tim_griffy

Tom, I live in Dallas and if I want to look at equipment and get help with it I always go to

Competitive Camera on Harry Hines. Their prices are fair and Ramsey the owner is very, very

helpful. They know their stuff. On the other hand if I know exactly what I want and just want

it shipped to me I use B&H in New York. Good luck -- I would recommend both very highly.

Oh, sorry John I didn't realize that you were going to be able to contradict my point about

Sony quality of tech support with such an informed and insightful rejoinder. If you don't

like Consumer Reports, how about last year's PC Magazines Survey of customer

satisfaction? They said,

"Tech support is where Sony falls apart. The tech-support score for all Sony notebooks is

4.8, which barely qualifies as good. It's the worst score in this category. Desktops also get

a bottom-of-the-table 5.7. Users of Sony notebooks at work give the company a 4.5 for

tech support, the worst score in this category?or in any category in the entire survey.

Things didn't get any better when we looked at the more specific questions about support.

The worst areas cited were the company's inability to resolve problems promptly in one

call and the relative helpfulness of the service reps."

Perhaps you'd like to come back with more support for your position than just spouting

opinions regarding absorbent material?

John, not to burst your bubble but Consumer Reports doesn't quite agree with your

assessment of Sony's technical support. In the June '05 issue of CR Sony was found to be

substantially behind other PC makers such as Dell, Gateway and even HP. The leader in both

desktops and laptops by quite a substantial margin was, er . . . Apple.

Gareth I print borderless on a 1290s run on a G5 using OS X. If you go to the dialogue box

used to add a printer, select "Epson USB" for the location it should give you choices of

printers to add. One of these choices will be something like Epson 1290 (No Margins). Select

this much as if it were a new printer and that will be how you can print without borders. I've

no problem doing this once I figured out how to get there and that it required you to

essentially add a different printer (from a software perspective) rather than being able to

select a no border option from the default installation. The 1290 is a great printer but the

drivers/documentation aren't the best. Hope this helps.

I also have the Coolscan V and love it -- just realize it won't do 120. You will have to step

up to the 8000 for that.

Another vote for the Billingham "Leica" bag. Excellent size for the kit you are describing

-- I often use it with exactly that equipment.

You've been back and forth between the f2.8 and f4 version of the 70-200mm lens.

Here's one more vote for the f4 -- even though another stop is always nice, the difference

in weight made the decision for me and many more people on this forum. Pick them up

-- if the weight and price difference aren't a deal killer then get the extra stop. But I bet

they will be.

It actually works exactly the same in OS X. Robert, if this is your question just go to

System Preferences and you can designate this under the sharing icon. However, you may

already know that and want to position the printer somewhere else so it is not "tethered"

to this computer. If that is the case, the only other solution that I know of is that if you

already have an Airport Express wireless router it has a USB port to connect the 2200 to.

By the way, Edward, I daresay that most people in a digital darkroom forum wouldn't look

to a change from Macintosh to Windows as an upgrade!

Another vote for Tony Rose at popflash.com -- very knowledgeable and was extremely

helpful to me in arranging for an M7 to be delivered to me on a short visit to the US.

I have a D60 that misses a fair amount as well, and am considering purchasing a 20D as I

have heard that it is much more effective and fast in autofocusing. Any experience thus

far that would support or negate this?