roger krueger

Any chance your temp has changed? I've seen Delta 3200 in XTOL fog at high (>72F)

temps, although below 80F it was pretty trivial.

At the very worst you'll have to do the 1dsII mod (taking a couple of mm off of the back of

the area around the rear element).

The non-ROM 2nd 19/2.8 is very hard to find. Ebay is probably your only chance, even big

dealers send a lot of their unusual stuff through ebay. I got mine via ebay from Adorama.

In fact, there's one going tomorrow on ebay, already modded for a 1ds. Modest feedback,

but a member since '99. And since you're both in California (he's in L.A.) you've got a lot

easier legal recourse if something unpleasant happens. Of course, a rare item with 25 bids

already is probably going to have some seriously wild last-minute action.

And it is worth it, this is an awesome lens.

This has to be the dumbest gadget I've ever heard of. Shoot a wall at f22, DUH!

The excessive cleaning part is nonsense too. There are multiple ways to clean a sensor,

and only blatent carelessness or cluelessness is going to cause any damage.

Ken: Having cleaned both sensors and first-surface mirrors I'll take sensors any day. First

surface mirrors are insanely easy to screw up.

Civility is merely civility, police misconduct is something entirely different.

<br><br>

The police's job is to enforce the law as written, no more, no less. It's not supposed to

matter at all whether the like who you are or what you're doing. Their own personal

feelings should theoretically have nothing to do with it.

<br><br>

But sometimes you get a cop where it's all about his Superman fantasies, saving the world

from anything he deems wrong, the law be damned. Sadly, complaining about a cop you

don't have on videotape is pretty much useless.

<br><br>

I often wonder what percentage of people who go absolutely nuts over stuff like this had

something ugly happen when they were young, and have a chip on their shoulder ever

after, social workers especially.

<br><br>

We had a well-publicized case of a deranged social worker on a witchhunt here in San

Diego a few years ago:

<a href="http://www.ags.uci.edu/~dehill/witchhunt/ccla/pages/wade.htm">Jim Wade's

testimony before the Senate</a>

The Foveon doesn't have ANY inherent advantage in resolution over a Bayer chip.

What it does have is no AA filter--possible because you don't have color aliasing issues

like you do on a Bayer system. Look at the dpreview test pattern--this thing resolves

spurious detail well past its Nyquist limit, whereas properly AA'd Bayer cameras fade nicely

to gray as they run out of resolution.

I've four 2gb Transcends that I'm quite happy with (used in a 1dsII).

Remember that for any brand their 2gb is going to be slower than an equivalent 4gb. I

suppose it's also possible that a card design that works well on FAT16 might have new

incompatibilities at FAT32 (4gb+).

I'm an hopeless cropping addict. I think any reasonable format has about the same small

chance of actually being the right shape for the particular image.

More problematic for your alternate-format FF is that many longer lenses have baffles

killing light outside of 24x36, they'd need surgery to cover, say, 24x32.

I'm not sure the of the continuing relevance of frame sizes anyway--what percentage of

DSLR shots end up in a frame vs. end up online? Yeah, there are some niches where it

matters, like weddings, but these are people who pre-digital mostly willfully chose to

shoot their 8x10s on 6x6 rather than 6x7.

The Rob Galbraith data is extremely useful--it shows that there is very little speed

advantage to using any Extreme on a 5d. Better to just get a 2gb Ultra 2 or Transcend

120x. You're not remotely going to notice a <5% difference. It's also useful that it shows

that in almost all brands, a 2gb is faster than an equivalent 4gb.

Jeff: How can buffer size be a variable?--it not like there's a special 5d with a different

buffer size. I also greatly disagree with your premise about standard-speed being enough.

Any situation where you're shooting bursts it's going to matter, especially if you want to

chimp what you shot on that burst. Besides, the cost difference between "Ultra II" and

"Standard" has gotten pretty small.

Depends on the film. When I tested Ilford Delta 3200 in warmer temps I found it started

losing shadow speed into fog past 22C. Whereas TMZ was fine up to at least 32C.

Whatever temp you develop at, be sure the fix is at a similar temperature.

How radically you have to modify a Leica 19 depends on which one you have--the newer

version with the integral filters (and more elements for better correction) interferes more

than the older version.

