lex1

Sorry, ignore, Just seen the link - it's spam. Phew!

Hi - I received the same email out of the blue today. I have not used photo.net in years. How do I close my account? There seems to be no way of closing the account and they are forcing me to pay a subscription I do not want. This has to be illegal. Any help gratefully received.

<p>Thank you David and William for your helpful responses. I will speak to an accountant. I currently do my own accounts (and the accounts of some of my family) as the process has been simplified enormously with electronic self-assessment. I would only really be bothered with claiming the large expenses such as transport and accommodation, that I'm able to get receipts for. I really had only wanted to know if it was a possibility for speculative work (ie stock). I have supplied Getty with an ITIN, so am taxed in the UK rather than the USA, thanks David.</p>

<p>Hi<br>

I'm going to the Far East to shoot stock photos for a month. This is not a commission, and as with all stock, the photos may or may not sell but they will be submitted to Getty Images, my existing agency. The sole purpose of this trip is to intensively shoot stock - I am leaving my family behind. I do not have a registered photography business and on my tax return I pay tax on my stock income as a self-employed photographer. Am I able to offset any part of this trip against my tax (e.g. flights, trains, hotels)? I am a UK resident but I guess it may be a similar situation for USA residents, so any advice from either side of the Atlantic would be most welcome. Many thanks.</p>

<p>I thought you might find this interesting - it's about using a 1.4x teleconverter on DX lenses mounted on FX bodies to get around the vignetting issue. Obviously using a teleconverter reduces image quality a little but if I can keep hold of my Nikkor DX 17-55 f/2.8 then I'm willing to investigate. I'm hoping a 17-55 with a 1.4 teleconverter would match the quality of the 24-120 f4 FX lens I was thinking of replacing it with.<br>

The text from dpreview below<br>

"<br>

I've seen some threads on various forums discussing Kenko teleconverters and Nikkor DX 17-55 f/2.8 on a FX body. Consensus was inconclusive so I wanted to see for myself. The Nikon teleconverters are incompatible with this lens.<br>

I ordered a Kenko 1.4x teleplus PRO 300 DGX teleconverter from B&H for $223. Came today through Purolator ground.<br>

A very quick 10 shot test shows that this product performs as advertised. The build quality is nice and solid, metal body and lens flanges. Nice fit and finish to the quality plastic barrel, nice even glass coatings, a very professional looking product.<br>

Mounted my 17-55 f/2.8 AFS DX on my D700 and had a go.<br>

When that lens is mounted directly to the d700 there is vignetting at all focal lengths and all apertures, and especially so with the petal lens hood.<br>

With the teleconverter:<br>

The mounted lens feels solid and secure, no wiggles.<br>

The lens does not vignette at any aperture or focal length, even with the lens hood.<br>

The teleconverter has contacts for lens and body and it has a chip in it. All camera and lens functions work just fine.<br>

The camera now reports this lens as having a f/4.0 max aperture and will meter as such. You don't have to fool the meter or use exposure compensation to account for the reduced 1 stop aperture. Exif data shows the increased length and reduced aperture. A shot at max aperture and lens set to 50mm gets reported in the exif as f4 and 75mm. However the lens model gets reported as 17-55 f/2.8.<br>

Image quality does not seem to be adversely affected, but I didn't do any 400% pixel peeping. At 100% crop this teleconcerter is essentially transparent, to me anyway."<br>

I'd like to hear other opinions on this.</p>

 

<p>Thanks, I think 3:1 is the way to go. I'm keen on standardising the crop because I plan on taking quite a few and possibly displaying them together. Images cropped to all different sizes just don't seem right for some reason. Maybe I have asperger's!<br>

Thanks</p>

<p>Thanks Ellis, that's good advice.</p>

<p>Dear Photo.net community<br>

I am not a beginner photographer but I am a beginner in panoramic photography. I am stitching together images

using photomerge in PS and would like to apply a standard crop to them. I would like the crop to be quite wide and

one that could be printed (and maybe framed) without having to rely on a specialist service. I have searched on

google but can't seem to find an answer I trust, 6x17 was the best suggestion, is this the answer? I know this

depends on the picture, personal taste and many other factors but if you had to put your finger on one

standard size, what would it be (and why)?<br>

Thanks in advance<br>

Lex</p>

<p>External drives and DVDs (dotted around London) it is then. Thanks.</p>

<p>I am hoping for some advice from photo.net users regarding storing my digital photographs. I currently have an external drive which I use to back up my PC but would like to back this up in case of any unforseen disasters such as theft/fire. I cannot decide whether to buy another external drive which I could leave with a friend or whether to store the files through a 3rd party provider such as Jungle Disk. I would need to initially store 400GB and would probably add a further 50GB per year max. I would not need access to download the files except in a fire/theft situation. I am not a professional so would like to keep costs to a minimum. I would appreciate any thoughts on this or if anyone knows of a very cheap way of storing images online, bearing in mind that many of my PS files are 20-80GB.<br>

Many thanks<br>

Alex</p>

<p>I'm not sure how this lens can be improved for use by mortals.</p>

Thanks David

Many thanks for your advice. I will try the free tool, a trial of Capture NX and I'll google Bridge to find out what that's about.

