david_henderson

Myvatn, Iceland, early morning

Patzcuaro, Mexico; Doctors waiting room

As far as I'm concerned, Rodeo Joe, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating, and IMO the Sekonic 508 and successors spot-meter just fine.

Think there's more than one way of skinning this particular cat, but I much preferred multiple spot readings with a 1 degree meter such as a Sekonic to incident readings. You can see what you're metering and if you know your medium its not hard to turn a series of spot readings into an exposure. I've got ten years or more of taking landscapes with contrasty slide film that proves to me that I could get good exposures reliably . But if you can make a method work for you, with your equipment and your subjects , then it works. I do think though that there's a lot of photographers who used wide-receptor reflective metering who were rescued by wide dynamic range neg film and darkroom work.

Paris, Luxembourg Gardens

Coney Island Tri-X

There's no right or wrong answer. Just the way different people decide they want to use their equipment. As a person who never uses flash , doesn't feel the need for incident metering with his 5DMkiii and rarely switches metering away from the Evaluative setting , then for me it would be just something else to carry, with no expectation that my photography would improve as a result. I think William above is right- if you have a specialist need then buy it, but for general photography there's really no need. And it will slow you down. I used a Sekonic 508 (predecessor of the models you mention) for more than 10 years with slide film and medium format . Indeed I had two in case one broke! But then the in-camera meters were nowhere near what we now have available. Further the slide film has a dynamic range of 5 stops max and I found that spot metering was necessary to determine where important features in my pictures were going to lie at my chosen settings. I don't really have to do that any more with much greater dynamic range and (as others point out) the ability to assess each shot and take a better version if the histogram isn't what you want. But if you decide to work with a hand-held meter, I'd support the brand and model choice you're considering. Far, far better than the cheaper meters that don't show you where they're drawing their readings from.

Portrait of the artist by a young man. Poole harbour, Dorset UK ; low tide.

Field pattern, Monti Sibillini, Umbria

The biggest for me is the number of other photographers that turn up to key sites; especially in the USA but spreading to other countries . Locations like Ox-Bow Bend, the major overlooks in the national parks, Maroon Bells and many more are lost to a photographer who values the ability to set up and move around at will and photograph in conditions that allow you to enjoy peace and quiet and not be part of a zoo in which photographers line up, shoulder to shoulder. People say "find your own spots " and of course I do, but there's no getting away from the fact that the spots from which the best photographs are often available are mostly rammed. Barring a major economic downturn, or a large reduction in the USA's attraction for tourists, and a reduction in the volume of "photo tours" I can't see a resolution. Many of the sites with great potential are lost.

Can't speak for Shutterfly, but I have made a dozen or more books with Blurb, all on their original "Booksmart" software ( they have other tools). I've been happy with what I've had back. Colours are decent, and they have a soft-proofing tool that I also use. You might find the following of some use:- Blurb are quite expensive. But they run a lot of short term promotions up to 40% off to even out their volume. Best to have the pics for a book ready to go so you can take advantage of them. I find it best to pay for a premium paper ( premium lustre in my case) as they're thicker and I can print both sides OK. Feels good too. I fear the "poor customer service " comment may well be right. On the upside- if you do a decent job on file prep, you won't need it much. I had a lengthy debate over some little promotional books they made for me where they charged much more for shipping than they charged for a hardback book of bigger size, volume and weight. It was like talking to a wall. Got nowhere. Think they must employ people with the specific ability only to see the company's point of view, right or wrong. I've had accurate colour and neutral or toned b&w. Bear in mind that absolute deadly accuracy is difficult when your comparing a screen image with a reflective print. I tend to increase saturation and brightness a fraction over what their profile ( downloadable) indicates to take a step in the direction of "screen".

Trinidad, Cuba 2009. Canon 5Dii

I think you'd be mistaken to assume that I hadn't read correctly, or in some way misunderstood what you do. I just think its pretty strange. You asked whether anyone else does what you do, and the answer so far appears to be "no".

No. If the shots aren't worth keeping they won't have made it this far. If they are worth keeping then , well, they stay kept. I can see a lot that's cathartic about throwing away bad photographs, and nothing of merit at all in throwing away good ones whose only sin is that they're a few months old.

Canon 5Dii

Ecola view, Oregon on Canon 5Dii

I posted the original question. It was never meant to be a film vs digital thread. It was meant to help me understand some rather odd visitor numbers to my web site, and I was hoping that someone might contribute some factual ( possibly even numerical) information about the strength of an apparent ( or possible) upsurge in the extent of interest in film . Didn't really happen, I got little useful information, and after indicating that the thread was moving in a direction contrary to the intent, I kind of lost interest. Silent Spring. To respond to you on web crawlers. I'm not counting visitors to the site. I'm counting visitors to individual galleries within the site. If the crawlers visit a specific gallery, I'm no doubt counting their visits. But isn't it the case that for them to be causing the issue I'm getting, those crawlers will need to be independently deciding to visit the same gallery ( out of 33) ?

Canon 5D

Detail of a frozen lake near Nusfjord, Lofoten Islands, last week. I keep thinking that's part of a face I can see at the bottom of the picture, beneath the water. But it's just an illusion-I think.

I don't really do favourites. But here's the place I spent last week- Norway's Lofoten Islands. This one's from above the beach at Myrland in foul weather. If I did do favourites, the Lofotens would be amongst them along with Iceland, north-west Scotland, parts of Italy, and several parts of the USA and Canada. I also like colourful urban landscapes; either modern as in Pudong, Dubai, New York, or colonial as in Cuba, parts of Mexico .

Pudong

I don't think I'd print a 50" long print from my 5Diii, unless I was planning to view it from a long distance anyway. Its only about 5800 pixels. Neither would I have expected to make a print 72" or even 80" sq from a 6x6 original. I can recall being mightly impressed with the 36"sq I got from my Bronicas with the aid of a drum scanner, which don't depend on distance to seem sharp. I think you might look at those and think there's a bit more in there, but not in my view twice the length and height. Think though that you've got the right idea on the use of the medium format terminology which I think is reserved for sensors of notably bigger than full frame, no matter how many pixels are crammed on and what the print size potential is.

Faroe Islands, Canon 5DMk3

The point raised by it (two above), is one that I've raised several times in discussion about whether or not its possible to successfully re-orientate Photo.net. To achieve that you have to know who you're aiming at and why your new offer would be good enough to persuade those people to stop what they're doing now and come to you. It is never good enough simply to modernise a look and hope, especially if you compound that error by implementing badly. Phil_Light's point above is well made- I can't imagine that this new Photo.net is going to attract twenty or thirty-somethings in droves. Other products seem to meet their needs well enough and pointing out that Photo.net's layout and look are different now just isn't enough. I'd have thought that the right way forward might have been to invent something completely different, innovative and appealing to a totally different user group and market it alongside the original Photo.net. So you don't have to worry about failing to keep existing users happy as the price for attracting a totally new market. Neither do you have to worry about transferring pictures, votes, comments and so on from one site to another, or whether your existing tech function has the right expertise/experience to migrate a product from one to another. Building in a vacuum is a lot easier, just so long as you have an idea that is going to work.