My Cameraquest adapter is very nice, feels neither too tight nor too loose. But somewhere

along the line the system--19+adapter+camera--is 2/100 of a mm off register, doesn't

seem like much, but scale focusing it means wide open at 5 feet my sharpest focus is with

the distance halfway between the main focus mark and the 2.8 DoF mark.

Especially with the newest drives, cooling is mostly silly. I run my externals bare and the

current ones don't get remotely hot to the touch. Even my 2005-vintage Maxtors that'll

nearly burn your fingers have never had a problem.

I think cooled drive cases are mostly aimed at the same people who think they're getting

something special with a $100 speaker cable.

Persistent mirror-up disappeared a long time ago, no AF Canon has ever had it, I don't

think any Nikon has had it since the F4.

I'm curious about the 1dIII with the live preview--if the preview is coming off the main

sensor, it would make sense to leave the mirror up. But I haven't seen any details on the

live preview implementation.

Kin Lau: Just because the 5d tolerates having the mirror jammed up does not mean this

will work on all Canon bodies. My 1dsII in particular gives an error code if the mirror

doesn't return, and you have to power off the camera to reset it. (Which really sucks, I have

and love the Leica-mount version of the Voigtlander 12, and just about soiled myself at

the thought I might be able to get one that would work on my 1dsII. Alas, not to be.

Jim is entirely wrong about diffraction depending on absolute aperture (as is Sandra for

agreeing with him).

Diffraction is solely a function of f/stop and degree of enlargement. You get away with f45

on 8x10 not due to the length of the lens, but due to the much smaller degree of

enlargement.

If Mr. Hogan actually claims you get no DoF benefit from stopping down past f13 he's

nuts. Just because diffraction is reducing your max resolution in no way means that you're

not getting more DoF. It simply means that you're paying a price for it.

(O.K., there are a few complications to diffraction, like when the thickness of the aperture

is a significant fraction of its diameter and issues where wides--especially symmetrical

wides--have a higher aperture in the corners due to seeing the aperture from an angle.

There's also the idea that you view really large prints from farther away and thus have

comparitively looser standards. But in general it's just f/stop and enlargement factor.)

I've got the not-quite-current version of this lens (Latest glass/filter turret, but not ROM)

and I had to file quite a bit of shroud off to make it clear my 1dsII. Wasn't that big of a

deal, spent a lot more time on masking everything to keep filings away from the glass and

interior than I did on actual filing. It's certainly scary taking a file to something that

expensive.

But when I tried this lens on a rented 5d (while my 1dsII was in for warranty work) it didn't

quite clear. What I wish I'd have known at the time is that the 5d, unlike the 1dsII,

apparently doesn't complain when its mirror can't return, so firing on "B", then mounting

the lens, gives a no-finder, no-meter way to use the lens without modification. A little

padding where the mirror hits might be a good idea for long-term use.

I'm using the Cameraquest adapter, good snug fit without binding. But it is a hair off--I

tested scale focusing and found the sharpest point was with the measured distance

halfway between the main focus mark and the f2.8 DOF mark (shooting at 5 feet). No

discernable difference past f5.6. I did the math and that translates to about two

hundredths of a mm of error in adapter thickness.

It really is a frighteningly good lens. (But not to be confused with the earlier Leica 19 that

has fewer elements and merely "pretty good" performance.)

What camera? All of the recent Canon bodies are rated for 250V sync and pretty universally

safe. Conversely, if you've got one of the older 6v sync bodies (300d, 10d, d60, d30) very,

very few old flashes are acceptable. (Sorry, no clue about Nikon sync specs).

Even the 6v-sync Canons will generally survive a low-current high-voltage sync--these

cameras are all mechanical sync, not electronic. It's just that the sync switch is small and

delicate, high voltages at high currents will pit the switch into uselessness or even weld it

together. Getting away with it once is not a guarantee that you're safe. They also very

likely have no protection on the TTL circuits. Again, mostly you're not going to have the

high-voltage sync in contact with the TTL circuits, so you can get away with it for a while.

But twist a charged flash wrong taking it out of the shoe and you have a problem.

