joe_hodge

I’d take the same attitude I do in my professional life - when I hire a specialist, tools are their business. I’m paying for results.

Which is actually fine, as long as it's priced accordingly. Once upon a time, I acquired a bunch of power tools left behind (intentionally) when I bought a house, and sold them CHEAP because I didn't know enough about them to test or grade them. I was up front about that as well as 'no refunds'. I'm sure some of what I sold was absolute junk and some was an absolute bargain, but nobody was mislead in the process.

I jumped in with a Bronica SQ, and have been having a blast. It wasn't trouble free, and I'd recommend buying from KEH rather than Ebay to get started. At least with KEH, you have a reputable company standing behind what you bought.

It's funny - I know that the outboard on the right-hand boat is part of the original, but the pictures where some of us have removed it look more 'real' to me. I think it's how stark the white line on the upper-right curve of the motor separates it from the water in the original almost makes is look like it was 'shopped in.

I’m testing software now, and had no trouble downloading the 30-day demo (https://nikcollection.dxo.com/download).

Straight out of camera (except for downsizing) from a Panasonic DMC-FZ1 from 2003. Not too shabby for a 17-year old sensor, is it?

I treat Ebay as a last resort for selling, after Craigslist, targeted forums, or personal connections. When I can’t avoid it, I always specify no returns, even if it’s possible that I can’t enforce it. I also charge flat-rate shipping to cover my costs.

I've narrowed down to DxO or On1, each of which has it's quirks, not surprisingly, but I could be happy with either (I think). Just for fun, here is an uncorrected crop (CR2 opened in Lightroom, cropped, and exported with no corrections) along with quick (and a bit heavy-handed) edits in DxO and On1. They're not exactly the same, but close enough that I'm focusing more on UI and support for my workflow that on features.

Cleaned up the distracting background, punched up the light a bit.

I'll be going Lightroom 6 -> On 1 (most likely). I've looked at: Capture One 20 - I just can't stand the UI On1 Raw 2020 - current lead candidate Aftershot Pro 3 - wouldn't open DNG files from VueScan, so mostly useless to me Darktable 2.6 & 3.0 - powerful, but unstable and weak collection management tools I'll be looking at DxO PhotoLab 3 over the weekend before I decide.

I use Lightroom now, so catalog/in-DNG is what I'm used too. I was surprised to look around at alternatives and find sidecars in such wide use. I'm leaning towards On1 at the moment, but sidecars feel like a real step back.

I've been looking at replacements for my current photo management software, and one thing that has me puzzled is why sidecar files are still in wide use? Embedded XMP metadata has been around for many years, and yet I still see Capture One, On1 Raw, and Darktable all using sidecar files. Sidecar files complicate file management since they can easily be lost during copy or rename operations (outside the application), and they don't provide the performance advantage of a database approach. I've been in IT for a long time, so it's not as if I haven't seen obsolete practices hang around for years just because 'that's how we've always done it', but is anyone aware of actual advantages to sidecars?

Monuments. Occasionally, this one: In other news, my resolution for this year is to stop burning film on cloudy/overcast days.

One more, from my back porch. EOS M5, 70-300/4.5-5.6, 1/500th@f5.6, ISO 100:

Back to the office. Lighting selected to match my mood. EOS M5, 50/1.4, 1/3 sec @F4

I may pick up a Canon D30 at some point. Samples I've seen look to have unique JPEG color palette that look almost pastel to me. It may just be an artifact of the samples I've seen, but for ~$50, why not find out for myself? Oops - just realized I've revived an OLD thread - please disregard.

Not ready to be done with the holidays:

I'm considering shooting some Velvia in my SQ-A, and thinking about processing at home. E6 kits from Edwal and Arista look to be readily available - does anyone have recent experience with either or both? I develop B&W at home without any issues, and I know that I can hold chemistry within +/- 1C, so I should be able to handle E6 technically, but if one kit is notably better that the other, I'd prefer not to waste time, money, and film on the worse option. FWIW, the reason for processing at home is personal enjoyment, not economic, but the Arista kit is considerably less expensive than Edwal.

A second Bronica SQ 120 back in EX condition from KEH. Only having one wasn’t a great feeling, and they’re a bit pricey to play the Ebay lottery.

This is the main reason I shoot film and print in the darkroom. I know I could (and do) make a better picture digitally, but I’m an IT guy by trade, and the hours in the darkroom away from computers are what make this hobby enjoyable.

Day to night conversion: shift colors towards blue & reduce saturation, manipulate tone curve in LaB space to adjust exposure & relative contrast,

3-2-1 is an IT classic: 3 copies (of your data) 2 off-line (RAID doesn't count) 1 off-site (in case of disaster)

I learned basic darkroom technique >20 years ago, but was away from it for a long time. When I went back for a refresher maybe 2 years ago, the instructor taught developing RC for ~90 seconds with just a few agitations at 30 second intervals using Dektol. It seemed close enough to film agitation that I went with it, and I’ve been using Polymax with a similar regime. My results have been consistent and pleasing, so I didn’t give it much thought. Yeah, I feel dumb typing that. At at any rate, Liquidol didn’t like that regime and produced prints with dramatically different density in different parts of the print until I wised up and started agitating a lot more.

I’m trying out Liquidol (http://stores.photoformulary.com/liquidol-paper-developer) as an alternative to Polymax-T because I like the convenience of a liquid concentrate, but Polymax doesn’t keep well enough for me to get through a bottle before it starts to precipitate/crystallize. It was an interesting printing session. What I noticed is: It seems very sensitive to agitation in the tray. Development time is only about 2/3 of Polymax, and I noticed serious artifacts on the prints if I didn’t agitate every 10s or so It seems very energetic, with the image appearing much faster than I’m accustomed to with Polymax. Makes sense with the shorter overall dev time. Print tone seems cooler than Polymax on the same paper. I won’t know for sure until the prints dry, but that’s my first impression. I can’t say if I like it or not after 1 session. I feel like judging development by inspection will be harder with how fast it works. I may try a 1:18 rather than 1:9 next time to slow it down. I know that will cut the capacity, but I print so seldom that I use developer as one-shot anyway. Anyone else have experience with Liquidol to share?

OK - got it. Here’s my workflow: 1. Shoot (film or digital) 2. If film, develop (at home, I’m a B&W hobbiest) 3. If film, scan to DNG 4. Review digital captures or scans in Lightroom and/or Darktable (alternatives, I have both) 5. Adjust tone curves, etc. 6. Decide what I want to print 7. For film, go to darkroom 7a. For digital; straighten, crop, sharpen, etc. 8. Save adjusted version to high quality jpeg Software, for me, is Vuescan for scanning and Lightroom/Darktable for adjusting. I’m by no means an authority, and I’m still working on my digital filing system. At the moment, it’s date/time based, but if I were a pro it would probably be client/project based. I’ve also bought in to DNG, which is not to everyone’s taste. I don’t do a lot of digital cleanup or retouching, so I’m not up on the best/latest tools in that area.