bernard_korites

One last note - here is an interesting article:

 

http://cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=197

 

Granted, these Fuji's are $6,000 25x150 bino's, not your average birder's cup of tea, but the quality of the optics in the smaller FMTR-SX series is similar.

This is probably the best reason to own a CM:

 

http://www.summitpost.org/image/64638/150406/everyone-awakes-to-glowing.html

Every time I switch binoculars I always seek counseling first, to clear the brain and prepare it for the new experience.

 

I have to go now, Douglas.

And I respect your right to report your experiences, Douglas, and I respect the conclusions you have reached and the decisions you have made. Just because you came to the wrong conclusion and made the wrong decision and bought those crumby, overpriced Trinovids is perfectly understandable since you obviously didn't do your homework. LOL :)

Douglas, I try not to. I also try not to get into this my binoculars/camera/car/etc is better than yours thing. All I can do is tell you my experiences and the conclusions I have reached. :)

Did you drop them off a porch rail 12 feet to a concrete driveway?

<<-Only once were Fujinons mentioned ->>

 

Fujinon does a lousy job of marketing to the mass market, but they are well known in maritime and astronomy circles. It's hard to find a source for their professional FMTR-SX series.

 

I dropped my 15 year old Fujinons early last summer, knocking them out of alignment. I thought about getting a new set of binos so I ordered Nikon, Leica and Leupold models that were highly rated by the Cornell Ornithological Lab.

 

Then I spent an afternoon on my front porch, looking through them across a salt marsh, testing primarily for color, resolution and eye relief. I came to the conclusion none of them equaled my old Fujinon FMTR-SX's so I sent them all back and had the old Fuji's repaired by Baker Marine in San Diego.

 

Why Fuji's aren't more popular with birders is a mystery to me. It could be the weight, they tend to be a bit heavy due to thick rubber armoring, or maybe people just don't do their homework.

 

Incidentally, no roof prism bino will ever match a poro prism. If you're concerned about image quality, get poro's.

 

Zeiss makes a nice pair of poro's, but they're more than twice the price of Fuji's.

 

Different eyes will see different things. Just be sure your vision isn't clouded by marketing hype or preconceived opinions abot "quality" brand. Just because it costs more doesn't mean it's better.

Yes, but BVD didn't test Fujinons.

I do not think it would be a mistake to invest in a CM now.

 

The film vs digital debate will go on forever but one thing you have to admit about film, it's reliable and that to me would be top priority on a climbing expedition. Plus you will have slides to enjoy twenty years from now.

 

If you do want a quality compact film camera, I am not aware of any alternatives other than the CM in the new camera market. But you may be too late anyway since Adorama is out of them and so isn't BH except for the red one.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see Leica come out with an improved version soon, but that's just a guess.

All true but still, there's nothing like looking at a slide through a good viewer or projector.

Birders have different criteria for the "best" birding binos, size and weight being important. Mariners and astro buffs don't care so much about weight but value light transmission, color fidelity and resolution.

 

Studies I have seen show Fujinon FMTR-SX binos measure 96% light transmission, Zeiss, Nikon in the low 90's, Leica usually about 85%.

 

I have Fujinon binos and have tested them against other brands including Leica. In my opinion, there is nothing better and they cost less than half Leica and Zeiss.

Read some of the bino threads on cloudynights.com. Astronomers are very discerning when it comes to optics. Leicas usually trail the pack; fujinons usually lead at half the price.

You will get better results scanning film with a dedicated film scanner such as a Konica Minolta Scan Dual IV or a Nikon Coolscan V than from a flatbed scanner such as an Epson 700. Even though the pixel count from each may be the same, the dedicated film scanners generally produce better results.

 

As far as the scanned film vs digital thing goes, both can give great results when printed. People complain about noise in digital files, but scanning film introduces noise as well particularly in the form of dust, scratches, etc. Post processing of scanned files is generally required resulting in more corruption of the image. My experience has been digital camera files generally require less post processing and generally produce cleaner images with more accurate colors.

 

However, the digital pics, in my experience, look different from scanned film. They are usually flatter in tone, almost too clinically perfect. But they have a beauty of their own which can take a little getting used to. It's like comparing a chirascuro painting with strong light/dark contrast by Velasquez with a tonally flat impressionistic painting by Pissarro.

