dzeanah

<p>Nozar,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I am surprised to hear that you think you have more control on "exposure" in digital color and in Photoshop, than B&W film.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Actually, I said "after the exposure." Colored filters with black and white film influence how the different colors in a scene will translate into tones, and by use of filters you can control how the tones in a scene (imagine a red apple on green grass) map in relation to each other. Want a black apple, then use a blue filter. Want a white apple, then use a red filter, and so on.</p>

<p>This works provided you know exactly what you want when you take the exposure, and you've got the appropriate filters with you (and time to mount them). If you start with a color image then you can make these decisions after the fact, and I prefer the control that comes with this process.</p>

<p>This is what I was trying to say.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>If digital does not register details in the dark or in highlights at the first place, then all you can do in Photoshop is pumping/draining light into the image. B&W film has the latitude of close to 7 to 8 zones, and with pre-exposure, the range goes to 11, which is from pure black to pure white. MM, with possibility of multi-exposure on the same file (I gather this from Leica Forum review) can provide such information. In color digital, you only, and only, can do it (High Dynamic) with multiple shots, which dictate possibility only for stationary objects like apples; not people.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't really want to argue film versus digital, but I don't feel limited the way you seem to think I should. When shooting color I get a lot more latitude with digital than I did when shooting color slide film on vacation. Yes, negative film has more latitude than digital (flat response curve vs logarithmic and all that), but in practice it doesn't really matter to me all that much. Nor did it to lots of others: National Geographic got stunning work out of slide films for half a century, even in full sun, and I'd argue that any competent modern digital camera can get better dynamic range than Kodachrome. And certainly more than Velvia, which Galen Rowell seems to have used to create some stunning work.</p>

<p>I prefer shooting digitally, processing on a computer, and printing the result than the comparable darkroom work. I never intend to move back to medium format B&W, then processing and printing it myself. It's possible the results would justify it to some people, but I could argue that the charm and depth one can find in a daguerreotype beats the hell out of the output I got from 6x6 Tri-X + Gallerie graded fiber paper. </p>

<p>That doesn't mean I'm going to try and convince you to deal with mercury fumes for your personal work, however. Every medium we might choose to work with is going to have its trade-offs. Choose the trade-offs that work best for you and have fun.</p>

<p>I don't see a whole lot of value in arguing about it though.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I like the concept, and I think if Fuji were to offer an X-Pro-1 version I'd seriously consider it.</p>

<p>But then I think back to shooting B&W with film, and maintaining a set of colored filters for each lens, and the limited control after the exposure (compared to what one can do in Photoshop/Lightroom with B&W conversions and the control of the various tones and their relationship), and the fact that I tend to think in B&W but when the lighting is right my wife favors color vacation photos...</p>

<p>At the end of the day the advantages I see for the M Monochrom are simplicity (all B&W, all the time, regardless of settings) and resolution (no interpretation due to Bayer filter). For me, I don't know that this is enough to make me commit to such a specialist camera.</p>

<p>With that said, if I could choose B&W mode on my Fuji and have it flip an internal switch where the RAW file would ignore the colors assigned to each pixel and just record the intensity of the light, then I'm pretty sure I'd use it. I'd even be willing to upgrade to gain access to that functionality</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Am currently own a Leica Lx5 , Am very with it , great results , amazing camera</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It sounds like your current camera is working well for you. Is there anything the X10 can do that the LX5 can't?<br>

Why do you want to switch to something new?</p>

<p>I was a sucker for marketing -- the ads kept telling me the way to get better photos was to get better gear, so I kept finding "flaws" in my gear and upgrading, upgrading, upgrading. Until I had a Hasselblad in my hand and a contact sheet full of "meh" images, and there was nothing left to blame but myself.<br>

<br /> Once it was all on me, the cameras didn't matter as much. Since then I've found that you can't convince others of this either. If they believe their problem is that their gear isn't good enough, the cure seems to be letting them spend a few months salary on equipment. Some learn that it's not about the gear; others seem to hang out on DPReview and post pictures of their pets to prove to others that their set of gear is more magical than someone else's.<br>

