mark_litherland

FWIW I bought the Centon FG105D one a couple of years ago and although it's a relatively cheap and cheerful flashgun it has served me well with Twin Head/Swivel/Bounce/GN34/EOS Dedicated/Modelling Light/Variable Power Settings/Slave. In fact - 3 years later, I'm only now just upgrading to a 60CT4.

Don't know whether you can get outside of the UK though.

Todd makes a good point about your processor fighting your intentions; but your success on this will depend upon your processor's willingness to help, their understanding of your requirements and the machine operator on the day.

My advice is to go and buy yourself 10 rolls of Velvia and "play" with the exposures. The quality of my photography went up shedloads when I started using slide film 20 or so years ago as it allowed me to learn lessons of exposure, latitude and saturation without the vaguries of the processing lab getting in the way.

I can't believe that it really is unusual to use an ND grad and a polariser together. I have been using them together for many years and I'm sure that this would be a "standard" combination for many landscape photographers.

The Cokin polariser that I have seen is the circular type that fits at the back of the holder - I imagine that the P series holder with any screw-in polariser would vignette at the 19mm end.

I need to buy some new filters and I want to give myself some room

for improvement while meeting my immediate needs.

The only filters that I feel I "need" are a polariser and a series of

grad ND. Also some B/W filters Red/Orange etc.

However, they may be others that I want to experiement with.

My widest lens is the Tamron 19-35mm with a 77mm front thread that I

use both on my EOS10D and my EOS5, so I will be using the full range.

My inclination is to go for the Cokin P series holder (at 84mm) and

use Lee filters, this will give me access to the quality of Lee for

the grad ND and the cheaper Cokin range for some experimentation at a

lower cost.

However my concern is that when I want to use the 19mm end of the

Tamron zoom, I will probably want to use a polariser along with one

of the grad NDs, and with the filter size at 84mm, this may be a

little close size of the 77mm thread and cause vigneting, especially

when mounted on top of a 77mm polariser.

However, I could use the Cokin polarising filter for the P series

holder; but I'm unsure about the quality of this compared to my 58mm

Hoya.

Can anyone tell me whether I will experience vignetting at 19mm or

anything about the quality of the P series polariser?

Many thanks,

I had exactly the same thing happen to me less than a month ago with a Hoya circular polariser filter. In my case the filter fell off the front of my camera and landed on the floor next to the retaining ring. I suspect that it could all have been put back together quite successfully; but the drop had scratched the filter, so I took it back to the shop (even though I had bought it > 1 year earlier) and they replaced it within a heartbeat fully accepting that you do expect years of use out of a filter like this.

I don't know whether this is Hoya specific or just a coincidence.

I've always been of the opinion that everything in a photograph should contribute something towards the final image: composition, light, colour.

That means to me that unless the colour of the subject contributes something then I shoot in mono. Personally, like some others have said, I find that it emphasises composition and texture by removing a distraction.

So mono is my default - even now that most of what I take is digital.

Here it is, the all new 300D:

http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/eosdigital/index.html

I am also a new 10D owner and a great lover of B/W photography.

In my (sometimes simple) mind the full colour sensor senses all the colours and then you can separate them using whatever tool into RGB channels. Taking the red channel, this then shows the different levels of red light. E.g. anything red becomes white and anything cyan becomes black.

When using a red filter with Delta 100, the effec is to sensitise the film to red light, thus recording the levels of red light in the image (That is why cyan like skies become black)

Therefore, accepting the real life limitations of differing reds, differing sensitivities etc, I see the results of the red channel on my 10d being a bloody good approximation of a red filter on Delta 100.

My initial results bear this out - although I do admit that that they are very scant at the moment.

Please take my comments as my hypothesis not as an authoritative answer.

I have a question though, using Adobe RGB colour space, does the camera record the image in separate RGB channels and PS7 then just displays that data, or is it recorded in some sort of composite colour image of a different format and PS7 then "interprets" the red channel from the composite leading to some degradation by multiple conversions?

I have not got my head around what exactly is recorded in the RAW format yet, which I then plan to extract to TIFF.

My main pre-purchase question was whether I could print a "full size" image on my 1290 that would be acceptable. The max paper size is Super A3 which brings the dpi down to about 180. For this I downloaded the lobster test image from the Canon website and printed it on the "best" printer settings.

The final image had no pixels visible with the naked eye at short range and gave me a lovely image.

On this basis I bought one.

I have the same combination and I have the same problem. (The first problem that is). I also have an EOS5 and the Centon has always worked well with that (still does) I don't fully understand E-TTL vs TTL; but I am reassured that there is not a problem with my new 10D's hotshoe if other people are having the exact same problems.

I have a hammerhead flash & studio heads that all work great with the PC socket - so I will continue to use this the old-fashioned way with manual or auto until the point I decide to invest in a Canon E-TTL unit.

On a side note - it has p***ed me off that I cannot use my EOS5 remote release - just strikes me as cynical that I need to buy another for my 10D :-(