markwilkins

Incidentally, I'm not sure how switching to a D70s instead of a D50 would significantly help

Brad in his quest for sharpness.

If you're switching to digital and you want something that does what your 28-70 lens

does, then you probably need something in the 18-55 range because of the digital

cameras' smaller field of view. Nikon's lens in that range is pushing $1000, though there

are cheaper.

If sharpness is your concern, though, I agree with the recommendation that a prime lens

will be the best bang for the buck. The Nikkor 24mm f/2.8D is about $300 at B&H, will

produce a comparable field of view to your current lens set at 36mm, which is wide

enough to be useful for a lot of landscape shots, and is a well-regarded lens for

sharpness.

For $500, my guess is that you're unlikely to find a zoom that matches your Sigma in

performance, but a good prime lens is another matter.

-- Mark

The battery may not "break in," but many smart lithium ion batteries continually calibrate

their battery meter as they're used, which can cause the readings to get more accurate over

time.

However, if you use the LCD every time you shoot, most reports I've heard say that the

battery will last about 350 exposures, so your halfway at 150 sounds about right.

-- Mark

The A-DEP feature is the kind of thing that Canon has always gone for while Nikon has

skipped. What makes it questionably useful is that when your lens is wide open, DOF is a

smooth gradient from sharp to blurry, and so it still doesn't give you an accurate idea of

what your picture is going to look like once you trip the shutter.

The truth is that you probably only really want to use a few aperture settings for most

photography. Wide open for low light or for a nice shallow depth of field effect, f/8 or so

for best overall sharpness of your subject without regard to other stuff, and stopped all

the way down for maximum depth of field when you want everything sharp.

Finer control than that can wait until you've played around a bunch with those settings.

And remember, it's a digital camera -- experimentation costs a tiny bit of electricity,

nothing more.

-- Mark

<img src=http://www.markrwilkins.com/traffic_calming.jpg><P>

At least the traffic is calming.<P>

I had a few lenses in London last year, but I found the 35 to be generally useful. Most of the streets there are not wide and if you are trying to include some of the environment a little wider can help.

Nevertheless, as you point out, any lens choice will be a compromise and you'll have to compose for what you have.

-- Mark

Sorry, blew my assistant budget on my photo equipment.

-- Mark

Daniel, I came off as a bit more serious than I should have. G6 and movie mode it is!!

-- Mark

Daniel, regrettably you (and just about everyone else in this thread) missed the point of my question.

"What I'm looking for are suggestions as to a strategy, an interesting project, or whatever to MOTIVATE my decision to take one set of equipment or the other."

I was looking for creative ideas, not equipment ideas. However, I appreciate all the ideas offered.

-- Mark

No, I understand. It's just that a faster wide angle for the Nikon setup would set me back maybe $1800, and at that price, I'm halfway to a new M7 or MP!!

:)

-- Mark

Well, there's good news and there's bad news...

The good news is the camera's not going to Germany and I can probably have it back in the next few weeks, after the technicians in NJ have a look to make sure there's nothing grossly wrong.

The bad news is that Solms has decided that the modification they were doing to fix the DX problems is unsatisfactory and they're working on something new that won't be ready before the summer, so it's unlikely the problem will be fixed.

Thanks for all the ideas! :)

-- Mark

<i>a big slow zoom.</i><P>

I proposed taking the 17-35 f/2.8, which is a higher-quality wide-angle than my wide-angle Nikon prime (which is itself a 24/2.8.) Anyway, neither is "slow" by any standards except for the most demanding available light shooting.<P>

-- Mark

Frederick:

This is a Canon G6. It's a digital compact camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong6/

-- Mark

Tony:

I wish I could too -- my equipment situation is probably one of the key reasons I do not yet

own a house.

-- Mark

Thanks Bart, that's the most useful answer yet!! :)

-- Mark

Thanks, everyone, for the ideas so far! Robert, I'm not particularly averse to using film,

but the F100 is a more bulky camera than the M7 and doesn't share what I find the M7's

usability advantages. Also, since the D70 and the F100 are similar cameras in a lot of

ways, the differences come down mostly to the difference in FOV and carrying film around.

(I still think I'm leaning toward the F100 based on that balance though.)

One advantage to digital is that it WILL NOT and CAN NOT get fogged. (I haven't had

trouble with security X-rays, but during a trip to London last year with the Leica, I fogged

a roll by mistake because I forgot to rewind the film before opening up the bottom plate of

the camera!! Amazingly, though one edge of the film was fogged, the pictures still came

out well enough to be worth keeping.)

That the decline in film sales increased in 2005 does not mean that digital will entirely

eliminate film in the long run. In fact, my guess is that film is likely to end up exclusively

in two markets: the low-end consumer market (where there are and will be plenty of

people who just can't afford a computer, but can afford a one-time-use camera), and the

fine arts market (where the look and the craft of film-based photography will continue to

have some cachet.)

