glen_johnson

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00005f

If your slides look good on the light table, they probably are good. This is one of those obsessive compulsive things that people can worry about for no logical reason. If you're enlarging by 10X+, it might become something to worry about, depending on your subject.

 

If the film isn't flat, then focus won't be uniform. Since, if the film isn't flat, then the film isn't all uniformly on the focal plane, and the parts that aren't on the focal plane will be less sharp than the parts that are. It is more likely that you would notice a difference between the center and the edges if you had a film flatness problem, but since lenses aren't as sharp at the edges as they are in the center, you might see some difference in focus even if your film is "flat enough." Of course there are also generally depth of field issues with many subjects, and so subject sharpness and background sharpness are also influenced by this factor.

 

To your question "should I be worried?", I would answer with an emphatic NO. Not if you can't see a problem by looking at your own images.

My son took a photography class this term, and he rented a little Minolta manual camera for the course. The camera had a 50mm lens of modest speed. He has enjoyed it enough that he wants to continue shooting now that the course is over, and so it made sense for him to get his own camera. In fact, he has enjoyed the processing and printing aspect of the class enough to get me to think seriously about cranking up my wet darkroom again. I've gotten lazy shooting digital in recent years, and haven't processed or printed anything in the darkroom in several years.

 

I figured it would be a nice Christmas present, and since I've got an extensive EOS system, it made sense to get him a Canon.

 

I used to post here quite a bit, particularly during the late 1990's, and some folks may remember that I was always a strong supporter of the Rebel models.

 

This new T2 is incredible. It has a metal lens mount. It has depth of field preview. Someone above suggested that you should get an A2 second hand. I disagree with this advice. My first Canon EOS body was an A2E, and I really like this Rebel T2 better than that one. It is incredibly compact, light, full-featured, and capable. In fact, I think there are definitely places where I would carry a Rebel T2 instead of a 1N. I went ahead and bought him one of the kits with a Canon zoom, but I also bought him a 50mm f/1.8 lens so that he could continue the low light stuff he likes to do. His major is "Recording Industry," and so he is constantly involved in indoor shooting with stage/performance lighting.

 

The one mistake in all this I suppose is that he will now want access to my fast lenses and professional zooms. Hmmmm ... Maybe I should have bought him a different brand :-)

This is really quite generous. Although I haven't posted much since 1999, I still browse occasionally. I also use the hyperlinks to vendors. Photo.net has been a neat experiment, and it has been fascinating to watch its evolution. In any event, I just re-upped by paypal. Thanks, Sandy (and Brian, and Bob, and whoever else is helping to keep photo.net alive as we approach the end of a decade).

Yeah, I'm one of the guys who resubscribed on June 11th, and my icon still hasn't reappeared.

If its any consolation to you, I resubscribed on June 11th too, and I haven't had my subscriber icon restored either. I sent a couple of e-mails, and eventually asked Bob Atkins about it. Bob said that Brian was tied up with hardware installation issues, so I guess we just have to be patient.

Maybe its "minimal," but its still present when they do use it as a special effect (shooting into the sun for some other reason). The key to not getting this effect is to avoid backlighting from significant point sources.

I'm not going to get into a p**sing contest about whether its lens flare or not. It becomes a progressively greater problem as the point light source approaches the optical axis of the lens. If you want to kill it, you have to get the light source out of the field of view. Maybe its not lens flare. FWIW, it does not appear to be a problem if you shoot into a bright, non-point source.

 

Maybe someone could explain why it is an artifact of the CCD cell, if that is the case. If it is just an artifact of the CCD cell that is caused by a bright point source, then you could just deal with it with neutral density filters. I've seen some mitigation with ND filters, but I've never knocked it out with ND filtration.

It is just a form of lens flare. It is impossible to get rid of it if you are shooting directly into a light source. If you really want to see serious flare, take something like the Canon GL-1, stick the .7 - 58 wide angle converter on the front, and shoot anything in the half space that includes the sun. There are so many elements in this set up that flare begins as soon as the entrance pupil can begin to see any part of the sun, and when you're looking head on into the sun, the flare is so wild that you could consider using it as a special effect.