<br /> Now the problem for me is finding gear that suits my needs that's small enough to not destroy the joy of photography due to back pain.</p>

<p>You can shoot a wedding with just an on-camera flash and a normal prime lens. It's been done for decades. The question is how good a job <em>you </em>can do with whatever gear you have.</p>

<p>If you're going to do this, the most important thing to do is talk with the bride and her family to make sure everyone's expectations are in line. You need to understand what she expects, and if you're an amateur let me tell you that your average bride's expectations may include a number of things you've never considered. They also need to understand that while you'll do your best, there may be some shots that simply don't happen or don't come out, and in exchange for getting free photos they're agreeing to accept whatever you produce, regardless of quality.</p>

<p>Play this wrong and you can lose a friendship here. Play it right and it might make for a good wedding gift. If she screams about "once in a lifetime event ruined by the photography" then you failed to come to an appropriate agreement up-front.</p>

<p>Since you're asking specifically about gear, I'll say to stick with what you have because you're famiilar with it. Know what it can do, know what it can't do, and make adjustments as necessary.</p>

<p>There are some good books out there that can help -- in my mind the best is Martin Evening's book. With that said:</p>

<ul>

<li>When you import images into lightroom they're in the catalog. There's a folder on the left of the Library screen that shows where the images are located physically on your disk(s), and you can change this within Lightroom if you please. What you should probably be doing is tagging your files when you import them with names, places, categories, so they're easy to search for later.</li>

<li>The catalog is the database of your images. </li>

<li>When you make adjustments they're stored in addition to the raw files themselves, so you can always go back to the original image. This is why previews can take some time to load -- first the raw image is loaded, then each additional change you've made is applied to the preview. Totally non-destructive.</li>

<li>I just keep my images in Lightroom, but I've been using it since version 1 came out. Future compatability is always a good question. Should you convert raws to DNG format? I don't know -- as long as I've got Lightroom it'll work on the images that I've imported using it. If I decide to move to something else? I'll figure that out when I get there.</li>

</ul>

<p>I don't know that there's much of a market for it.</p>

<p>Consumers want something small and easy to use that gets everything in focus. That's gonna be a small sensor camera. If they came up with a camera like this it would cannibalize DSLR sales, an I'm not sure how much that helps Nikon's bottom line. </p>

<p>I think it's fair to say that based on what you've posted above, your business is no longer meetings its goals. This might mean it's time to fold, or it might mean it's time to change things up a bit:</p>

<ul>

<li>What about limiting your future bookings to 50% of what they are now, possibly mixed with an increase in prices?</li>

<li>How about finding someone to edit your images for you. If most of your post-processing is Lightroom work, can you find someone (possibly someone not local) to do the work for $10-15 per hour? Even better -- if you could find someone to do your post-processing work for a couple of hundred dollars per wedding, would you still turn a profit?</li>

</ul>

<p>Either of these would free up some time and keep the business going. It sounds like your business is successful enough that it's too big to be a part time gig any more. Sounds like it's time to either admit it's too big and scale it back, or do what it takes to let your business continue to grow (yay - employees and payroll taxes!)</p>

<p>It's your call, but it sounds like something has to change.</p>

<p>It probably doesn't matter -- buy the one you like the best.</p>

<p>For the subjects you mentioned:</p>

<ul>

<li>The D700 will have shorter depth of field. This means it will be easier to isolate your subject and throw everything else out of focus with the D700. It also means it will be harder to get everything in focus at once. It's a trade-off.</li>

<li>The D700 does better in low light, but I don't think this is as big a deal to you as it is to some. Most modern DSLRs do just fine at speeds that were barely possible with film, and a little bit of post-processing goes a long way here. </li>

<li>You should buy good lenses, and it will probably be more affordable to do so for the D300s.</li>

</ul>

<p>I've decided to edit my comment a bit. Here's someone else's opinion (DPReview's) on the S5 cameras I was talking about:</p>

<blockquote>

<h4>Dynamic range and contrast</h4>

<p>One of the inevitable consequences of squeezing so much dynamic range into a single exposure is that unless you are shooting at noon in the sahara desert JPEGs can often appear quite flat (lacking in contrast).<br>