I'd love to know what flashes Kelly says are kicking back 1,000 volts at the sync circuit

when fired. Since the voltage at the sync terminal in a high-voltage sync circuit is merely

from a small capacitor waiting to be dumped into a step-up coil, I don't see how the spike

upon firng is generated. Maybe some sort of extremely low current bleed-through from

circuit board traces too close together? In any event this spike is very unlikely to cause

trouble in a mechanical sync camera--high voltage sync is only dangerous to a

mechanical switch by causing arcing at the moment of opening or closing. A transient

spike would have to be very precisely timed to cause a problem.

Anyway, I've certainly used 200v Vivitar 283s on a Sony DSC-770, an Oly E-10 and a

Canon 1dsII with no ill effects.

Kelly's remark about "Most camera repairs in the flash PC socket/hotshoe area are due to

folks blasting out the ciruit with older strobes." makes it sound like this kind of damage is

common. Funny how you NEVER see an "it happened to me" report amongst all the vocal

forum folks. In fact, the only reports I've ever heard of someone frying a camera with a

high sync voltage were from the first generation of consumer Nikons with TTL flash

metering. The sync circuit was safe, but the TTL circuits weren't. Twist a charged flash

wrong taking it off and poof!

Active IR focusing works a lot like a rangefinder. That is it's much better than through-

the-lens for wide angles, much worse for narrow FoV lenses. No manufacturer wants to

limit

themselves to 135mm equiv. on the long end.

Active IR by itself also has difficulty with distant subjects. Even the Hexar's 35/2 had a

tendency to treat subjects greater than 25ft.as infinity, even though wideopen hyperfocal

only extended down to 35 ft.

The aperture of the reversed lens is what's important for vignetting. Slow zooms, even fast

zooms, are completely useless. Lens that manipulate focus distance, telephoto or

retrofocus, also complicate things considerably.

On the one hand, getting a 50/1.4 in some dead mount like Canon FD or Minolta MD will

cost you a lot less money. but if you get the Canon, you actually have a lens you can use.

I'd use NN exclusively. There's no way the camera can do as complicated a set of

calculations given its much slower processor and limited tolerance for extended

processing times.

For things you sell big I'd suggest doing NN on a separate layer, then masking it back over

important detail. Noise is most noticable in large areas of background blur anyway, so let

them have more noise reduction.

Charles--no, the Leica 15/2.8 Elmarit was designed by Schneider, Its predecessor the 15/

3.5 Super Elmar was designed by Zeiss.

<br><br>

Leo--an M lens would need to be completely re-engineered to work on an SLR. It is

possible--look what CV did with their 12 and 15 for Nikon mount--but you're still left

with a lens that needs the mirror up. No DSLR has real persistent mirror-up, only pre-fire.

<br><br>

The guy at 16-9 has had success putting a Voigtlander 15 on a 5d--he mountedthe lens

with the mirror up, and then just let the mirror bang against the (padded) lens barrel each

shot. But this doesn't work with a 1dsII, the camera locks up with an error if the mirror

doesn't fully return. Here's the article:

<a href="http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/15mm_test1.html">Voigt 15 on 5d</a>

<br><br>

But, again, the Voigtlander isn't just an adapter or mount change, they had to re-engineer

the entire lens mechanics--but not the optics--to avoid having all the controls end up

inside the camera.

While the manuals and/or Chuck Westfall (Canon PR guy) say 250v everywhere for 20D and

later cameras, some people have apparently been told by Canon service that it's 250v PC,

6v shoe. I don't believe I've heard of anyone being given that advice for anything but a

20d, so it may (or may not) be specific to that camera.

While I have no clue which is actually correct, different limits aren't as silly as it at first

sounds. The first generation of consumer TTL-flash Nikons especially had problems

because Nikon didn't understand they had an issue when they shipped the cameras--

there's no warning in the manual--the sync circuit is just fine with 250v. But if you take a

charged flash off the camera and twist it wrong, that 250v pin can hit TTL contacts which

are not 250v safe, and poof!

Richard: you're misunderstanding--I think all that's been modified is the counter. There

are no half frames, the difference in the length of film is immaterial. The space between

frames is the same 120 vs. 220. The only difference is how far you go before you're done.

(O.K., and the fact that the paper backing makes 120 thicker.)