 

If you don't want lens flare, make sure the lens can't see any part of the light source. Use a lens hood for shots where the light source would be close to the edges of the half space. To further minimize flare, use a lens with relatively few elements (although I know that few amateur camcorders give you a chance to pick your lens).

Brad, I wouldn't spend any time worrying that your proposed set up would sit unused. Whichever way you go, you'll have many envious colleagues who will be very interested in your rig if you abandon it within three years. If you haven't abandoned it in three years, it will be hopelessly outdated anyway, so it won't matter.

 

On some campuses where they have limited computer support personnel, they don't like any machines they can't maintain by imaging a master. That's the problem here. If you get the mac, you may be the one that has to maintain it.... but on the bright side, these things practically maintain themselves.

 

See if you can try both and pick the one you like the best. Although I have easily gone back and forth between macs and pcs since 1989 when I got my first mac, I know that some folks really have a strong preference for the macs. They seem to be more intuitive for a part of the population. Certainly they seem to dominate the folks who do this stuff for a living but who don't have the money to set up and support something at the next level up.

Some film scanners will take 16mm film. I don't know if any will go to 8mm or not. 8mm is mighty tiny. If you don't want to shoot it with your own digital video camera, then you could buy one of the Elmo telecine transfer units. You run the film as though you were projecting it. The built in video camera turns it into a vhs output feed. You can then run that feed directly into something like the Phillips 985 DVD recorder. I think you'll get higher quality if you use your own DV camcorder. VHS as a practical matter is considerably less dense, and you can see it on projected images, even on screens as small as 31" diagonal.

http://www.moviestuff.tv/8mm_telecine.html

I am using your option 2 and I'm fairly happy. My sense is that the order you've presented them is more or less the order that would probably get recommended by most folks who've used all three options. We have your option 1 available at work, but I've never tried it. The folks who use it think its great. My sense is that a lot of imaging professionals would probably pic your option 1.

I understand that a 140 f/2.8 is shorter than a 150 f/2.8 (by what has to be considered an irrelevant ammount), but I don't understand why it is slower.... Any insights?

I have a fairly extensive Contax 645 system. I like it a lot. However, if I were on a budget, I wouldn't even think about Contax. I would be buying and using the Pentax stuff so fast, folks would think I'd invented it. The cost difference is huge. I like the feel and style of use of the Contax very very much. I could easily get used to the feel and style of use of the Pentax....within a day or two of serious use. And, as I said, if the budget were an issue, there is no doubt that the Pentax offers the better value. As for the image quality, its up to you. Both systems are very capable. Pentax makes good stuff. To get junk nowadays you just about have to buy stuff from a former or current communist country. If you put a great image shot with the Pentax system up against a great image shot with the Contax system, 95 out of 100 people will admit that they can't choose which was shot with which, and the 5 who say they can tell will argue over which was shot with which.

I have to agree 100% with Ronny's comments. But what he has said about light is true for all forms of photography. The secret is in the light once you have reasonably capable gear.

 

Looking back at your original quedstion, my experience in 16:9 mode is that geometrical relationships are maintained correctly, but the image doesn't fully cover a 4:3 screen because there are black areas at the top and bottom. There are sometimes separate digital effects modes that will make the image look thinner or squatter, but regular 16:9 won't distort things on its own. With my camcorder I don't think I can use the other digital effects if I've set it for 16:9. I usually shoot stuff straight anyway, and in mini-DV I just stick with 4:3 for just about everything. If I ever bump up to a format that can handle 700+ lines, I'll probably move to 16:9 mode for more stuff.

If you can use DVD's instead of CD's, there are some neat new DVD recorders out there, that are essentially turnkey products. Phillips has a really nice one in their 985, and the prices have dropped so that you can pick one up for about two thirds of their initially offered price. These DVD recorders aren't really any harder to use than a VCR. The Phillips model has an IEEE 1394 Fire Wire port, so it is very fast and flexible.