But the important thing to remember is that this is the beauty of the S5 Pro's out of camera JPEGs; to get this much tonal information out of most other SLRs you have to shoot raw (and even then you're likely to have to employ some kind of HDR technique). What S5 Pro files give you a huge amount of latitude when it comes to post-processing, allowing you to make decisions about contrast and highlight clipping with the convenience of a JPEG workflow.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Now, that's an ancient camera by modern standards, but that's the equipment I was using the last time I made a "buy" decision. Lightroom 1.0 was new, CS3 had just come out -- like I said, ancient.</p>

<p>At the time, JPEG workflows worked better than raw, and you didn't give up much latitude or flexibility unless you were printing larger than 11x14, in which case RAW was the answer. However, I'm in the process of upgrading Lightroom from 2 to 3 and the speed difference when processing Fuji RAWs versus JPEGs has reversed. I'm seeing multiple raws processed per second, versus multiple seconds per jpeg.</p>

<p>With this change the workflow advantages I noticed in 2007 are now gone. If I were shooting with that camera today, and processing in Lightroom, I'd go with raw if I could handle the buffer issues (7-9 raws max, if I remember correctly.) At the very least, I'd use raw by default instead of the other way 'round.</p>

<p>This isn't to say that my impression of the S5 in today's world is relevant. The tools have changed though, and I'd hate my support for the better workflow that jpegs offers to be taken for more than it's worth (in hindsight, it's not worth as much as it was 3 years ago...)</p>

<p>I don't care to get into an argument here, but among wedding photographers shooting with Fuji S5 cameras (back when they were new), most of us shot JPEG because the results were more than good enough and the workflow improvements were nothing to sneeze at.</p>

<p>Of course, at the time JPEGs from the Fujis showed about the same range of adjustability as raw images from Nikon, so this was the exception. In general raw only shooting is probably safe advice.</p>

<p>But test for yourself. If you tend to get it right in-camera, don't need the flexibility, and have a workflow more suited to jpegs than consider that route. If you just can't decide though, shoot raw.</p>

<p>Can't comment directly. But I have 40x60" prints from 645 that look great, and 20x24's from Fuji DSLRs (6 megapixels though they argue it's closer to 10 in effect due to sensor design) that are of really pushing it, in my opinion.</p>

<p>I'd opt for 645 if given those options and I knew I was going large. I'd love to hear some experiences from users of FF 20+ megapixel cameras.</p>

<p>Data is data. If you've still got the file and it wasn't corrupted in some way (and age itself doesn't do this), then it's still identical to what it was before.</p>

<p>Now, you may have a new (larger) monitor, and a better printer, and an eye that's more critical, and such. All of these can lead to the determination that the images you're looking at aren't as good as you remember. But it's not the images themselves.</p>

<p>What you're missing is that essentially every lens performs better when stopped down a couple/few apertures than when shot wide open. Even if you're shooting at the same aperture you can expect better performance out of the lens that's stopped down than from the one that's wide open.<br>

Plus, well, you're comparing a zoom to a prime lens. And 50mm prime lenses are pretty solid optically as a general rule, even the cheap ones.<br>

No, I don't have any experience with the Tamron, but I'm interested in the discussion.</p>

<p>Another way to explain this:<br>

Proper exposure is enough light for the sensor to capture the image. There are three variables here:<br>

1) The aperture you're using (the size of the hole)<br>

2) The shutter speed (how long the hole stays open to let light through.)<br>

3) The sensitivity of the sensor (how much light is required before the camera says it has enough.)<br>

Those are the trade-offs. Your camera is telling you that at 1/125th of a second, it can't open up a hole big enough to let enough light through (the aperture range on your lens isn't great enough. In low enough light, no aperture range is great enough.)<br>

So, you can tell your camera to use a slower shutter speed, change the sensitivity of the sensor, or set it to Auto-ISO so it will automagically change the sensor sensitivity when needed without you needing to worry about it.<br>

Hope this helps.</p>

<p>I hate SLRs -- digital or otherwise. In film days I ditched them for Leicas and had no regrets. Once I moved to digital I've tried to use something lesser a few times and have always regretted it -- loss of image quality is part of it, but it's also things like focus speed, shutter speed lag, and the lack of flexibility that (d)SLRs offer.

