andrew_certain

It's definitely true that the first place to start is to calibrate your monitor and use a color-

managed tool to edit and save your images. If you do this and print at a good lab, you

should get decent results. You do often get what you pay for, though you should be able

to get better images even from Shutterfly or Walmart. However, it's also true that if you

have your contrast or brightness set to one extreme or the other, you'll never be able to

get the prints to match (the calibration process should help you find a setting that's

attainable). (Though of course they will never completely match, since one is a

transmissive medium and the other is reflective.)

However, the answer to at least the first part of your final question ("Am I really limited to

these dull, dreary, dark and awful looking images?") is probably no. If every printed image

you see in the world looks dull, dreary, dark and awful, then there's no reason to think you

would do any better. However, if sometimes you see a printed image (in a gallery,

magazine, etc.) and think that it looks OK then obviously there's some way to get things to

look better than you have been able to.

Andrew

"Folks who bring stuff to printers want the printer to "hold the bag" if any legal actions

start."

I think you're missing the reason that the printers are fearing lawsuits. The person

requesting the duplication has no power to determine who "holds the bag." The person

who does the suing gets to choose whom to sue, and they are going to sue the person

with the deepest pockets. That's rarely the person who stops into the lab to get the

images duplicated.

Andrew

I think the general consensus is that it will help. (In any event, that's what Bob says, and

when in doubt, trust him.)

As for a 22MP FF camera, my guess is that the technology is there but that the yields on

the chip would be so low as to make it prohibitavely expensive.

Andrew

Tal,

Your assertion is only correct if you assume that the pixel density of the full-frame

sensors is already sampling the image at the limit of information that the lens transmits.

Seems unlikely, or any increases in pixel density of full-frame sensors would be worthless.

Andrew

First, have you taken the card out and reinserted it? It's possible the connection is loose.

If you already tried that, before you totally dispair I would go into a camera store (or a

friend with a digital camera) and ask to try another memory card. It's possible (though

very, very unlikely) that the card was damaged and a different card would work. As I said,

unlikely, but free to try.

Andrew

<i>Hm. I'm trying to figure out why it is that I'm being talked down to. Is it because I

(admittedly) don't know much/anything about digital? Is it because I'm still a student? I

think too many assumptions have been made. Regardless, thank you for the good

information.</i>

<p>

Since you asked, I think there are several things about your post that gave people possibly

the wrong impression of you. First, there's a bunch of what could be construed as name

dropping about the gear you've been using and want to get. It's not really relevant to the

discussion which 4x5 camera you're going to use; why include them? Second, the "I don't

'do' Canon" statement. Without any additional information, it could be interpreted that

you have just decided that their offerings aren't any good without any real experience.

Third, you talk about the weird color rendering without seeming to have done the basic

research into how digital photography works, how the light is captured by a sensor and

how the sensor data is turned into color.<p>

So, in sum, it appeared that you hadn't really done the preliminary investigation into

digital photography and the available gear, but yet were interested in letting everybody

know what fancy gear you had used and were thinking of buying. Did people jump to

unreasonable conclusions? Possibly. Anyway, now you know why.<p>

Andrew

See also

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BzQI

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005ZfV

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00F98R

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CX5m

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AFAE

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CxAo (see last comment)

and so on and so on and so on.

Andrew

If you find things to be unhappy about with your Canon system, you'll likely find things to

be unhappy about with Nikon. Two samples of size one (your experience with your Canon

and your friend's with his Nikon) do not a trend make. They are both great systems,

offering better tools for digital photography than have ever been available in the history of

the world.

Certainly wach has advantages over the other, and for some, this may be a deal-breaker.

Focussing issues are unlikely to be a real one. Egonomics certainly could be.

If you do decide to go ahead and switch, just sell the stuff on eBay. It doesn't matter what

you start the price at. The market for 20D's is so liquid that you're going to get the "right"

price for your camera no matter where you start it. The only thing that would depress the

price is if you write your ad as if you were selling stolen merchandise or are some other

kind of scammer. If you want to learn, go on eBay and peruse the completed auctions for

used 20D's and find out what the spread on prices is and what kind of ads get better

prices.

