matthew_moran

<p>I hesitate to step in to an argument in which so much mud has already been slung, but if I may summarize?<br>

G Dan Mitchell takes the position that there is no disadvantage (from an image quality standpoint) of having smaller, more dense, pixel sensors. For him, the ultimate standard of image quality is a print of a certain size viewed a certain distance away.<br>

Michael Young takes the position that there is a disadvantage to having smaller, more dense, pixel sensors because diffraction blur becomes more apparent. For him, the ultimate standard of image quality is looking at a portion of an image file at "100%" meaning one pixel on the sensor is displayed as one pixel on the screen.<br>

Have I correctly stated the issue?</p>

<p>I've never tried either HDR or stitching, so please forgive me if this question is ignorant, but...<br>

Wouldn't it make more sense to do the stitch first and then do the HDR? I would think that if you combined the exposures of the different panels independently, you might end up with final "exposures" that don't match up so neatly.<br>

Whereas if you make three separate stitches (one for each exposure) and then HDR those you would get a smoother result.</p>

The AE-1 has an electronic controlled

shutter. And if the advance is already

wound, it won't advance more unless

the shutter fires.

<p>I don't know that different lens would give your outdoor shots more 'umph'. It seems to me that some post processing might. Perhaps increase the color saturation and vibrancy?<br>

Do you ever set your camera to capture jpeg? When I first started shooting raw I found it useful to set the camera to shoot both raw and jpeg. The jpegs always look better than the raw until you do some significant adjustments. Out of the camera raw files can look pretty flat. Once you figure out what needs to be done to your raw files, Adobe Lightroom makes it easy to automatically do the adjustments to all of them.</p>

I don't think you are getting to full frame

with only $600.

 

What exactly is it about your current

setup that you don't like? You say

"image quality" but what does that

mean to you? Are your images

generally soft? Are you having focus

problems? Do you wish you had

shallower DOF? Do you not like the

color cast you are getting? How big are

the prints you are trying to make? How

deep are you trying to crop? How

sophisticated is your post processing?

<p>I have a 12mp camera. I know from experience that if I do my job right when I take the picture (exposure, focus, no camera shake, etc) I can send the file to a lab and get a nice looking 16x20 print for my wall.<br>

But if I am framing a picture and I only care about the middle 1/3 (horizontally & vertically) of what my lens is delivering to the sensor, then my 12mp sensor is being reduced to a 1.3mp sensor (12/(3*3)). My chances of getting a nice 16x20 out of a 1.3mp image is not so great.<br>

But if I swap out my lens and replace it with one that is 3x the focal length, then I can have all 12mp dedicated to the picture I want on my wall.</p>

<p>If I had a lens with infinite resolving power and a sensor with infinite resolution, it would be fine for me to just crop after the fact. The camera might even allow me to trace a square on the lcd of the crop I have in mind when I take the picture.<br>

But since I have to take photos with the camera and lenses I own, I try to get the framing right "in camera". And sometimes it's not possible. Sometimes I have to use my longest lens, and then crop. Sometimes a low quality picture is better than no picture at all.</p>

 

<p>What is the rated power of your monolights? Is there a guide number given for full power?<br>

If so, divide the guide number by the distance from strobe to subject (in feet, usually) and that will give you the aperture you would need at iso 100. Stop down one stop for iso 200. This won't be perfect because of your soft boxes, and the fact that you are using multiple lights. But it should get you in the ballpark.<br>

When I use a single 320 w/s monolight for a portrait, with the light about 6 feet away, I'm usually somewhere around f/11 at iso100. If your lights are similar power and much closer, it's possible that you will be overexposing even at f/22. You will need to either move the lights farther away or dial down the power on the monolights. (Or maybe put a ND filter in front of your lens, but that seems kind of nuts.)<br>

And you want to be in full manual. Set the shutter to whatever the synch speed for your camera is, leave the ISO at whatever is "native" for that camera, and control everything by adjusting the aperture.<br>

And as soon as you can, buy a flash meter. It doesn't need to be top of the line. It will save you a ton of grief.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>You can get an excellent dslr for less than the price of a fuji x-pro 1 or olympus e-m5. With a fast prime lens.<br>

As I said, you can have a lot of fun and produce exceptional images with film. But it will not be less expensive than digital.<br>

And (this may seem like herresy on the "modern film cameras" forum) if you want digital images, you should start with a digital camera. Shooting film and then scanning it is (IMHO) kinda crazy.</p>

<p>To respond to your other questions.<br>

1. Body does affect image quality insofar as it prevents light leaks and keeps the film flat. If the film isn't flat, then the focus will waiver. Most cameras will keep the film acceptably flat. And if the camera is in good shape, it shouldn't have any light leaks. <br>

Most of the variation in price of film SLRs was attributed to the film advance mechanism (manual vs power) and the light meter. Also, higher end cameras had more reliable shutters, shutters with faster synch speed, etc. But at the end of the day, the camera kept the film flat and allowed light to pass through the lens to the film. The quality of the film and the quality of the lens were much more important than the camera body.<br>

