bhneely

<p>It's the D version of the lens, so I could change the aperture manually...I'm so out of the habit of doing that, though, that I haven't tried. And yes, the lens functions completely normally on its own.<br>

And now that I think of it, it's only with one of the tubes that I have the problem. Do you know if this is fixable, or am I better off just using it as a manual lens?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I've searched the web, including photo.net for about a half hour and haven't found an answer to this problem. I have Kenko extension tubes that I use with my 50mm f/1.4 on a D300, and the camera has recently developed the problem of not recognizing that an electronic lens is attached. It automatically defaults to my most recent Non-CPU lens. The problem this creates, of course, is that I can't change the lens aperture. Admittedly, I mostly shoot at f/16 in macro, so it's not a crushing problem, but it *is* pretty frustrating.<br>

Can someone point me in a direction of what might be causing the problem and how I might solve it?<br>

Thanks.</p>

<p>I try to live without regret, which means that when I make a decision about something, I do my best to accept the ramifications of that decision. Usually, this means I'm loaded down with more equipment than I genuinely need (and I grumble, mostly to myself, about reducing my load next time). Occasionally it means I have my smartphone, or nothing. Several years ago, I was on the Pamir Plateau in extreme western China, riding a camel, watching the sunset light up a pair of 25,000 ft. mountains rising above a lake, and no camera in hand (which was a Hasselblad 501CM back at camp, loaded with Delta 100 anyway). I made a clear, satisfying decision that I would just enjoy the most beautiful sunset of my life with no recording method. It was stunning, and I didn't have to think about settings or compositions or any of that, and just enjoyed the light. Try it sometime.</p>

<p>This has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I find that I'll be working on images, writing a blog post or some other activity that's important, valuable and interesting, and yet I get a few minutes into it and I start playing a game, reading Facebook, watching YouTube videos. It's frustrating. Even watching TV or movies, I'll play games on my iPhone or do a sudoku or check email.<br>

I've been working on consciously changing the habit by removing extra noise in situations where it's easiest - I go for a run, even one that will last two or three hours, without music; I'll wash the dishes or cook a meal without listening to podcasts. It's a start, but it's pretty challenging.</p>

<p>I'm a big fan of Panda Lab in Seattle - <a href="http://www.pandalab.com">www.pandalab.com</a>. They have a full range of services, both film and digital, and they take a great deal of care with the work. I've been using them for about 15 years, first for film and now for digital. They were purely a b&w lab until they realized they had to adapt or die, and now they do b&w, E6, C41 and a full range of digital services. For the past couple years, I've been mailing them film and ftping digital files from Afghanistan, and their service makes me confident enough that setting up an exhibition I don't feel the need to get test prints. I'm even sending a client directly to the lab to pick up her prints.<br>

Brian</p>

<p>How does one go about finding opportunities to receive or solicit sponsorship? I'm working on a project that will cost something in the neighborhood of $250,000 for the shooting and involve travel in a potentially dangerous region for 6 months or so. The quarter million includes the cost of a car and camping gear.<br>

If I can get sponsorship from a car company (I'm thinking Toyota, Land Rover or Mercedes), a camera manufacturer, a camping supplier and a few other companies, the amount of money I'd be out-of-pocket or need a grant for would be greatly reduced.<br>

Has anybody here done expedition photography on a tight schedule with sponsorship or know somebody that has done this sort of thing? Any suggestions for getting started with the research?<br>

I'd appreciate whatever help/information y'all might have.</p>

<p>Thanks,<br>

Brian</p>

I've done some searches and found nothing on this, but I'm hoping someone else has thought to do this...

 

I'd like to replicate the look of a warm-tone paper for the background color on my website. Does anyone happen to

know of the hexadecimal code for such an application? Specifically, Ilford Warmtone would be the best, but

really, anything close.

 

Otherwise, I'll just start screwing around with faded yellows and browns to get the right sort of off-white.

 

Thanks,

 

brian

I need a picture of the rear view of an open field camera. There doesn't need

to be anything on the focusing screen. I'd have thought it would be easy to

find something, but everything I've been able to find so far is the front view.

 

Thanks

A couple quick responses...I'm not concerned enough about full-frame to spend the extra several hundred dollars for it. If I want/need that kind of resolution, I'll just pop some E6 in my Hasselblad.

 

I'm looking at the D200 as a starter digital camera, a color back-up to my nearly dedicated B&W Hassy. I travel a lot in developing countries, and I've found color processing to be extremely variable in both quality and availability, and often exorbitantly expensive (as much as $15 for one roll of E6).

Has anyone purchased a D200 and regretted it? Do you wish you'd purchased some

other camera? Is there something you don't like about the camera that you

didn't anticipate? I'm looking at adding a dSLR to my kit, and the D200 looks

like the best choice for me - it has the MP I'm looking for at a price I can

just about afford, the Nikon lenses seem to be less expensive than Canon's, and

as in the Ford-Chevy debate, my daddy drove a Nikon.

