roger krueger

I've trashed two Smart Media cards in my pocket--they fold when you sit on them :-(

I've been lucky and retrieved a 4g Lexar CF that fell out of my pocket and got run over in a

parking lot before I went back and found it.

But I've never had a card fail in-camera. From my experience, a pocket is far more

dangerous to a card.

There is one good reason to use smaller cards though--FAT32 cards are slower. 4g and

8g cards always test slower than equivalent 2g and 1g cousins.

Resolution is a very low standard--a lens with 15% MTF in the corner at the max sensor

resolution is technically outresolving the sensor, but it'll look like dog poop compared to a

lens delivering 90% MTF at sensor resolution to the corner.

Conversely, even a lens that isn't resolving sensor resolution in the corners very likely is

resolving it at pretty good MTF in the center, all that really matters for many kinds of

photography.

Also, a picture taken with a 16mp camera will look at least as good as one taken with an

8mp camera. It may not be as much better as the increase in mp would lead you to guess,

especially with a mediocre lens, but it's not like your pictures will suddenly look rotten.

If you're used to shooting a Contax G nothing in the SLR world is even close to the wide

primes for that system. People crow on and on about how good the 21/2.8 Distagon is,

and bid them up to ridiculous prices, but the 21/2.8 Biogon for the G is even better.

If you've got good R glass, keep it and use an adapter--I've got a 19/2.8 v2 that beats the

snot out of my 24/1.4. No auto-aperture is a drag, but this wide I mostly scale-focus

anyway. Do look up the mirror clearance issues--I had to file down the back of my 19 to

clear the 1dsii's mirror, and it would need even more taken off to clear a 5d.

Leica fragile? I've had an EOS kit for 18 months, and it's been a nightmare

My 1dsII had lines on the sensor and shutter bounce from the factory. The focus

calibration of my 50/1.4 and 24/1.4 were both off. The focus rack on the 50 failed. The

floating element in the 24 came loose. The stop screw on the 24's mount came off,

causing it to over-rotate when mounted and trash the electrical contacts on the camera.

The top control wheel fails in extreme humidity, but won't do it for the service tech. And

now the autofocus is flaky in portrait orientation. Yup, Canon's a real paragon of reliability.

No AF SLR--digital or film--is going to be as nice to manually focus as an RTS, because

they all have semi-transparent main mirrors to pass light to the AF system. Most you're

losing about 2/3 of a stop. The only non-AF DSLR is a Leica R9+DMR, but I'm pretty sure

it won't take your Zeiss glass.

What I'd like to know is why, given that Sigma/Tamron/Tokina know Canon's electronic

protocol, someone can't design a smart adapter with a servo to do auto-aperture. Leica in

particular could benefit greatly from opening this new market up to their lenses (although

I suppose it might hurt the DMR)

I've been very happy with Transcend cards in my 1dsII, $44 for 2g. Their 120x is just as

fast as my 80x Lexar.

I have NOT been hapy with PQI cards--their "highspeed100" cards are NOT 100x, more

like 40x--the same speed as plain Sandisks.

Anything over 80x is waste in almost all cameras anyway, including all Canons. In the CF

tests on some site, (Galbraith I think, but maybe Luminous) the ONLY camera that

benefited significantly from Extreme vs. Ultra II was the D2X.

I think they already have a digital silver paper. This is awesome because it's a digital FIBER

paper, not RC.

Bet Elevator's not happy, though. They'd figured out some voodoo to put regular fiber

paper through a Lambda; they were basically the only place to get digital fiber, and they

charged accordingly.

Of course, the problem with fiber is that there's a tremendous temptation for the lab to

skimp on the laborious wash process. This is a timebomb that'll take decades to go off,

and, as far as I know, isn't readily detectable.

The 1030ai is an 8-bit scanner that won't do well with print film. The 1045ai is 16-bit and

does fine. I have one and pretty much like it. It is vitally important that any scanner used

for print film have 16-bit internals.

Some other limitations of the Screens (1015ai, 1030ai and 1045ai):

Can only scan 16k x 16k blocks of pixels. Anything bigger its batch-and-stitch

But the files is produces do stitch effortlessly.

