rconey

24 degrees F this morning so optically clear air. Very nice, but too bad I am in town. Nikon 20-35 f2.8 at 20 mm. I didn't get the camera exactly level, and hand held. Two minutes of tinkering in ACR. "1" on purple chromatic aberration. Center focus on stone mailbox. No polarizer.

I just put the 20-35 f2.8D on my D850 for Christmas morning. It is a good lens due to the light weight and the useful range. I also tired of the 17-35 f2/8D due to poor corners and edges, and weight. I haven't quite convinced myself that the 20-35 f2.8D is THE wide lens for backpacking, but its light weight is very appealing. There is some chromatic aberration, but it is easily correctible. This lens plus the 50-135 f3.5 Ais is a nice backpacking thought, but haven't done it yet.

Don't want to scare him off just yet....................

You have entered the topic of color management. It can be as complicated as you like. To get the best chance of print colors looking like screen colors you need a calibration tool that sets the monitor for you. Color space is part of the discussion. If you don't want to calibrate your monitor it is going to be a lot harder. You can work in sRGB color space (a narrow color space) and do ok going from screen to print. Wider color spaces(Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RBG) give room for more accurate colors but you really have to calibrate your monitor to avoid unpleasant color surprises. Photoshop and other programs allow you to Proof or "view" custom representations of color expected by various printer/paper combinations. Those previews help fine tune colors before printing. It actually isn't as complicated as it sounds to get to reasonable reproducibility.

Entertaining conversations, but I think I will try to stick to the question. Film vs digital cameras? Really, the cameras operate very similarly if you have a modern film camera. Older film cameras can go so far as to lose the exposure meter and require a hand held light meter. Many of us old folks came through film to digital. Some stayed with film. Shutter speed, aperture, and exposure are the same. Iso in film is set by the film you buy. Digital cameras set "iso" in the camera. Dynamic range of film is much lower than digital camera dynamic range of the sensor. Maybe black and white film is different in that regard? Never shot black and white. So the act of shooting a picture is pretty much the same. THEN it gets very different. Film goes off to be developed. Digital files go in the computer for "developing" and polishing. To each his own.

When I shot film and printed, I tried to be a minimalist in manipulation for landscapes (remeber cibachromes?). When Velvia film showed up, I started using it exclusively, still a minimalist in manipulation. Then I started scanning my slides, with minimal manipulation. I went fully digital in about 2004. I shoot raw, and at home must develop the raw image. I must admit, when I got home from a recent 10 day trip to Colorado I could not remember exactly what the colors were like. some of the images were a bit underexposed. I developed them so that they were pleasing to the eye, to my taste. I think that is necessary with photography.

Accidently had camera on manual settings with slow shutter speed. High school football.

Trying out old manual lenses has been a lot of fun over the years, now on a D850 after a D800 for 6 years. I recently posted on the 200 F3.5 ED AF (for F3AF only) that I just got. It is as good as the 180 f2.8 ED manual focus I own, perhaps a little sharper in the corners. Evidently an uncommon lens. The 50-135 f3.5 MF zoom is very good. I tried a lot of zooms and found the variable aperture ones not to work very well. Of course the 75-150 f3.5 series E is a good one. Over time I have collected good samples of used zeiss MF lenses and use them a lot. 35 f2; 50 macro planar f2. 100 f2. 135 f2. All very nice but not really fair comparisons. I find that the focal length I walk around with changes how I look at things. Cropping in with telephoto vs close but wide view with wide angle. All better than being bored.

Sir: I agree with you but this was a casual post. My comments were made after a lot of comparison, as well as the requisite brick wall photography. I am not inclined to post all the photos so made a casual post. It is an odd lens, but if you like manual focus is fun. Regards. Oh, this photo was not to show corner performance.

So, boredom will take you places. I have the 180 f2.8ED MF lens and like many find the corner sharpness to be lacking. I read about this lens, which is only AF on the F3AF camera that briefly existed, and decided to try it. I found a clean version on Ebay, and have been playing around with it on a D850. It is about the same size and weight as the 180 f2.8 but does have better corner sharpness. Another toy. For the purists, the 70-200 f4 G IF-ED is sharper at 200mm and lighter.

Hello, Best advice I ever got was to edit ruthlessly. Much of what we take is not worth keeping (at least for many of us). That reduces storage considerably. Think ahead to having to sort through all you store. Most of us develop a hierarchy of "goodness" to make it manageable. Personally, I sort int "Better....(whatever. The label helps me identify). I throw away anything that does not make this cut. Usually there are several shots, angles of each scene. Then I pull "Best of......". Periodically I go through all the "Best of..." and pull out a "Best of Best" grouping that I spend more time on. Eventually I (usually) discard the "Better" category to keep it manageable.

Incredibly sharp images. Why are we chasing those new lenses? Thanks,

Back in the day, when we were using neutral density filters to hold back the sky in landscapes we had room to complain. Sharp edge, graduated filter, AAARRRGHHH! What a pain! I was shooting slides so had what, 5 stops to work with? Now, I frequently find that with bracketing the shots I want, I can avoid merging images. Sometimes, I have to merge images but I try to avoid it. We are much closer to capturing what we need with a single shot (assume bracketing). Not always.

I think what matters is that YOU feel it is art. Maybe you won't be recognized until you are dead, or maybe never but YOU have to feel that you captured what you SEE. Who do you take pictures for? For whom do you spend the time developing the raw images? Why do you bother? I think all of us do it for ourselves, and then our egos like stroking when we are appreciated. The effort is for yourself.

To amplify Rodeo Joe and others: If I have a static object I (try to) use a tripod. I then run a series of shots, aperture priority, from lowest f stop to f8 or 11. If the lighting is constant, and the wind not too hard I then have a choice as to which depth of field I like best. Oh, in this case I have auto iso turned off to use base iso since noise is lowest, and on a tripod a long exposure is ok (wind not a factor).

Its a double, hinged mat (cut front and backing mat), and looks nice. I buy picture frames with front glass (18x24 for the mat size I use) and use the images as wall art. I can replace the mats/new pictures, thus not having to buy new frames to hang new images. I thought about cutting my own mats, but …...