What may an issue is the presure plate position, if it's a stock 120 plate it's going to be too

loose on 220, if it's modded for 220 it's going to be excessively tight on 120 (though

within limits this isn't a big deal if you can advance easily, but you do NOT want to be

putting extra strain on a Kiev advance mechanism.)

It's certainly not unheard of for Canon to make one big run of something and get

inventory for a long time--it apparently took them about ten years to sell out their one

and only run of 50/1.0's.

My 1dsII originally had striping, but Canon swapped the sensor under warranty. Lots of

early 1dsIIs and 5ds had this issue, but I though they had it under control by the time of

the 1dIIn. Guess not.

Even a perfect sensor will occasionally have lines coming from severely blown in-scene

light sources

I archive to two separate disks, "home" and "storage unit":

1) the RAW

2) the untouched 16-bit tif (only on one disk, since this is merely for convenience and can

be regenerated from the RAW)

3) a 16-bit 1/4 size (1/2 linear size) file with all the adjustment layers.

4) an 8-bit full-rez file that's had the adjustment layers flattened out of it, but that has

retouch, sharpening and denoise layers in it.

I do all of my adjustment layer work on the downrezed 16-bit, makes the work go much

more quickly. I have an action that takes the tif-16, downrezes it and adds my usually

complement of adjustment layers. Once I'm done I use Applescript + Photoshop Actions to

resize the 16-bit files back to full resolution, swap the full-rez tiff back in, flatten it,

convert to 8 bits, add the denoise and sharpening layers, and save to a different folder.

Takes about 12 minutes a shot for 1dsII rez on a 2x1ghz Mac, but I just let it run

overnight. Most of the time is waiting for a dirt-slow homebrew despeckle filter to run,

you could probably get it under 3 minutes using only off-the-shelf denoise and a faster

computer.

Don't worry about storage space, drives are dirt cheap if you wait for the sales--$0.25/gb

is about the best you can hope for right now, www.outpost.com is always a good place to

look.

I have three firewire chassis that I run without cases and swap drives on and off of, so I'm

only paying for internal drives, not much point in paying extra for all of your archive drives

to be external. (I'd only have two firewire chassis, but my original pair turned out to be

slightly flaky with a certain generation of Seagate drives, so I had be buy an up-to-date

chassis to deal with those.

Baggy shorts with lots of pockets.

Three pockets for glass (assuming nothing's huge, and I won't be walking anywhere

quickly, going to two pocketed lenses makes walking fast more feasible) and smaller

pockets for memory cards/cash+ID+keys.

Generally I carry a Leica 19/2.8 plus Canon 24/1.4, 50/1.4 and 135/2. Only the 19 and

the 50 are small enough to go in the third pocket when the other two are occupied.

The 135/2 is about as big as I'd want to get away with--I've tried pocketing my 200, and it

is possible, but it's too much of a struggle to be worth it. Plus it truly is my 5th lens--very

few situations where I'd consider leaving one of the others to bring the 200.

I genrally go for shorts a size or two too big--kept up with a very tight belt--with roomy

pockets that do NOT have zippers--I generally don't use front caps, a zipper is just too

much risk for scratches.

I have a no-name waist pack, but I only use it if I need to exceed the paramaters of my

shorts. Especially after I had an adventure at a punk show where I got passed over the

barricade and was fully upside down for several seconds--the guy who grabbed my feet

decided it would be more fun to lift them as high as he could rather than let go--would've

been a multi-thousand-dollar catastrophe if I'd been working from my waist bag (which I

generally fail to zip after every lens change), but my pockets kept everything in place.

I also had a lens pilfered from a waist bag in a packed crowd. Thank goodness the thief

had no taste in glass--he picked a 50/1.4 from between a 24/1.4 and Leica 19/2.8.

I do use the waist pack on my motorcycle--does a great job of keeping everything isolated

from the bike's vibration. But I generally unpack it into my pockets when I get to my

destination.

I've never had a problem using my t-shirt as a lens cleaner, the only mark on any of my

glass is a tiny ding on my 24 from some guy flailing around in studded wristbands.

(Couldn't somebody have told the dufus that studs are for metal, not punk?!?)

Of course, while year-round shorts work well for me in San Diego, even on the bike, I

understand some climates aren't as forgiving. What is it like in Bishtek this time of year?