Photoshop plug-in will work in Mac OS 9.2 with PS 5 (Probably PS 6 too, but no OS X)

Batch software requires Mac OS 8.1, which won't run on anything later than a beige G3.

Can't comment on the others, don't know if they are better or worse.

You could easily get a spot wiith the beamsplitter used in the E-10/E-20. It manifested as

a stop or two of fog in the center of the frame, with gradual falloff.

Bob: Are you sure the mirror stops all the light? The primary mirror is usually semi-

tranparent to get some light to the secondary AF mirror--does that all fold up in such a

way as to be light-tight, or maybe there is a way for light to sneak around?

Don't know about CS2, but in CS1 that's what the second checkbox to the left of each step

is for. Check it and if that step has a dialog it'll show it, rather than using the recorded

parameters.

I never would have known about this, but apparenntly there's a way to check it for all steps

in every action at once, and I did it by accident. Spent over an hour trying to figure out why

all my actions were hanging up. Duuuuh!

My workflow is to do all my adjustment layers on a 1/4 size (1/2 linear resolution) 16-bit

file. When I'm done I save it in a separate folder (16-half), blow back up to full size, and

swap the full resolution image back in. I then flatten it, convert to 8 bits and save in a third

folder (8-bit). I then do all the things that need full resolution, like clone stamping and

compositing on this 8-bit file.

If you don't know the final destination of the scan, go for all the resolution you can get.

You never know when you might want to crop. Also, my experience is that grain-reduction

software works better when the grain is clearly resolved, rather than aliased at a lower

frequency where there's also image detail.

I do TMY with XTOL 1:1 stand developed for 25-30 minutes at 72F. Since it's stand the

timing and temperature are not remotely critical. But the Microphen Lex favors is just a

hair behind in my book, and is easier to try out (X-TOL only exists in packs to mix 5 liters

at once)

Never tried d76 to push TMY, but on Delta 3200 it was the worst push developer I've ever

seen.

I have tried Tmax RS to push TMY, and even though it was the tiniest bit faster then X-TOL

and Microphen (like 1/6 stop--I was testing with a step wedge) it also had far and away

the densest highlights. Not just that it blew out earlier, but a lot of highlight detail was at

densities well beyond where any other film would record detail, and well beyond the reach

of any CCD scanner.

Tread carefully... it's very easy for the cops to claim "obstruction", and despite it being

total B.S. the jury might well believe them over you; even if you win it'll be expensive.

Real reporters get arrested shooting accidents now and again, you rub a cop the wrong

way he'll find something to get you for. Know your local police department--some

departments are a lot more likely to misbehave than others.

A partial solution is to plan your shot carefully before bringing your camera to your eye.

Get a couple of shots quickly, then be all contrite when confronted.

Also, "personal profit" is the wrong test for whether you need a release. It's "commercial

usage". There are a variety of ways to make money off a picture that are not in fact

commercial usage.

FWIW, drives from companies that have been humiliated by heat related failures--Hitachi

and Western Digital--run FAR cooler.

I have a bad habit of running archive drives naked outside the case with a firewire adapter.

Hitachis and WDs stay barely warm, Maxtors get pretty hot, and Seagates end up so hot

you can barely stand to pick one up.

Isn't LaCie owned by Maxtor? My memory was that they were bought by Quantum years

ago, and then Quantum merged into Maxtor.

Is it asking too much that people actually read the post before answering?

He DOES NOT have a problem with vibration. It's just about scaring the birds.

But no, I know of no direct workaround. I have heard that the 5D doesn't err out if the

mirror is physically prevented from returning, but I can say from personal experience that

doesn't work with the 1dsII.

I think your only option may be a blimp.

I turn the jpgs on because my 1dsII doesn't display raws per se. There's a small jpg

embedded in the raw, but there's not enough resolution to really see how sharp it is. Once

I'm confident I'm consistently getting sharp shots I'll turn jpgs off to save space.

I switched to Bibble because of DPPs bad handling of single-channel blowouts, especially

when the other channels are fairly dark. But I think most products are pretty decent by this

point, DPP's failings were only a problem because I'm shooting into gelled stage lights,

decent exposures of normal scenes it should never come up.

