julien_aubert

<p>Hey Jon,<br>

Since the D700 has half the pixels of A850, you should be viewing the A850 file at 1/sqrt(2)=0.70 magnification, and not 50%. 50% would be appropriate if the D700 had 6 MP.<br>

This said, You're likely to find more noise in an A850 raw viewed at 70% than in a D700 raw viewed at 100%, because the A850 sensor is still noisier when viewing magnification is equalized (see DxOmark). If you're comparing jpegs, the difference will be even bigger.</p>

<p>To Joe Casey<br>

I'm not sure you can say that - there are plenty of cameras that do much better than the 5dII for landscape. Juste google D3x, A900.</p>

<p>Hello,<br>

The dPreview review is misleading because their MTF measurements are limited by the ceiling of sensor resolution (ie it's not a fully optical test). So for instance, the Nikon 50/1.4 may seem better than the Sony 50 1.4 because the Nikon hits the Nyquist frequency of the D3 12MP sensor over most of the frame at f8, while the Sony doesn't. But if you look closer you will see that the Sony is actually sharper than the Nikon at all apertures. I own the A900 and Sony 50/1.4 and I think that the combo makes terrific images from f2 onwards. I have also had excellent results with the Minoltas 20/2.8 RS, 35/2 RS, 100 2.8 macro RS, and good results with the 24-105 D and 100-300 APO D. Generally I find the A900 to be quite forgiving on lenses but I don't frequently print larger than A4.<br>

A french A900 owner who also has access to a DxO test bench has reported that the 24-50 f4 is poor on A900. The full writeup (french, sorry) is here:<br>

http://www.alphadxd.fr/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15631<br>

Quick translated summary:<br>

very good even wide open: 2,8/80-200mm APO G HS, 2,8/200mm APO G non HS, 2,8/50mm macro OLD et 2,8/100mm macro RS, 2/100mm<br>

very good if stopped down: 2,8/20mm OLD (il faut fermer à f/8 ou f/11 et là c'est Très bon), 2/35mm OLD (f/8 ou f/11), 2/28mm OLD (f/11 pour les bords même si le centre descend un peu), le 2,8/135mm (f/11)<br>

good if stopped down: 2,8/28-75mm D, 3,5-4,5/24-85mm et 3,5-4,5/24-105mm<br>

poor: 3,5/35-105mm 4/24-50mm</p>

Hello,

SInce you're on a Mac you can try Adobe Lightroom:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

It is a free (but time limited) beta. So far the best raw converter I have tried, faster, better and

more advanced than the competition. Only unknown is the price tag when Adobe releases it,

but this is not expected to be as high as Photoshop, of course.

As far as sensor dust is concerned I found out that the best solution (by far) is to use

those "sensor swabs" with eclipse cleaning fluid.

http://www.photosol.com/swabproduct.htm

Ok it's not cheap. However, you should not follow the vendor's advice and throw away

every swab after one single use. My experience is that they're 4-5 times reusable without

loss of efficiency. So a box of 12 will cover all your DSLR's life.

Hello,

I personally own a 5400 and have been more than satisfied with it right from the start, which was July 2003, just a few weeks after the release of the product. To me the product was good at the beginning, and got better as I walked along the learning curve, and changed the scanning software to Vuescan.

To me the negative hype that surrounded the 5400 release has two main resaons:

1) learning curve: a dia scanner is no fun toy. It requires quite a bit of learning. Some give up on this, and charge the scanner for the failure.

2) Brand church: To many people anything not carrying the Nikon or Canon brand is simply not worth considering, although Minolta has a very respectable quality and innovation tradition (Dynax 7, in-body antishake, 5400)

The Internet review system is great and reliable if one follows two rules: read enough reviews, and wait long enough. Then statistical relevance is reached.

Hello,

Not sure is this answer has already been contributed in this pretty long thread:

I have seen several reports of a bug in the Epson printer driver for Mac os X 10.3. I have experienced the bug myself.

The "SPR800 Standard" ICC profile is used whatever paper you select.

Hence the crappy results on fancy paper. Just check the Summary section and look for the Colorsync settings when printing. Only way to get through is of course to turn off color management in the printer driver and use photoshop colormanagement in Print With Preview.