with automobile sales) knows if one of them were to spout some new type of specification for their company's models, that they would be ostracized and bannished from the brotherhood of bs artists. (est. 1958...7 transistor radio etc)

 

Take a look at scanners. For a long time consumer scanners were essentially marketed to the public with just two specs: DPI and scanning time. Increasingly a secret term kept popping up in more serious media and web discussions that despite a universal consensus (just ignore it) by members of the brotherhood, eventually just a few years ago suddenly was declared (speakable) and the next year a new war was started that broke the long peace. Yes we now know what Dmax is! Still there are other characters lurking down in dem specs like color fidelity, luminance linearity, light source spectrum aging, CCD cell blooming, etc. But for now peace time is back. -dave

PS... in case you are not familiar with the interface, the tool after a prescan does not supply supply a luminance histogram which with other scanners one would simply set to near the lowest and highest displayed values and then scan. -dave

Doug, the problem is setting up the scan in order to capture the full range of slide detail. If it isn't set up well given the limitations of CCD sensors, one could end up with blown highlights, missed shadow detail, inaccurate hues, or overly compressed darkest shadows to highlights which will waste bit depth. Once scanned one must "unzip" the resulting image in Photoshop back to an accurate faithful reproduction of the original. -dave

If all you need to do is adjust photos, then you can probably get by with just the help menu and online tutorials. At deeper levels, whether you take a course or open a book, you are going to have to pay your dues sitting a lot in front of a computer and playing with the windows, tools, and commands. Attending a few brief classes may get you oriented in the right way but using it is the key. One ought to start by becoming versed in the basics of digital imaging instead of expecting a Photoshop specific course to address those areas adequately also. In particular bother to understand in areas of your use, color management. There is a considerable amount of information in advanced imaging that is not easily available to users who end up having to deal with dumbed down application interfaces without having a clue to what those applications are actually doing. For instance the whys of color translations and color space. Thus having a little knowledge sometimes can save one from going off the deep end and wasting time and effort. Photoshop is such an enormous tool that a major problem is just being aware of what all is possible rather than how to do operations. Unless one's career is graphic arts or printing, most of the functionality will not need to be within one's skill set. Rather one ought to be aware of what all the tools and functions can do and then look them up in a user guide etc when needing to perform them.

Thanks Jeannie,

 

That sounds like a logical intention of the "gray balance intensity". I did a little experimentation in order to understand whether this was simply an RGB hue shifting control or something that was also affecting the luminance curves. After a little effort which was not exactly linear, I decided that it would take more time to make sense of which I did not at that point today, wish to bother with. One thing I did was sample different things, like peak white, black, and different colors. Of course at first nothing happens as one must discover the need to run a prescan first. After that one can get different results by sampling different things. I had wasted several hours making improper scans before noticing getting a reddish tint to some neutral sand. As you relate, I balanced it out, but was a bit leary as to what else may have been affect until scanning in a Q60 image to be certain. -David

The Epson 2450 scanner documentation has generally been given a

mediocre review. The simple functions targeting unsavvy computer

users are adequately explained while the information about more

advanced functions like the Epson Twain 5 adjustment tools window is

pretty limited. With experimentation one can make sense out of what

most of them do but I have no insight what led them implement them in

so unintuitive ways. The funny thing is it was apparently so much

that the even their documentation person could not even figure it

out, so users are left to time consuming experimentation. Note I did

find the meager documentation for the above tools window. And have

found some information on user forums like this.

 

One particularly mystery to me is the "Color Adjustment" window which

has a "Gray Balance Intensity" field and an eye dropper. I was able

to make some sense of what it does but then again I am not too

certain of what this is actually doing and why.

 

The "Image Control" menu is another strange one that one has to play

with before interactions are understood. If any of you are able to

discern some of the subtleties of some of these tools I would welcome

your advice.