 

Thanks

Hi

 

I have been shooting Nikon RAW for a few years and rely exclusively on PS for my image viewing and editing. This

seems to cover all my image editing needs but it can be quite time consuming to open each image individually in PS

RAW converter to determine whether it is worth keeping. I found a couple of free photo viewing programs that display

RAW but the quality of the display is really not good enough to make a final decision on keeping/deleting. I would be

grateful for any suggestions on software that would allow me to speed up this first edit stage.

 

Thanks

Lex

I was just offered £40 by London Camera Exchange for my good condition F4 + MB23! I didn't realise prices had plummeted so much. I couldn't possibly sell it for that price (2 rounds at the pub!) so it's going to stay gathering dust. Today I can't justify the costs of taking slide film and scanning as nearly everything I shoot is for the web, but it took beautiful pics in its day.

Not sure if you'll have enough time to read all the comments and get to this one but I travelled for over a year around Asia with a D200 and an 18-200 (and a Tamron 11-18mm). I was very happy with the 18-200 at the time but in hindsight (since my photography has moved on) I now regret it; the sharpness and quality are not professional standard (they are great for that incredible zoom range but people looking at the final image won't appreciate that). The AF on my 18-200 died in the last month of my travels and the lens became purely manual. I am pretty rough with my equipment but the 18-200 was the first lens to die on me, so be careful. I don't use the lens any more and I have since purchased a 50mm 1.8 (incredible lens and perfect for portraits) and the big 70-200 and am about to buy a 17-55 to complete the full range. If you are not a pro and won't be selling your pics then you'll probably be more than happy with the 18-200 and you'll certainly be glad of its versatility. You can improve the image so much in PS that I've blown up images taken with that lens to A1 size and people are very pleased with them. If you look at my albums nearly all the travel pics were taken with the 18-200, I've added equipment info to all of them so you can check to see.

 

Have a great holiday. Whichever you choose you shouldn't be disappointed.

Thank you all for your helpful responses. I will probably go with the 17-35 as I may move to FX at some point and I have a 50mm lens in my bag which I am very happy with. I would ideally like a wider zoom but I'm not overly impressed with the edge to edge sharpness of the 12-24 and the others are too expensive.

Don't treat this lens too roughly, the AF on mine has gone awry in less than 2 years; I was quite heavy handed and traveled with it a lot. Lens creep from day 1, but I just got used to it.

Aaron

 

I have the 50mm 1.8 and have been amazed by the quality for the price; i would pay 3 times the price for it. The

images are very sharp. The 1.4 is much more expensive and I have heard more grumblings about it, probably

because expectations are much higher. You can view my 3 recent portrait albums on photo.net as ALL the images

were captured with the 50mm 1.8 on a D200. The only issue I found was that the focus was not always pin sharp in

very low light (without a flash). This is a great portrait lens at an incredible price.

 

Alex

I would very much appreciate photo.net users' advice on which of the above lenses to buy. I have read reviews but I

value the opinions on this site most of all.

 

In my bag I currently have a D200 with the 50mm 1.8D and the 70-200mm 2.8. I also have the Tamron 11-18mm and

the Nikon 18-200mm both of which I am shedding because they are just not sharp enough (my requirements have

increased along with my experience). I would really love the new 16-24mm but can't afford it and it would be a little

wasted on my D200. I'm not considering the Nikon 12-24mm as it's not considerably sharper than my existing lens

(which is why I didn't buy it initially). So back to the question.

 

Many thanks in advance

Alex

Thanks Alan, I will investigate this.

I ought to add that this is not a colour caste problem and also that I create the duotone effect by adding a second fill layer (and then fading the effect) rather than using the duotone option in PS. Thanks.

Can anybody please advise me here? I would be most grateful.

 

I convert my image to b&w in Photoshop then add a faint duotone. The file is

therefore RGB and not Grayscale. When I print (I have used multiple highstreet

printers with the same result each time) I get an almost luminous green colour

in certain parts (usually the brightest/whitest areas). I'm at a loss. I have

calibrated my screen and use Adobe RGB color space in camera and in PS, although

have no control over the printers. The effect is so extreme that I must be doing

something very wrong.

 

I have attached an example image; it looks perfect on screen but when I print,

many of the white hairs on the eyebrows and beard turn luminous green!

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Alex<div></div>

The 18-200mm is a do it all lens and the quality is really pretty good considering the range. I took it around the world last year and nearly all my pictures on photo.net were taken with it. However I ran it into the ground and the AF died so I don't think it's a very robust lens, it also had chronic lens creep almost from day one. I have since bought the new 70-200 f2.8 and am planning a backpacking trip with it. I am willing to carry the extra weight to get the extra quality, a sacrifice worth making in my mind, but then I travel alone. This lens is in a different league but with the 1.4x teleconverter and the lens hood mounted I'm worried I look like a paparazzi.

Thanks very much for all your responses. It seems the 18-70mm is the one but I am sorely tempted by Paul's suggestion of the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. It's available at onestop-digital.com for GBP 192.99 which is just within price range. Slight vignetting at the wide end is a minor worry but overall the reviews are very good, especially when you consider the Nikon equivalent is three times the price.