<br>

Best example: we went to Hawaii in December and were on a boat trip to do some snorkeling as I remember. We ran across porpoises as you would expect, but we also had 3-4 whales that were breaching and fully leaving the water within 50 yards of the boat. With a DSLR I could have captured it and (maybe) made something memorable. With the sub-dslr I had I think I got a side flipper reentering the water once.

<br>

I totally know where you're coming from, but for me the burden of the DSLR is worth it. I just need to avoid the mistake of carrying too much gear on a trip to keep it a usable size...</p>

<p>Get a minor in business while you're there. <br>

(Spoken as someone who's done the "run your own business" thing for decades, and eventually came to my senses and got an MBA.)</p>

<p>Well, regardless of how good it is, it's not a DSLR. </p>

<p>I bought a G10 after taking the time to go through a decade's worth of negatives/images while trying to decorate the walls of our house. It turns out that the majority of the images the wife and I value were taken at special moments in our lives, and could have been taken with just about any camera as they were in good to great light. I was looking for a camera small enough to carry with me most of the time, and the G10 looked like the best solution for my needs. It's not pocketable, but it fits well in the bag I carry with me every day so it's always there.</p>

<p>So far it looks like a winner. I like the LCD screen and the metering looks pretty good. It seems to be designed around the idea of exposing to the right, as the left-hand top dial is a +/- 2 stop exposure compensation dial, which makes it easy to place the histogram right where you want it to be effortlessly. Battery life seems good. I wish it went a little wider (but then, I <i>always</i> wish for a wider wide-angle lens) and there is some niticable distortion at the wide end, but that never really bothered me back in my film days so I'm not worrying about it. If it gets to be a big deal there are software fixes for it. For the most part I'm shooting at f4.5, and the sharpness and DOF are surprising.</p>

<p>The image quality at iso 80 really is significantly better than you get at iso 200. You probably already know this, but as I am used to Fuji DSLRs I was quite shocked by the difference. My goal is great shots in good light so this isn't a concern for me, but if you're going to make this your only camera and you plan on shooting indoors, or in poor light, then the Panasonic/Leica alternative might be a better camera for you. Still, the image quailty you get isn't exactly bad at faster isos -- if you were happy with Tri-X as I was then it's hard to be all that critical of grain.</p>

<p>What I've been looking for since digital came out was something like a Konica Auto S2 -- a basic camera that would take stunning images if you did your part. I enjoy photography, but I hate the hassle of carrying photo equipment around (I developed a phobia in 1997 by carrying 2 35mm SLRs, 2 medium format SLRs, assorted lenses and accessories, bags of film, and so forth across Europe. Ended up so fatigued from carrying the equipment that I wasn't interested in taking photos.) My goal has been to find one camera that does 90% of what I'd like it to do, and learn to be content. In film days a Leica M6 with three lenses that would fit in a pocket or small bag was pretty close. Now, the G10 is the closest I've seen. I like it a lot.</p>

<p>It's not perfect, but ~ 15 megapixels from this camera taken in good light will probably be sufficient for my needs. I like the 30x40's I've printed from 645 film though, and I don't really have any complaints about the big photos I've made from 35mm, so I'm not as critical of performance as many here. </p>

<p>I should probably cover the Panasonic LX3 here as well. I've never shot with one, but the compelling arguments for it were that it offered a "real" wide angle, has an F2 lens, and offers better low-light performance than the G10. It's also smaller, but doesn't have the analog controls that the G10 offers. There's a compelling argument to make for the Panasonic if it's going to be your only camera -- in any lighting situation it will offer the advantage of shooting one stop faster (or using a slower ISO than the Canon) so you should be getting better low-light performance. This is especially true since the sensor seems to do better at lower light levels as the individual sensor sites are bigger, and therefore less prone to noise. There is also the "advantage" of variable aspect ratios.</p>