Andrew

If you are a geek (or know one who will do you favors), you can use the <a href="http://

www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/">exiftools</a> to extract the JPG.<p>Andrew

It's hard for me to take seriously somebody who proclaims that they won't consider a

product from a company that clearly has exceptional offerings (one of several companies

in that category, of course).

That said, here's some opinion. First, the ISO settings on most digital cameras are up to a

stop off from true. Some reviewers of DSLRs will report what the actual sensitivities of the

settings are; search the web. So even if you get a camera that matches the ISO settings of

the films you work with, the exposures are likely to be a third to a half of a step different

from what you would get with film. However....

Second, for digital cameras, "color rendering" is done in software, either in-camera or in

post-processing. I'm sure that with some trial and error you could come up with

conversion settings from a RAW file that matched quite closely the profile of the films you

are using. You may even be able to leverage other people's work in this area. In addition,

you can modify the exposure up to usually a couple of stops with acceptable results (at

least with a high-quality DSL like the Canon 20D). So even if the minimum ISO were 200,

you could almost certainly reliably generate proofs at ISOs down to 100 and possibly

lower. You may get some blown highlights depending on how hot your highlights are and

how far you are pulling it; you'd have to again experiment. Admittedly, this process works

much better in the other direction.

If you go digital, you're going to trade money in film costs for time in tweaking your digital

workflow to give you proofs that match the scene. Once you get everything set up, though,

you'll probably be set.

Andrew

I'd get a used 20D instead of the 30D and spend an extra $300-400 on lenses.

Andrew

While I have a couple of other lenses, the only ones that see much use are the 70-200 and

a 35mm prime. If I had to keep only one, it would be the 70-200 without hesitation.

Andrew

He'd probably be better off just buying something like the Canon SD430, which is wireless

and includes software to automatically transfer a just-taken image to a PC and display it.

It would almost certainly be easier and cheaper than rigging something up with the 10D.

Andrew

I'm sure all your confusion is cleared up now.... :)

Imagine three images of a person's face, standing from the same distance away:

Image 1 was taken on your film camera with a 100mm lens.

Image 2 was taken on your film camera with a 160mm lens.

Image 3 was taken on a 30D with a 100mm lens.

If you print all of these images at the same size, say 4x6, so that the entire negative/

digital image is visible on the print (i.e. no cropping) then you will observe the following

things:

1) The face will fill roughly the same area of the print for images 2 and 3 (hence the

observation that there is a 1.6 lens-length multiplication factor).

2) The face's features will appear roughly the same (e.g. the size of the nose relative to the

size of the ears) for images 1 and 3 (hence the observation that it's only cropping).

2) If you were to blow up image 1 so that it were 1.6 times bigger (e.g. 4x6 -> 6.4x9.6)

and then crop it back so you only see the center 4x6 image, it would look exactly the

same as image 3.

For most people, they think mostly about how big an object will be in the frame, so it's

convenient to just think about the 1.6 multiplication factor.

Andrew

It means that even when the lens is in AF mode, you can still grab the focus ring and

change the focus. If the lens doesn't have this feature, you have to change to MF mode for

the focus ring to have any effect.

As to whether you need it or not, you'll have to decide.

Andrew

I started out with the 420 and then a couple of years later bought the 580. Obviously, the

580 is much more expensive, but I find it much more useful as well. When you're

bouncing the flash, the extra power of the 580 is really noticeable, in my opinion. The

420 is a nice slave to the 580, though. You might be able to find a store in your area with

that would let you try out the 420 and if you're unhappy with it return it for the 580, or, if

you're in a bigger city, a store that rents (though probably only the 580).

Andrew

I think this is sensor blooming, not chromatic aberration. The former happens when

highlights overwhelm the sensor and is, for most cameras, purple due to the bayer

pattern. It is, unfortunately, present on all digital cameras to some extent.