2. With film, you get what you pay for. And there aren't a lot of companies making film anymore. It's becoming kind of a niche market, which doesn't bode well for "affordable". As for what kind of film you would have to use to get "good" image quality, that depends on what you mean by "good" and what you want your final product to be. If you want to show your pictures through a projector onto a screen, use slide film. If you want prints, use print film. If you want pictures on a web page, go digital.<br>

3. If you are dealing with black & white you could probably develop the negatives in your bathroom with a couple hundred dollars worth of equipment. The chemicals should be available online or at a higher end camera store. To make prints you will need a good enlarger, which will cost more than the digital cameras you've decided you can't yet afford. Color is even more expensive and harder to deal with.<br>

Of course, you can send it out to a lab. But if it's a budget lab they are likely to just scan your negatives and give you digital prints. You might as well have started with a digital camera.</p>

<p>If you want to get into film photography and have it be better than digital, you need to set up a dark room or deal with a professional lab that will make optical enlargements. You will probably also want a medium or large format camera.<br>

You can make great images and have a lot of fun doing it. But it won't be inexpensive.</p>

<p>There are lots of good reasons to get into film photography, but "cheaper" isn't one of them.<br>

Based on your last point, I would suggest you shop around for an inexpensive (perhaps used) digital compact camera.</p>

<p>Spammers don't need to know specific addresses. They will just blanket well known domains with generated email addresses. (tom@google.com, dick@google.com, harry@google.com, etc.) They don't care if the address actually exists or not. If it doesn't, they've lost almost nothing. If it does, and the message actually gets through a spam filter to the user's inbox, score!</p>

 

<p>My experience with LF is almost nil, so feel free to ignore this.<br>

But it seems to me that the size of the ground glass is not necessarily the same as the size of the film. (The same that an SLR viewfinder does not necessarily cover the same image that the sensor picks up. It will likely be smaller than what the sensor saves.)<br>

Also, I suspect that the sheet film actually measures 4x5. Then you put it in a holder which will probably cover part of the edges, so the actual image preserved will be slightly smaller.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Congratulations on your purchase Arun, I'm sure you will enjoy it!</p>

I have the 100 f/2.0 and its a great

lens. If I know I'm going to be doing an

outdoor portrait, that is my goto lens.

 

But for travel and documentary style

stuff like you describe I'd just stick with

the 50 f/1.4.

 

I hate changing lenses in the field.

 

If the 50 f/1.4 is too limiting and you are

willing to give up the shallow DOF, the

24-105 f/4 L is probably a good choice,

assuming it's in your price range. It's

not in mine :-).

Unless there is some revolution in sensor manufacturing

technology, I wouldn't hold my breath for full frame (much

less medium format) sensors to become affordable enough

to be widely used. It is just too difficult to make those big

pieces of silicon afordable.

I certainly wouldn't delay purchasing a camera system in

the hopes that something better will come along someday.

Pick a system that meets your needs and use it. If your

needs change, don't be afraid to change systems.

If you buy a digital camera today, how long do you expect

to use it? 5? 10 years tops? Don't worry about what

cameras will look like in 10 years. Find the camera you

need now.

Regarding a compact with a fast, fixed lens: have you

looked at the Fuji X100? Or the Ricoh GR Digital III?

Return it or take it to a repair shop.

 

It occurs to me that it might be just the needle display that

is busted. If you go in a darkish room and set a long shutter

speed (with the aperture on A) and look into the lens as you

fire the shutter you should see the aperture blades close. If

the light meter works you should be able to find different

shutter settings that make the aperture close to different

settings. If that's the case the camera might work fine

except for the lack of display in the viewfinder. Depending

on what you paid, that might be acceptable to you.

Does the shutter fire when you push the button? If so, it's

probably not the battery because the shutter won't fire if the

battery is dead.

 

If the camera functions in manual mode but not shutter

priority, then the problem could be the light meter. Or I

could be something else.

<p>Full Time Manual is the feature on many Canon lenses that allows you to press the shutter halfway down and let the camera focus, then while holding the shutter half way down you can grab the focus ring and adjust the focus yourself before pushing the shutter all the way down. That is unless you've moved the focus to another button with custom function 4, in which case you push the button to focus then adjust the focus yourself. Lenses that have "ring type USM" have this feature. (A type of autofocus motor.) Also the 50 f/1.4 has this feature even though it doesn't have the "ring type USM" autofocus motor. Of the lenses you list in your original post, only the EF-S 10-22 advertises this feature. For the others, if you want to focus manually you need to turn the autofocus off.<br>

Which brings me to the stock focus screen. I doubt you've ever used this feature because it is actually very difficult to use manual focus through the viewfinder on most DSLRs. Before autofocus, SLR cameras were equipped with a focus screen that made it made it easy to tell what was in focus in an image and what wasn't. There was also a focus aid in the center to make it even easier to tell if something was in focus. The downside to this sort of focus screen is that it does not transmit as much light as a more clear focus screen. So when autofocus got good camera companies started putting focus screens in the camera that allow more light to pass through the viewfinder at the expense of ease of focus. They figured people weren't using manual focus anyway, and with a brighter focus screen the photographer can use slower lenses. The standard lens became the f/3.5-f/5.6 midrange zoom. Such a lens would have been unusable on an old SLR.<br>

