summitar

<p>I was driving around this afternoon with NPR on the radio. In a segment produced by the BBC, they had a blurb in which they said that Capa's photo of the soldier, falling to the ground with a rifle in his hand, was undoubtedly staged. I searched npr.org but could not find a link.<br>

On the other hand, I did find a f/2.8 Minolta 24mm lens, as well as a f/1.2 50mm lens.<br>

The 24mm lens is labeled MD W.ROKKOR-X.<br>

I have never seen the W before. Any answers?</p>

<p>Thanks for the good advice, gang.<br>

I received an offer to purchase Paint Shop Pro X2 for about $30 and that's I did.<br>

It can open D200 NEFs and seems to have more than enough capability to handle my limited skills.<br>

Thanks for the info. I am surprised that CS was not given the ability to open D200 NEFs.</p>

<p>good pornography is hard to come by.</p>

<p>I respect main stream religions that are concerned with the environment and the survival of other species, but I regard evangelical fundamentalists as a life form that ranks below pond scum.</p>

<p>Thanks for your comments. I will probably continue to use them from force of habit, because, yes indeed, I have inadvertently left fingerprints on lenses. I don't shoot much black and white anymore, but when I do, most photos are improved by a yellow filter. For SLRs, I like to use a polarizing filter. My other habit, using neck straps, has probably saved me from dropping cameras. My one dropped camera experience, happened when trying to get a digital P&S, a Canon A95, out of jacket pocket. It fell on the pavement from waist level. Result, a nearly imperceptible ding on the camera, and continued perfect operation. Maybe there is something to those thoughts that modern plastics do a better job of protecting cameras than metal bodies.</p>

<p>Like many of you, I'm sure, I have used a UV or skylight filter on most of my lenses, not for their optical properties, but to provide protection against something impacting the front element of the lens. Yet in over 45 years of photography, these protective physical properties have never been required in my purely amateur experience.<br>

So I have been using something that may be degrading optical quality to guard against an extremely rare threat.<br>

Any thoughts on this? Should I continue to protect my lenses against something that has never occurred to me?</p>

<p>The XE-7 and XD-11 are both excellent. The difference between MC and MD lenses is that MD allows the XD to use shutter priority as well as aperture priority plus manual and some form of program action. The XE operates in aperture priority and manual.<br>

The XE uses the CLC mechanism to help prevent a bright sky to dominate the exposure setting, but the XD does not use CLC as far as I can determing. Neither camera allows the exposure to be locked by half depression of the shutter release.<br>

The XE uses a CdS sensor which seems quite responsive while the DX uses a silicon sensor that is very responsive.<br>

Quality of workmanship on cameras and lenses is first rate.<br>

I wonder if anyone here can comment on the effectiveness of the CLC solution. With most other cameras of that period, I take the exposure setting while tiltomg the camera down to prevent too much influence of the bright sky. In your experience, does CLC provide an adequate solution.</p>

<p>I have been a member of photo.net for a long time but this is the first time I have ever clicked on this forum.<br>

I am able to open NEF files from my Nikon D70 with Photoshop CS, thanks to a plugin, but it won't open NEF files produced by a used Nikon D200 I recently purchased. Can you recommend a fix? I am a pure amateur so telling me to buy the latest version of photoshop will not be helpful. I would rather save my $$$ to upgrade to a D300 eventually.</p>

<p>My PC runs Windows XP.</p>

<p>Louis, beautiful photo of a beautiful woman. Lucky you!</p>

<p>Louis, that is a great shot of Seattle. I have lived in Bellevue since 1977, and I can't figure out where you were standing while taking the photo. I have the same 135mm lens and I have never used it. Thanks for the motivation. I have the 100mm f/2.8 and like it very much.</p>

<p>I would say the preferred term is "classic" rather than antique. I thought she was referring to something from the civil war. Second, I would say the question is too general to properly answer. The are large variances in the intrinsic ability of a given camera, in its reliability, and how well it has been cared for. It would be much easier to answer knowing the model and its general condition and the asking price. As an analogy to using classic cameras, I would cite examples such as fly fishing. Fly fishing is not the most effective way to fish, nor the cheapest, but it is the most elegant and the most fun and satisfaction. It takes skill and knowledge, the attainment of which is also a pleasure. I think one of the best classics for a beginner is a member of the Kodak Retina series, a IIa or if you find a good one, a IIIc. And start with a forgiving film, say ISO 200 negative film. If the person was really enthusiastic, I would point them to the two great books written by Ivor Matanle, often available at the library or via Amazon.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The Konica auto S2.</p>