 

TIA

 

Brian

The easiest thing to start with is to make sure the background is uncluttered and out of focus. Set the camera for aperture priority and use a large aperture (f/5.6, f/4, the smaller the number the larger the aperture - because it's a fraction).

 

If you have on-camera flash and the ability to adjust its power, use it, at about 1/4 or 1/16 power to bring out the subjects eyes.

 

Use a longer-than-normal lens, around 70 mm or longer.

 

Go through the tutorials in the Learn section, as well as doing some searches.

For me it's meditation. Catholics and Muslims (and others I'm sure) have their prayer beads, Zen Buddhists have their koans, I have the aperture ring, shutter speed ring and release buttons to fiddle with. And I have a world of excess information to remove to find the answer.

It's nice to see that spelling mistake go the other direction.

 

Brain

I have a Hensel Studio Technik kit that I like quite a bit. It was $1100 new for two lights, each with their own power and built in light slaves, two umbrellas, a softbox and a couple different pans for the light heads. It's easy to use, cycles pretty quickly, and using my on-camera flash (pointed at the ceiling, often) to set them off gives me a lot of flexibility for camera position.

I agree with Beepy about the last picture, but I have a thing for really intimate portraits like that. I also really like the extremism of the very long shadow portrait. I'd even try cropping it to put Ashley closer to the edge of the frame, just to see.

 

Definitely a good start. Nice job.

I'm in a similar situation. A sculptor has asked me to document the process for a piece he's developing. In his case, the studio is extremely small, as well as being cluttered, so I probably won't be able to bring lights in. If I can bring lights in, I'll work to make sure there's not a lot of spillover, so the light is all on the artist and the work, and the background is dark.

 

My plan is to go with extremely shallow depth of field for the portrait shots of him working, hopefully making the background a patchwork of light and dark. In my mind it looks like a brown backdrop with a spot and gobo, but I'll know better once I start shooting. For the work itself, I'll probably be doing some 1:1 and 2:1 macro work, as well as portraits of the piece.

 

For the artist portraits, I don't want to stage them, as that almost always looks staged. I'm hoping to get good angles for that.

I've been using on-camera flash with a Lumiquest bounce unit as my fill light, and also as the triggering agent for my Hensels. I usually set the flash to 1/2 or 1/4 power, and with the bounce it spreads out pretty evenly and is almost unnoticeable except in the way it opens up the shadows on faces.

Does it seem ironic to anyone else that there's a conversation about using a technology Bedouins have been using for a few thousand years on a computer that could have driven the moon landing?

Referring to it being "f**king ace," there's a great feeling when a guy carrying a pack full of digital gear through Venice, Italy stops his wife so he can watch you shoot with your Hasselblad. As he walks away he says, "That's a camera."

 

Plus, there's the great, loud THWUMP, the phenomenal detail in the Zeiss lenses and the smell, oh yeah, the beautiful smell of fixer. I s'pose I could sit with an open bottle of vinegar while processing digital shots on the computer, but it just wouldn't be the same.

I have done something that looks like a range of hills fading off to the distance, having the girls lay side by side. I set up the light very low, relative to the models, and I used a honeycomb to create something of a spot, so it looks like sunrise.

A just-barely related question...I've managed to work out that the TLA "CLA" has to do with regular cleaning and professional look-over of the photographic equipment, but what the heck does CLA actually mean? What are those three words?

 

Thanks

I searched the archives and didn't find an answer to this problem. I

discovered - the hard way - that a lab at which I've been renting

space has used tape or glue for some reason on the inside of their

negative carriers. What's the hard way? How about some glue residue

sticking to a negative, right smack in the middle of an empty stretch

of backdrop? In setting up the exposure, the chunk of glue makes a

visible shadow, even at 8x10 from a 6x6cm neg.

 

I know that vegetable oil is great for removing glue (if you live in

one of those insane cities that requires annual updates of stickers

in your window, oil will clean it right off), but at what cost to my

neg? Any other ideas?

 

And yes, I pointed it out to lab management and cleaned up the

carrier I was working with.

same session<div></div>

Bergger 200, souped in Rodinal. Calumet student monorail, 210mm lens (don't remember the manufacturer).<div></div>

Aravind,

 

Pay attention to the trends where you are before making the decision. You'll probably find that digital will turn out to be the more economical choice, but maybe not. I live in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and over the past year, the cost of just developing E-6 has gone from about $8 to $12/roll, and scanning is $2/frame for 35mm and $10/frame for 6x6. The quality of the scanning is terrible, so it's not worth my time or money. Additionally, the quality of the film processing is pretty bad, so most of my color film shot here is greenish, bluish or magenta-ish (the magenta isn't quite as bad as the green & blue, but you never know what the next roll will look like).

As a result I've seriously considering adding a DSLR to my arsenal, but I'm just not up for the $3000 expenditure to get one that won't be obsolete in a year.

 

Brian