Your VCR or camcorder will have two or three outputs - red, white, and yellow. Yellow is the video out. If you want to make a copy without the existing audio, just feed the yellow output directly to another recording VCR. If you want to add a different audio track, just run your new audio into the red and white inputs on your recording VCR as you record the video. If you want to mix the old audio track with a new audio track, feed the old audio track into a mixing board, along with your new audio, and then feed the mixed signal into the recording VCR on red and white as you record the video. Its pretty straight forward.

The simple Canon GL-1 has a very capable telephoto end on its zoom. It goes out optically to the 35mm equivalent of about 800 mm. It uses an advanced glass formulation to mitigate some of the problems that come about in long telephotos. And it is a 3 CCD camera.

 

I have used mine to capture nealry full frame single animal images at distances of up to 100 yards, with good results. The optical image stabilization program is also exceptional, although at full zoom, you have to really work at hand holding, even with the stabilizer turned on. It is a challenge, but a challenge that even my tired old hands can meet most of the time.

Of the units you've mentioned, Elmo would probably be the one that has held up the best over time.... but this isn't saying much. I've fooled with a slew of used projectors and 30 year old cameras, and I think you're throwing good money away if you go this route.

 

That said, if you're insistent on film, I would look at 16mm. If your insistent on film, but you can't afford the high price of 16mm processing, then you really need to go back and look at my first paragraph.

 

If your goal is to get good, archival video images, get a good quality mini-DV. After the initial investment, there are no processing costs, and you get instant feedback on what you've captured. If you want to make it look like film, get one of the models that has digital effects to degrade the image so that it will look like film.

Robert, it sounds like you've bitten off more than you can chew here. There are no universally optimal settings. If there were, the manufacturer would have just picked them and let it go at that.

 

I do not have an XL1s, but I do have a fairly complete EOS 35mm system, and a GL-1 mini-DV Canon camcorder. I know that the GL-1 has pretty much a full range of settings too, but one setting it has for folks who aren't sure what to pick, is the green box setting. This is like the "full auto" mode on the lower end EOS bodies. Maybe the XL1s has this green box mode too.

 

If you don't have a full auto mode, then you are going to have to do some learning. The manual for the GL-1 is excellent, and my guess is the manual for the XL1s is similar. You should read it from cover to cover a couple of times.

 

You need to experiment to learn what's happening. Fortunately, there's no processing, so you should be able to learn quickly and inexpensively.

 

A couple of the neater things about the high end Canon mini-DV cameras are the zebra mode, and the frame mode. I also really like the built in ND filters which allow you to ward off diffraction problems even under very bright light. Also the adjustable gain is a nice feature. All in all, you can get broadcast quality video out of the XL1s and the GL series, and all the rules of film photography will help you get good results from the video - except that video is instant, and more forgiving.

 

You will have a lot of fun as you learn. You can play back right on the little built in monitor and get an idea of what you need to change on the fly. Good luck!

Mini DV. 3 CCD. Sony, JVC, Canon. Canon's is now GL-2. Discontinued GL-1 is available some places for very modest cost. Good camcorder.

You can just dub the tape to mini-DV using a mini-DV recorder. Some of the latest mini-DV recorders will stream directly to the computer via a 1394 connection.

The first thing to check on is whether or not you can increase the gain. If you can, bump it up 6dB and see if you like what you get (this fix is free if its available to you).

 

If you can't increase the gain, then consider the purchase of an accessory light. Or just turn on more room lights or open any shades or drapes. If you increase the light falling on the subject to on the order of 100 LUX or more, most video cameras will give a pretty decent picture.

Sony and JVC both make some great camcorder products. I think you could probably be happy with either. At this point it seems to me that the current generation of Sony models, with Bluetooth, etc., may have an advantage.... but reviews suggest that there are still bugs to be worked out with Bluetooth. Why don't you go to a store like Best Buy and try them out? Like so many other products in photography, you may find that you have a personal preference once you play with them both.