<p>My typical modus with film is to use ISO 200 negative film, get it processed at Costco in to 4x6 inch prints, and also digitized onto a CD at the max resolution they offer. A lot of prints can benefit from cropping, persepctive control, brightening, sharpening, etc.<br>

Among the free stuff out there, there is irfanview viewer which I have used for years and the more recent Picasa. Among those that cost money are photoshop and paint shop pro, which I have in obsolete versions.<br>

I really don't like post processing, but recognize it as a necessary evil, although I am amateur in using it. When I get what I think is a keeper, I will get 8x10 prints, or more rarely 12x18 prints made at Costco.<br>

The only people I have to discuss these thing with is you on photo.net. (I have a fair amount of friends, but they all tune out when it comes to cameras, or photoprocessing.) <br>

I would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions. <br>

P.S. At my age and situation, I am never going to get in todeveloping my own film, but I have total admiration for those of you that do.</p>

<p>Margaret Bourke-White made some amazing Life covers. I have read her biography, but I am not familiar with her full bodyof work. Duncan outranks the self promoting Capa by light years. There is still controversy over the staging or not of the falling Spanish soldier, which Duncan included in this book, as part of a tribute to other photographers he had personally known, which includes HCB, Mili, and Kessel.<br>

Duncan also covered Vietnam, and has some great photos from Khe San, the Marine enclave. The breadth of experience in this book, exceeds every other photo book I have, and I have quite a few.</p>

<p>I went in one of my half-price bookstores in the Seattle area. I always check out the photography section. I found a great book by Duncan (I have several others by him). This one is titled "Photo Nomad" and was published in 2003. It has about 480 pages with a photo on nearly every page.<br>

Duncan was born in 1916, was a Marine officer and combat photographer in WW2, became a Life photographer after the war, but went to Korea in 1950 and published many iconic photos of the Korean war, especially the retreat from Chosin reservoir.<br>

In Korea he used a Leica IIIf with of 50mm f/1.5 Nikon lens, and he was the one that made Japanese lenses famous. He switched to the Leica M3 after the war.<br>

I don't know if he is still alive but he had a great photographic career, quite a few Life covers.<br>

The book has wonderful photos, many in very exotic locations. He did a lot of photos of Picasso and his work.</p>

<p>Sunny 16 works fairly well because negative film is very forgiving. I will use a handheld meter always when I have one, but I prefer to use the meter of something like a Canon A650IS, to give me a more precise answer when using film. My problem with hand held meters is that I don't know their field of view.</p>

<p>I have visited Spain twice and found it to be a lovely friendly country with an incredible history, and the castles to prove it. My wife told me that she had a camera stolen out of her car in Barcelona, before we were married. It on their last day so a week of film was lost also. On a more recent trip in 2002, we paused at a viewpoint of Avila and parked the car and got out to take some photos. My daughter had neglected to lock the car since we were only going to be there for a few minutes. There were a few other cars and sightseers around. A car pulled up with some young people in it, but we were too busy concentrating on the walled city of Avila. When we returned to the car, my wife's purse was missing. We went into Avila to report the theft to the police. While we were filling out all the forms, the police told us that some one had found a purse and would we wait until it was delivered to the station. We did and it was my wife's purse, to our amazement. It had just been left in a department store. Missing were my wife's credit cards and about 20 Euros. But present were my wife's passport, driver's license, and military dependent ID card. I was so happy that they didn't throw the purse into a dumpster or river, that I would have cheerfully given them 50 Euros on the spot. We cancelled the credit cards of course.<br>

To balance the story, I have my car's trunk broke into twice while parked near the now-departed Kingdome in Seattle. The first time, they got about $250 worth of bicycle gear. The second time, they got only a box of 50 clay pigeons which I had bought at Kmart for $5. I hope they enjoyed their treat.<br>

I seriously gave some thought to recruiting some of my younger, burley friends and parking the car in the same spot with some goodies plainly visible in the interior, while we would be staked out in non-discript clothes with baseball bats hidden under our coats. Good thing we didn't follow through, because we would have gone to jail and we would have funding the crook for the rest of his life.<br>

My basic rule is that if you leave a camera in your car, even locked in a trunk, it will be stolen.<br>

The one exception I would make is that I often left a camera in my car in the Boeing parking lot. The lot was guarded, and no one could get to the lot except by passing through a guarded checkpoint. My worry in this situation was not loss of camera but rather loss of job because it was against the rules to bring a camera onto Boeing property. Of course, at the time, Boeing was funding my attendance at a photography class to the tune of $800.<br>