 

For the most part I still shoot and scan film primarily because I find slides easier to archive and retrieve than digital files and I don't have to worry about accidentally erasing them. Also, I don't have to back them up, and I know they I will still have them 20 years from now.

 

Another benefit of slides is you can always look at them with a projector or slide viewer, and digital will never be able to match that.

<<--Incidentally, if you study Cezanne landscapes, he will most often have the level horizon rise to the right. It works great for him. So there is nothing wrong with (slightly) tilted horizons.-->>

 

What's that supposed to mean, Leon should put up with titled horizons even if he doesn't want them?

 

I just looked at a dozen or so Cezanne landscapes and I didn't see one where Cezanne artificially skewed the horizon to rise on the right. Not so say that he never did, but I don't recall that being one of Cezanne artifices in his landscapes.

 

The difference here is, even if Cezanne did tilt a horizon once in a while, he never complained about since it would have been intentional. In Leon's case it is unintentional and he is complaining about it. Is Leon supposed to think he's a Cezanne because his pics are unintentionally coming out skewed?

 

It sounds to me like you're trying to justify a defective camera, presumably because it's a Leica and, as we all know, Leicas can do no wrong, why else would they cost so much!

 

There is obviously something wrong with Leon's camera - either the viewfinder/lens combination is not suitable for him or the camera, most likely the viewfinder, is defective.

I find it hard to believe anyone would take a picture with that amount of tilt. I think it is more likely he reversed the first pic in scanning and has a misalignment in his viewfinder causing all pics to tilt in one direction.

 

Leon, get a Nikon SLR and all your problems will go away.

The top one is tilted to the left, the other two to the right. Are you sure you don't have the top one reversed?

I shoot my oils in the studio under halogen lights using Sony 717 6mp digital and Nikon 8008 film cameras. Adjusting the angle of the lights will usually remove glare, or you could use a polarizer. I don't varnish my oils so glare is not usually a problem. I tried shooting outdoors but studio lighting is more consistent.

If those coffee pot pics above were taken with anything but a Leica I suspect most people would think there was something wrong with the lens.

I agree. Monet had it easy; he could move things around at will, change colors etc. A photographer is pretty much stuck with what's in front of the lens.

 

Digital image processing has opened the door to photographers to be much more creative than before.

What are all those little balls hanging in the air?

Chris-

 

In your example above, "Writ on Water", I do see the hand/mind/whatever of the artist in it. My guess is he took a photo of a pond somewhere, cropped the image down to those blades of grass, and carefully composed and printed it to produce what he saw as a work of art. I don't think that's a whole lot different, in a creative sense, from Monet sitting in front of his pond and painting lilies.

 

I just think there are too many photographers out there snapping away at junk, selecting the best of the junk, and calling it art. Painters do the same thing. Not all painters are artists and neither are all photographers.

Chris-

 

Sure, "The Light Behind" is a work of art. But if you read the questions that follow, two people asked if it was a photograph. The reply was "Sergio, it's a digital work, please see the details."

 

So I don't know, is it a photograph? Is it a digital manipulation? Is it a photograph of someone else's work? I think what the "artist" is saying when he uses the term "digital manipulation" is it isn't just a photograph.

 

Regarding "Writ on Water", I do think you make your point well with that one. I would agree it is a photograph and it is art.

Chris K.

 

<..A sculpter that chisels a statue out of marble is just uncovering something that was already there...>

 

What about a Calder stabile; was the "already there"?

I'm not a big fan of Andy Warhol but I consider his work to be art and the camera was, for him, an important tool. There was such a huge amount of creativity in his work that the camera was almost incidental, just like a painter's brush is incidental, to the final output. By the way, he liked his Minox.

 

When I see photos on this and other sites of misty bays in Scotland, bugs crawling on leafs, etc, I say nice pic but it isn't even close to being art. Likewise, when I see a painting where the painter (I'm being careful not to use the work "artist" here) has slavishly copied a landscape, or a still life, I say the same thing, it isn't art.

 

To me the amount of creativity that goes into a work is what determines whether it is art or craft.

The question of whether or not photography qualifies as an art or a technical craft has been debated for quite a while. In my opinion it's on the borderline, titling toward the craft side.

 

In my opinion, art comes from inside; photography, for the most part, does not.