Based on this, I predict:

1) Color neg film will be available for a long, long time, but expect a serious thinning of

options on the pro end. Still, I think some pros will stick with color neg film in some

circumstances just because it's so tolerant of over- or underexposure.

2) Black and white will remain a niche product for the fine arts user. Actually, B/W

photography is probably going to be least affected by digital, because most of the people

who are doing B/W photography now are as much choosing it for the craft aspect as for

the look.

3) Reversal film may well be dead in the near future because of the significant R&D

requirements and the lack of significant consumer use.

-- Mark

Darius: Thanks! However, I'm not buying another camera for this trip, unless it's a Leica, and

probably not then!! :)

Bill: Checking the monitor is definitely a bad habit, but it IS possible to turn it off on the

D70! A more insidious bad habit is cranking off hundreds of meaningless shots just because

you can.

Heh, perhaps I do have something of the collector in me. However, I am a visual artist, full

time, for a living, so I feel fine about taking some joy in my tools. :)

I am not, however, a professional photographer, so maybe that's why I've been so much all

over the place both in my artistic goals and my equipment. For me, photography is play,

not work.

However, taking pictures of my travel has nothing to do with any of that! Help me out

here!! :D

-- Mark

OK, so I'm going to London and Paris for a couple of weeks in the spring. The question of

what camera to take along would normally not be an issue -- I'd take the M7, probably

with the 50/2 and 35/1.4 ASPH.

Unfortunately, I sent the M7 to New Jersey for a repair (intermittent DX-reading failure)

and it's now winging its way to Germany. No, it won't be back before the trip, and no, I

can't go to Solms to pick it up.

I have various other equipment choices available to me, and I know they're not really

perfectly comparable from a standpoint of what images I'd like to make. What I'm looking

for are suggestions as to a strategy, an interesting project, or whatever to MOTIVATE my

decision to take one set of equipment or the other.

I'm agnostic on the issue of film vs. digital. The reason I'd normally take the M7 is that I

simply take better pictures with it. Why, I don't know. I also like using color neg film

because it puts the issue of white balance in someone else's court -- fiddling with white

balance is my least favorite aspect of digital photography. (That's true with slides too, but

there I've tended to tolerate it because the images look beautiful on a light table.)

Soooo, here are my choices, in no particular order (though the ones that seem most

reasonable to me are nearer the top.)

1) Nikon D70 w/ 17-35 f/2.8 zoom and 50mm f/1.4. I don't like that my low-light lens

comes out equivalent to a 75 in this arrangement and again white balance is a problem

(particularly in indoor lighting) but it's probably a serviceable arrangement.

2) Nikon F100 w/ same lenses, plus maybe an 85/1.8. Being able to go wider might be a

lot of fun and the 50/1.4 is a very useable choice. Also, the camera's smaller, which is a

plus. However, lugging film around and developing later is a minus.

3) Pentax 67 w/ 90mm f/2.8 and 45mm f/4, plus maybe a Canon G6 compact digital to

balance it off. This one might be a lot of fun -- I don't get enough use out of the Pentax

67. However, it's like carrying around a ton of bricks.

4) Just go with the Canon G6. Can't really get the same degree of nice depth of field, easy

to carry around, takes nice pictures otherwise, and I won't cry if I lose it or it's stolen or I

destroy it.

5) Get a second M7 or an MP body, possibly with a 0.58 viewfinder. I'm Mark, and I'm an

addict.

Cameras discounted from the list are: Nikon D1x (too big, offers few practical advantages

over the D70 for this application), Nikon FM2n (nice enough, small, but F100 will do better

with the lens I want to use)

I think Rob has the right idea.

-- Mark

Marc, for what you're talking about, a Canon or Nikon SLR is a more versatile tool than a Leica, although I tend to think that a Leica with an 8x ND filter would be pretty usable as long as you weren't having to go from daylight to darkness frequently (as it sounds like you do in your wedding contexts.)

-- Mark

oops, screwed that post up, didn't I? :)

-- Mark

<i>Whenever a discussion like this comes up I think of Robert Capa's D-Day photographs. There's more to a timeless image than just lens quality.</i>

I agree. Anyway, Capa didn't use Leicas for lens quality, he used them because there were very few other compact camera choices in 1944.

-- Mark

The reason people say Leica M cameras are good for low-light photography is not that they perform best wide open or at slow shutter speeds.

Instead it's that wide open or at slow shutter speeds the Leica M performance is noticeably better than the competition at similar aperture and shutter speed choices, while at faster shutter speeds and stopped down, even slightly, Leica cameras produce images very similar to much cheaper competitors.

I find that I can get away with much more pushing of the limits in marginal conditions with my M camera but when there's plenty of light and I wish to stop down I don't really see much difference from the images I take with my Nikon equipment, which is easier to use and more versatile.

I do use the M a lot more, though, because most of my people photography is at night.

-- Mark