I hope you will recover your Leica M2. Not easy to come by these days.</p>

<p>I would try the Catskills. There are some legendary trout streams such as the Beaverkill and Willewemoc. Nice vistas of the Hudson river from the West Point campus. Drive the Taconic State Parkway. Upstate NY is beautiful.</p>

<p>Nice photos, Howard.<br>

You can find a very detailed review of the G10 at http://dpreview.com<br>

Look in the "cameras" file along the upper left border.</p>

<p>I can imagine Gene replying to the question, "what are you rebelling against?"<br>

with a "wadda you got?"</p>

<p>You conveniently do a comparison of all the cameras at http://dpreview.com</p>

<p>I have owned the A80, A95, A620 and A650IS. The features they have in common are (1) lots of manual control, (2) optical viewfinder (although not a great one), (3) flexible LCD (very handy), (4) use four AA batteries (lithiums seem to last forever), (5) very grippable, and (6) have enough mass to help dampen my senior shakes. My rule is Canon Powershots for P&S, and Nikon for DSLRs.<br>

If you can find a new one, I would definately go for the A650IS, although it will cost you more than $125. If you can't, I don't know which one to recommend. Canon seems to have about six dozen P&Ss that are barely distinguishable to me.<br>

I considered a G10, but it didn't have a flexible LCD, was not very grippable, and it requires a proprietary battery as opposed to the "available anywhere" AA batteries.<br>

I hope someone here can tell me which is the pick of the litter among the currently marketed Canon P&Ss. The A650IS doesn't apparently have a successor and I wonder if it ever will.</p>

<p>I used "revisit" and "North America" to limit responses to places actually visited, as opposed to "want to visit" and I limit this to North America since I don't know if I will ever fly again without someone holding a gun to my head.<br>

I spent 22 years in the military and had 12 permanent assignments (permanent as opposed to temporary business trips) and have lived in some neat places and some not so neat places. Hint: if corn, wheat or cotton are major industries in your area, it is not neat. I lived for 8 years in the great plains flyover country, and it wasn't so great. But if the doctor ever tells me I have a week to live, I'll spend it in Tulsa. It will seem like a year.<br>

I was born and raised in Niagara Falls, NY, and consider the Falls to be the most spectacular natural site and sight I have ever layed eyes on. Not only visually spectacular but loud and very dynamic. The city itself has fallen on hard times due to outsourcing of the chemical industry, first to the south and then to China.<br>

I have not yet been to the Grand Canyon, and while I am sure it is impressive, it probably lacks some of the dynamics unless you are close to the river.<br>

I have lived for the past 32 years in the Seattle region and it is beautiful except for the dark, damp season. Our winters and summers are mild, but boy, we have short days in the winter made even darker by the omnipresent heavy cloud cover. I am pleased that the Leica Historical Society will have meeting here this Autumn.<br>

Now lay some good ideas on me, especially if they are just few days drive from Seattle. I have yet to visit Jackson Hole, or Banff.</p>

<p>Also my first 35mm camera, purchased at an Army PX in Saigon in 1966, $35 brand new, and still works great. I use the C.R.I.S battery adapter and it works well. I discovered 45 years ago that if you have a scene that has a lot bright skylight in it, the primary subject will be underexposed. So you set the exposure by tilting the camera down about 30-40 degrees and lock in the exposure by half-depression of the shutter release, a handy feature lacking in such cameras as the Nikon FE2. (Yes, you can lock theexposure on the FE2, but not with the shutter release).<br>

The design of the camera was well thought out. Large VF/RF with parallax correcting bright lines, exposure reading on the body top as well in the viewfinder, won't let you take a picture with the lens cap on, a battery check button, CdS sensor located so that compensation for filters is automatic, built in lens shade, auto reset of picture count when opening back, a good tough finish on the camera and leather that hold up very well. The lens is reputedly modeled after the Leica Summicron.<br>

My only minor complaint is that it difficult to read what range the focus is set at, which I only needed when adjusting a flash gun.<br>

I really can't think of any camera that delivers more bang for the buck.</p>

<p>Perhaps my Canon FT-QL, purchased brand new in vietnam for $65 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. The major difference between it and an FTb is that you had to use stop down metering on the FT-QL. At the time, not that much of a hindrance, since I shot shot mostly with focus at infinity.</p>