<p>The counter-argument is that the images the Canon produces at iso 80 are just lovely. If you have the luxury of shooting at low sensitivities and are looking to make the best photo possible out of a small camera, then the G10 looks like the clear winner. That's why I bought it, and I believe it will serve well in that role. My biggest gripe is all the complexity built in to it. It's got what seem to be dozens of "scene" modes, and offers the ability to edit photos in-camera (redeye reduction, color swapping, etc), and all this comes at the cost of a 300 page manual. I understand there are quite a few people who store all of their images on their camera and never upload them to their computer and that this helps those folks make better prints directly from the camera, but come <i>on</i> already. </p>

<p>I think the G10 is the best "compromise" camera available right now. I'm sure something measurably better will come out in the next 6 months or so, but it will take quite a bit to get me to upgrade. In school they talk about "satisficing" (terrible word), but if you're looking for "good enough" like I was then the G10 won't disappoint.</p>

<p>Unless you're looking for a DSLR. Which this isn't.</p>

> More confusion. Who's got a bag full of Nikon DX digital <br>

> lenses that won't work properly (ie won't cover the full<br>

> frame) on Nikons most expensive digital camera?<p>

Well, I don't have a bag full, as I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible. A 17-55mm + a fast prime or two isn't as simple as a Leica M 17/35/50/90 kit, but it's reasonably close.<p>

I shoot portraits and weddings and was looking forward to this announcement as I'm looking for a more modern camera to replace my current backup kit (a Fuji S2); I'm currently using an S5 as my main camera, and the 16x20's I've printed from it look great (again, portraits and weddings folks, not pseudo Ansel Adams stuff). I'm, well, not sure that this is terribly appealing to me.<p>

On the one hand, I'd love to be able to mount an 85/1.4 on a D3 for portraits as I really love the look that this lens produces wide open, and it'll be the "right size" again on a D3. On the other hand I like being able to shoot at 20mm on a reception dance floor and get the same angle of view (but better depth of field) as I would with a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera. <p>

I'd be tempted to say "I'll carry one of each and use them where appropriate," but that's getting away from the simplicity I've tried to build, as I'd need a 24-70mm to match the 17-55mm on my S5, and I just *know* I'll end up purchasing another 85mm lens (I've successfully avoided that so far, telling myself my 50/1.4 is a decent replacement), and so on. Trying to work an S5/D200/D300 in tandem with a D3 doesn't seem as nice logistically as I'd like. I mean, I could use FX lenses instead of my DX lenses, but then I'm really losing out on the wide end when I switch to the DX kit.<p>

I don't know. The 6 megapixels I'm getting out of my Fuji is sufficient for what I'm doing, though I'd like more (hell, I wanted more resolution when I was shooting 6x7, so I'll always want "more"). I *really* like the dynamic range I'm seeing with my current camera, but it seems like Nikon have thrown some tricks into the newest cameras to try and squeeze more dynamic range out of them so maybe this feature isn't as valuable in comparison.<p>

Right now though, it seems like the proper pairing for my S5 is a D300 or a D2X(s); I'm hoping the price of the latter falls through the floor soon now that it's no longer the best performing Nikon in good light.

Vista user here, first of 1.0 and now 1.1.

No problems at all, though I've only got 6,800 images cataloged.

<i>I do have a lot of pictures not printed because of noise and the point is not to hide it from the Bride because they wont notice or complain, I will and professionals that look at my work on the future will as well. I don't know if you care for quality, honesty and reputation as much as you do for noise. </i><p>

So your work isn't "professional" if there's visible grain then? Go Canon. Seriously. If you care <i>that</i> much about noise/grain, then minimize it as much as you can technologically. When Canon moves to a new camera, upgrade <i>immediately</i> because you'll get less noise.<p>

As for the D200 vs S5 question I recently chose the S5 for weddings. There are simply too many photographers out there whose opinions I respect that were saying "I hardly ever use my D200s after getting an S5." That's good enough for me.<p>

Re grain: I don't care. As long as I'm getting better than I got from 35mm I'm thrilled. But then I liked Tri-X in 35mm and used to shoot it at 1250ASA and develop in Diafine, so I'm sure you won't value my opinion. ;)