rsriram

It all depends on your shooting style. For portraits, I've used everything from my 24/2.8 to the 100-400L at 400mm. Depends on the effect you want to achieve. Personally, I love the 70-120mm range for portraits (I shoot film too). My favourite portrait lens is the 100/2.8 USM.<div></div>

Here in Singapore, I see an increasing number of Fuji frontier labs all over the place, and most of them handle film. Even my local Kodak lab down the road has started E6 here. When I spoke to their owners / operators they tell me that there's no slowdown in film processing. Digital is making itself felt at the pro film outlets where I see smaller numbers of good film like Fuji NPH.

I've never heard clangs, but my 100-400 did produce a low clunk when IS was engaged. AF was slow compared to other lenses, and yes, it is slower than my cheap 28-105 USM, probably because of the large amount of glass it has to move, and because it goes down to f/5.6 at the long end. Use the focus limiter for faster AF.

This isn't a question, but an observation which may be of use to

others in the same boat.

 

I shoot Press 800 pretty often and the closest pro lab using a Fuji

frontier is far away, so I tried printing from press/superia 800 at

some local Kodak pro digital labs around where I live. The results

when scanned and printed through their Noritsu machines has produced

prints with significantly larger grain even on 4x6" prints, compared

to prints from the same film on a couple of Frontiers. Thought the

frontiers may be doing some dumbing down or softening, but I see no

lack of detail or sharpness from the frontier prints. However the same

Kodak labs do a decent job with NPS (160) and the run of the mill

Superia films.

 

Guess some Fuji film does OK only on Fuji machines, however I've tried

several Kodak films (Portra 400VC, Portra 160NC, Supra 400/800) on

Frontiers and the prints look every bit as good as the Kodak / Noritsu

prints. Anyone else with a similar story to share?

I've got the best results on Fuji crystal archive, printed on a Frontier.

I've been getting my films for the past 5-6 years at Cathay photo at Peninsula Plaza near City Hall. They usually have fresh stocks and keep the pro films refrigerated. You can also try Ruby photo at Peninsula shopping centre, across the road, or Colour Lab at Adelphi, also near the same place.

 

I get my films processed at the Kodak lab on the ground floor near Cathay (near a bunch of ATM machines). They charge Sing$6 for processing + index prints and around $3 for processing alone. Colour Lab also does processing and they do E6 as well, though they are a bit expensive.

 

My personal preference for E6 is to drop it off ar Ruby and ask them to send it off to "Spectra Labs". There's a collection every day, and they have been very consistent with my slides. Sing$4.10 for processing without mounts, and $6.30 for processing with mounts. Spectra is a Fuji lab if I am not mistaken.

 

I've found RGB too expensive and their printing quite mediocre. They cater to the big guys, and I guess I'm small fry to them.

 

Film is relatively cheap in Singapore. For example, Kodak EBX is around Sing$6 and Velvia 50 is around Sing$9 and Superia 200 (3-pack) is Sing$8.30 at Cathay. I'd advise you to buy all your film and do your processing here. It's quite convenient and cheap here in Sg.

Folks, thanks for your responses. I'll drop it off with the local Olympus guru.

BTW I also looked at the answers on this thread:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007Cxd

 

The don't seem to solve my problem.

Folks, here's a weird problem I'm facing with my OM2n. If I use it on aperture priority or manual mode, the mirror locks up every 6-7 shots and the shutter doesn't fire. When I move the lever to the battery check position, the shutter is released and the mirror flips down. However, when the mode lever is in the "off" position, i.e., fixed shutter speed, I can always fire the shutter, every time.

 

Thought it may be dead batteries, so I installed fresh silver oxide SR44's. No luck, it's the same. I then checked the battery voltages with a multimeter and both sets are fresh. Has anyone seen this happen? Any suggestions? Are the electronics fried?

When I am tempted to buy equipment, I take a look at my bank balance. That sobers me up in a fraction of a second. As a result, I've not bought stuff for quite a while, and am not tempted to do so any time in the forseeable future.

If you have cygwin or some sort of unix-ish shell, anything is possible. Here is a small script which will rename the files assuming there are less than a thousand... if there are more than 1000 files, extend the script accordingly.

<p>

<pre>

a=1

for i in *.jpg

do

if [ $a -lt 10 ]

then

mv $i 2002-12-28-1D-00$a.jpg

elif [ $a -lt 100 ]

then

mv $i 2002-12-28-1D-0$a.jpg

else

mv $i 2002-12-28-1D-$a.jpg

fi

a=`expr $a + 1`

done

</pre>

I "upgraded" from the 50/1.8 to the 50/1.4. Upgraded in quotes, since it wasn't much of an upgrade for the price. Optical quality was on par with the 50/1.8. To my eyes, the 10x12" prints didn't show any difference at anything smaller than f/2. If you hardly shoot wide open, then the 50/1.8 is well worth it, at 1/5th the price of the 1.4.

 

I finally sold my 50/1.4 because of the bad barrel distortion. A few other samples I examined also exhibited barrel distortion and it was very bad when shooting closeups. The 50/1.8 showed no distortion. However I have heard claims by other 50/1.4 users that distortion was not a problem with their lens. YMMV.