As for a Pentax 35mm forum, there isn't even a more focused 35mm SLR forum so the issue is more general. The "Camera Equipment" forum is where they should be posting but the truth is many of those posting are higher end MF/LF folks which probably looks like Greek to novices. So maybe changing the name of "Camera Equipment" to something more focused to experienced members and creating a lower end 35mm forum would fit better. -dave

Bought 100 sheets of Print File 120-3HB negative preserver (I shoot 6x7 220 slide film rolls), 500 hanger bars, and some $10 13.5x17.5x10.5 inch hanging file containers. That fits in about 175 sheets which thus hold over 1500 images per box. I put labels on the sheets at the hanger bar indicating the photo session/trip and date then number each sheet for that session with a marker. Use Avery 1/4" four color coding labels to make finding better images easier. Also keep computer records of trip and image information so searching for past images is trivial. Of course not the fanciest or densest method but it is cheap and simple.

 

Originally I just had the lab cut and sleeve the film in their cheap 9 image pages. That added $1.50 per roll and the lab did not make an attempt to keep the cut triplets in order which I tired of dealing with. The finished rolls now come sleeved and rolled up in a small box. When the lab cut and sleeved right after development, the film ended up flat. Rolled up it gets a permanent curl which I don't like as that becomes a scanning issue unless drum scanned. Thus I am currently discussing an alternative with the lab to package the film rolls flat. In any case I now have to cut then transfer film into my own sleeves for which I use a small dust free clean room at home to do so. -dave

No, sticking with Pentax 6x7 and Provia 100F since it provides excellent landscape results and I know how to smoothly get out of it what I want. That said, I now keep a bunji'd Dimage X ready in my pocket to shoot quick non-aesthetic informational shots. Digital camera technology has been changing too rapidly the last few years. Large market forces are putting significant engineering resources into new development and that should continue till a technological knee is reached. Today I could buy for lots of money the best new digital back technology to get fine results. But would those results be significantly better than what I am already doing? But in a few years given the expected size of the best imaging chips, there may be products with smaller 35mm sized gear at the same resolution with better depth of field than now available with larger backs, plus hopefully even lens movements. -dave

Since you already have long lenses but have no wider lenses, and shoot landscapes, consider the big 55-100mm zoom. That is if you can live with the weight of such a beast. I currently have an opposite problem to yours. I have the wide lenses but not any longs ones, 45mm, 55-100mm, 135mm. Note I

have the 2X converter but the sharpness seems poor so don't use it. I use the big zoom probably 80% of the time in my landscape work. Users consider it a sharp lens despite being a zoom. One thing that certainly helps is that it adds a lot of mass right at the camera body which will tend to reduce the shutter movement vibration effects. On the negative side additionally, at least mine does not focus distances quite at the infinity stop but instead a smidgeon in front so that I always focus distances manually which is not really a problem for me. Also there is a lot of difference between 45 and 55 than the numbers suggest so a 45mm in the bag is often a necessity. -dave

I made the switch 4 years ago from many years of 35mm to a Pentax 6x7. A friend of mine doing likewise chose the LF route despite the associated difficulties in order to reduce DOF issues with movements. Even though I was aware of the DOF limitations, initially I sometimes was too close to landscape foregrounds such that the resulting near focus gave noticeably unacceptable results. With 35mm I was used to using the infinity stop on lenses for most situations while with the 6x7 I have learned to move the focus back from infinity judged upon the frame contents and thus improve the ability to get closer. For instance often in landscapes at lower elevations with distant hills the crispness of those subjects of a frame are not too sharp because the distance of the air itself reduces such. And of course what is the distance of the important subjects of an image? By shooting more intelligently there is much to be gained. In any case I can't shoot as close as with 35mm for the same angle of view and would quickly agree that such a composure often produces the finest frame. Hence a definet edge to LF users. But I've have instead still found ways to provide fine enough foregrounds by being further back as these last few years of work might arguably be my best. -dave