(Chromatic aberration is due to lens defects where some wavelengths of light get focussed

differently than others and will usually result one edge of the highlight having one tint and

the other edge having the complementary tint; red and cyan, for example.)

Andrew

The Nikon D70 (and others) boasts a combined mechanical and CCD electronic shutter,

offering a minimum flash sync of 1/500s. I searched long and wide to understand why

you needed the mechanical shutter and why you couldn't sync at the top shutter speed if

you had a CCD shutter, but couldn't find an explanation.

I did find explanations about why cameras used both mechanical and electronic control for

a mechanical shutter (because mechanical is better at high speeds and electronic is better

at low speeds), but in this case "electronic" is referring to using electromagnets to control

the opening and closing of the physical shutter, not, as it seems the D70 has, to a true

electronic shutter.

I guess the real question is why do you need to combine the two, as it seems that if you

just had a CCD shutter, you could sync at any speed that the CCD shutter could operate at.

Is the reason still the same in essence as cited above, namely that the CCD shutter can't

switch faster than 1/500s, so you still need a mechanical shutter to handle the higher

speeds?

Thanks.

Andrew

You might also see if there's somebody in your area rents scanners. Glazer's Camera here

in Seattle will rent you a Nikon LS 5000 (or even a 9000 if you want to scan MF).

Andrew

I used a 4000 with a slide feeder about 3 years ago (not sure of the model number; it was

rented) to scan a few hundred slides in a few days. The limiting factor was that the slide

feeder jammed fairly frequently. Also, if you don't think that you'll have a great long-term

use for the scanner, you might see if somebody near you rents them. In Seattle, Glazer's

rents them.

Andrew

<a href="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cd/cdrMedia-c.html">CD-R doesn't use pits.

</a><p>

In a nutshell, instead of pits as with mass-produced CDs, CD-R's have a dye that the laser

burns to create areas of high and low reflectivity. CD-R's degrade because the dyes fade

and destroy these areas of high and low reflectivity. I have no idea why one burner makes

more compatible discs, but it's unlikely that it will effect longevity.

<p>

Andrew

You are better off letting the camera amplify the analog signal by increasing the ISO and

getting a good exposure than by getting a poor exposure and amplifying the digital signal

afterwards. Note that going to 3200 doesn't really help, as that just amplifies the digital

signal in-camera; analog amplification is used only up to 1600 (in the 10D and 20D at

least).

Andrew

My understanding is that up to 1600 the sensitivity is increased by pushing up the analog

gain on the sensor before digitization; however, the jump to 3200 is done by essentially

"pushing" the digitized output from the 1600 sensor. In other words, you don't get

anything out of 3200 that you couldn't get with 1600 and Photoshop, while the other

settings do give you something that can only be accomplished in-camera.

This doesn't directly answer your question about why it's a custom function.

Andrew

<i>A friend of mine who shoots astrophotography showed me frames he took with his

10D at the equivalent of ISO 1.6 (approximately 64 15-second exposures at ISO 100

combined together).</i>

<p>

Isn't this backwards? 64 ISO 100 images added together would give you an equivalent of

an ISO 6400 image. In astrophotography the problem is low light (not too much light) and

dark current (with

long exposures) or noise (at high ISOs). By shooting 64 images at ISO 100 you avoid the

dark current problem and get better noise characteristics. There's no way to fake less

sensitivity other than blocking the light.

<p>

Andrew

<i> If the drive fails, you know immediately and can buy a replacement. </i><p>

I'm probably just paranoid, but the way hard drives usually "fail" in my experience is that

their sectors slowly oxidize and fail one-by-one. Just because the mechanism is still

spinning the platter doesn't mean that you can read all the bits. I use two hard drives, but

I check the checksums of each file when I update the archive. There's nothing worse than

going to your backup and finding that the file you most care about has a corrupted sector

in the middle.

<p>

Andrew