I have not used the Vivitar 28/2.8 but I wouldn't be much off the mark in guessing that the Vivitar, being a prime, is bound to have much less distortion, better sharpness and less flare compared to the Canon zoom. I have a 28-105/3.5-4.5 USM myself, and the distortion at 28mm is very noticeable. My 28-105 needs to be stopped down to f/6.7 or at least f/5.6 for decent sharpness. Your Vivitar probably doesn't need to be stopped down so much for sharp images.

I did a test a few weeks back... all my lenses, including the 70-200L, 50/1.8 and 100/2.8 USM. I was absolutely stunned by the performance of the 100/2.8. It was better than every single lens at every aperture. At f/2.8 it showed no vignetting or light falloff, unlike the other lenses wide open. Even at f/2.8 my lens showed incredibly high corner to corner sharpness - way better (I really mean <b>WAY</b> better) than the L lens, the 50/1.8 or the 24/2.8. I seriously doubt any other lens comes close.

<p>

I knew this lens was good but now I really know how great it is. I wouldn't sell this lens.

<p>

You should also consider the other factors : ultra fast AF and the lens doesn't extend while focusing.

I own both the 24/2.8 and the 28-105 USM, and here are my observations. There's more to it than sharpness and contrast. The 28-105 shows significant barrel distortion at 28mm, and a bit of vignetting wide open. In comparison, my 24/2.8 shows absolutely no distortion even when focused close. I can't see any vignetting either at f/2.8.

 

For these reasons alone, I would not use the 28-105 at 28-35mm unless I have no choice.

That doesn't sound good. On the 50/1.4 USM I had, the MF ring would turn smoothly and quietly with very little effort. Yes, AF is a little noisier than true USM lenses but there was no gritty feeling or grinding noise.

Same here. Bought mine in Singapore and I got an English and French manual.

The Elan-7e is remarkably easy to master. Since you've been usng an FTb, the EOS should be quite easy to use. You might want to look at some of the custom functions. I like the one which leaves the film leader out as I swap films in mid roll quite often. CF5 gives you mirror lockup; great for macro and still life shooting.

The Canon 28-105/3.5-4.5 USM (not the f/4-5.6) is a real gem for the money. At the prices it's going at these days, it's a steal. Where I live, it sells for around SGD 230-250 which is around US$130-140 (used) and the market is flooded with them here!

 

Stop down to f/6.7-f/8 and you have a high quality performer. I've made 8x10" prints from this lens, and was astonished by the sharpness. I can't say the same about the Sigma lens. And personally, having used a few Sigmas I will avoid them at all costs.

Focusing manually on the Elan-7e and some of the other newer AF bodies is extremely difficult. The viewfinder is dark, and you have no focusing aid. I'd bet you'll get better results with AF.

 

That said, the Sigma 28-105 is not reputed to be a great performer. However, you may want to stop down to f/8-f/11 for good results.

I'd be concerned about fungus. Get a decent dehumidifier with a 5 year warranty, test it out for a few months before you leave, and store your gear in it. It's good if someone can check occasionally, to see if it's still working.

 

The humidity is around 85-95% where I live, so that's a major concern.

 

If I'm locking up the house, I would really not leave such expensive glass around for two years. I'd probably lend it to someone.

I've owned the older non USM lens and now the USM macro. Optically I could see no difference between the two. I haven't really tested the older non-USM lens by shooting charts, but I did do a short test with the 100/2.8 USM a couple of weeks back, along with my other "good" lenses, the 70-200/4L and the 50/1.8. It really stunned me. The 100/2.8 USM showed corner to corner sharpness and almost no light falloff / vignetting even at f/2.8. The resolving power seemed quite noticeably higher than any of the other lenses. This is one lens I will never sell.

 

Some reasons you might not want the older lens. The AF on my lens died two (was it three?) times, all within warranty. It used to try AFing past infinity, make a sickening grinding noise as though the gears were being ground and stripped. After getting it serviced the second time, I wrote a strong complaint to Canon Singapore and Japan, and in return they extended my warranty by a year. I believe this was a common problem with the older lens... the result of putting in a pathetic underpowered micro motor to drive this much glass.

 

This is not intended to scare you... if you get a cheap old one, go for it, but be very careful and triple check the lens. When it came back from repairs, it looked and felt perfect, and promptly died on me after a few months :(

 

The new USM version is a fixed length design, the older one extends as you focus towards 1:1 magnification.

I'm not sure about real life focusing distances, but 2 weeks ago, I did a small test at home. I stuck a few magazine pages on a wall and shot it (from close distance) with all my lenses at all apertures. The lenses included the 100/2.8 USM macro and the 70-200/4L. The macro lens simply decimated every other lens including the 50/1.8, wide open. There was no way the 70-200/4 was as good, or even close to the macro lens in terms of definition, edge to edge sharpness and light falloff towards the corners. Even when stopped down to f/8 the macro lens was better, specially with the zoom at 200mm.

 

I have not had the time to resize the scans (62MB TIFFs each) but I will try and do that this weekend and put it up on the web. I'm yet to do a test with the lenses focused at normal distances (5-10 metres). Will try that soon.

 

BTW all tests were done with the camera on a solid tripod, mirror lockup and a cable release. The tripod collar was used for the 70-200/4L for better balance.

My 28-105 (mark-I) is made in Japan. So are all the 28-105's I;ve seen. Unless you're talking about the newer 28-105/4-5.6 kit zoom.

Sounds like this guy gets a bigger cut from Nikon sales.