On the higher end camera bodies, you can replace the focus screen with a different screen. Canon makes a range of them. Some are just like the stock screen except they have a grid overlaid to make it easy to line up with vertical and horizontal lines. At least one (usually labeled "Super Precision") is basically the older type of focus screen that makes the out of focus portions of the image blurry and the in focus portions sharp. Although I don't think Canon makes any with the old school split screen focusing aids. You usually have to go to an aftermarket supplier for that.<br>

I don't know if the 60D allows you to swap focusing screens. I'm sure none of the digital rebels allow for that. But if you don't swap the focus screen, you probably won't miss the "full time manual" feature on a lens.<br>

On the subject of focus, I have read that cameras that offer "live view" allow for very precise manual focusing when using that feature. But that doesn't seem like the sort of application where you are going to use autofocus and then make a quick adjustment. You are probably going to have the camera on a tripod, use the autofocus then turn off the autofocus and make adjustments using manual focus.<br>

Regarding Sigma, there is something to be said for using Canon lenses on Canon bodies, but I wouldn't overstate this point. The Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 will be much better optically than the Canon EF 28-200 f/3.5-f/5.6. According to reviews I've read, it's not quite as good as the Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8. But it is several hundred dollars cheaper. It is something to consider.<br>

As for carrying two bodies, yes I think that is less of a pain than swapping lenses in the field. However, once you download pictures from the 60D, I doubt you will ever want to use your 350D again. So I don't really think carrying two bodies is going to be a real option for you. I could be wrong though.<br>

Personally I would be less concerned with having every focal length covered than I would be with having a camera that allows me to take the high quality pictures I want to take with the minimum of hassle.<br>

To recap: my advice is to buy the 60D first. Then, if you still have room in your budget I would buy either the Canon 17-55 or the Sigma 17-50. This will give you a very good street photography package. You will still have the 10-22 for more dramatic wide angle shots if you are in the mood for that, and the 28-200 for more telephoto stuff. When you get more money, you can look at improving your telephoto range.<br>

Good luck!</p>

I'm pretty sure this is what you want, but it's been years

since I've used an AE-1 Program.

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/75202-

REG/General_Brand_4LR44_PX28A_4LR44_544A_6v_Bat

tery.html

<p>For street photography, I would go with the 17-55 over a 24-70 or 24-105. 24 just isn't wide enough on an APS-C sensor. Yeah, you have the 10-22, but changing lenses in the field is a pain.<br>

Sigma also makes a 17-50 which is well reviewed. It is significantly less expensive than the Canon, but you give up the "full time manual". Do you really use full time manual focus on a crop sensor body with a stock focus screen?<br>

I know you don't want to buy more EF-S lenses because you want to upgrade to a full frame camera eventually. But EF-S is the only way to get good wide angle options on a 60D. You can always trade them in when you upgrade.<br>

My favorite lens for street photography is a fast "normal" prime. For the 60D your best bet is the sigma 30 f/1.4. But if you aren't going the prime route, you should get the 17-55 f/2.8 IS.<br>

Just my opinion. Good luck!</p>

<p>@Arun, I would pay extra for the 60D over any of the digital rebels just to get the rear control dial. With the rear control dial you can set the shutter speed with your index finger and the aperture with your thumb (manual mode) or the exposure compensation with your thumb (P,Tv,Av modes).<br>

The only thing better would be if Canon hadn't abandoned the aperture ring on the lens.<br>

As for the articulating screen, I can't really say. Neither of the Canon DSLRs I've owned has had it. However, I also have a Canon G11 and the articulating screen has never been a problem. In fact, it's one of the best features of that little camera. If you are worried about the articulating screen getting damaged, don't articulate it. It should stay pressed against the back of the camera just fine.<br>

If you are serious about wanting to upgrade to a full frame body, then you should sell your EF-S 10-22 and use that to help you buy a 5Dmkii. Or you could buy a used 5Dmk1 for about half the price and spend the remainder buying a good wide angle zoom to get the equivalent of your 10-22 back. You could probably get a used 5D with a used 16-35 f/2.8L for about $2k or so at KEH.</p>

<p>Regarding the flash issue, you are probably better off using pocketwizards to trigger off camera flash than the 7D's on camera flash. So I wouldn't consider the presence of an on camera flash to be an advantage for the 7D.</p>

<p>Why both at the same time? You are in most desperate need of a new camera body, so concentrate on that. The idea that the lens is more important than the camera body for image quality was true in the film days, but not so much anymore. Both are very important.<br>

You probably want either the 60D or the 7D. I will leave it to you to decide whether the whether sealing, etc are worth the price increase on the 7D.<br>

Then after you've saved yourself some more money, buy a new lens. Since you say you are most dissatisfied with your telephoto zoom, you should probably look at the 70-200 F/4 IS. Unless you do most of your telephoto work with a tripod; in that case you probably want the non-IS 70-200 F/2.8.<br>

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!</p>