The Luminars may well have veiling glare issues--they're designed to cover 4x5 at their

minimum optimum magnification. On 35mm that's an awful lot of extra light flying

around. (for instance, the 100/6.3, optimum from 0.8x to 8x--at 3.2x it covers 8x10!)

Does anyone know how t-stops are determined? Is it a point measurement at the center of

the image, or is it an average over the image area?

Put another way, does does a lens with dead-even illumination have the same t-stop as

one with the same central brightness but a lot of falloff?

I do all my level, curve, hues etc. with adjustment layers on a 1/4 size file (that is, 1/2 the

linear dimensions) When I'm done I have a script that blows it back up to full size, swaps

back the full-rez image, and saves it out as a flattened 8-bit file to do any retouching,

spotting, etc on. Reflating takes a while, so I generally do this on a batch basis--edit a

bunch of pics, and have the computer reflate them while I'm having dinner or something.

Apparently there's something called Smart Objects that can make this even simpler in CS2,

but I'm still stuck in CS1.

<i>If you use photographs from a book to advertise for the publisher or book(s), is that

commercial use?</i>

<br><br>

No. It's called "incidental use". The basic premise is that if you have a permissible editorial

usage, you can use the image to advertise that editorial usage. This is how magazines get

away with using star photos to push subscriptions. The case that immediately springs to

mind is Namath v. Sports Illustrated.

<br><br>

In fact, you need this exception to use an unreleased photo on a book cover. Time-Life

got hosed a few years ago on a Vietnam War book where the cover shot got removed from

the body of the book by a different art director.

<br><br>

<i>And where does the law differentiate a monograph and a book for other purposes?

</i><br><br>

Don't believe it does.

<i><br><br>

Are there types of books where a release is necessary?

</i>

<br><br>

Illustrating a book of fiction requires a release, including the cover.

<br><br>

It's also worth noting that we're only considering misappropriation claims here, since

they're the only thing that's universally a problem. But depending on the image, caption,

and surrounding text, there could be defamation, invasion, etc. issues that would require a

release even in clear-cut editorial usage.

<br><br>

<i>And can a person prohibit the publication of a photograph of them in a book?</i>

<br><br>

Strictly legally, mostly no. Practically, if they find out before the book is printed that

they're going to be in it, and threaten the publisher, the publisher may well pull the image

because it's a lot cheaper than defending a lawsuit, even a lawsuit where you're dead right.

Alcohol + swab is very effective at taking silver off of a first surface mirror. Yes, I've done

it myself. I've got a Mamiya Universal with no top left framelines to show for it :-(

I doubt immensely that any other liquid is safer. Plus I'm pretty sure those weird spots on

the 5D mirror are supposed to be there.

Agree completely with above answers. This should also teach you a lesson about advice

from helpful salesmen.

1, Maybe. Some countries have stronger misappropriation/privacy laws than we do.

As a practical matter, unless he gets really famous, makes a lot of money, and goes back

a lot, his chances of actually having a problem are about .001%. Just because an

international lawsuit is technically possible in no way implies it's practical.

Even in the U.S. this is far from settled law. diCorcia may have won, but it's a trial court

ruling, not even precedent for NY, let alone the other 49 states. But mostly it never gets

litigated because diCorcia is nearly unique in his ability to make huge sums of money of

this kind of work.

Book projects are much safer than prints

2. No

3. Yes

4. Yes

5. No, plenty of people who made a name in fine art started as commercial shooters. But a

given image is almost always one or the other,

<i> instead of the "Play" button in the action palette as that will override the recording of

the master action</i><br><br>

The play button stops recording on a Windows machine? Wow, that sucks.

<br><br>

Playing another action in the middle of recording works fine on OSX--that is, the call to

the other action is recorded, not the individual steps of the other action.

David: If you need it, absolutely.

Here's where your answer lies--how often are you in situations where you've got your f4

wide open, and your shutter speed still isn't fast enough?

Todd: More like $15,000 extra for that stop from 300/2.8 to 300/2.0. But still worth it to

some lucky few folks. Rumour has it that a significant number have had their Nikon mount

hacked off and replaced with a movie mount.