benlui_h

<p>I'd avoid Dell, some people rave about them, but every one I've ever used, even after calibration, they've left me wanting. I've heard very good things about NEC lately, and have a friend who got one although I can't remember which model and he swears it's as good as any eizo.</p>

<p>I'm also gonna suggest looking at a samsung 245T if you can find one, as they have s-pva panels and are excellent after calibration. As a rule avoid anything with a TN panel, and the main reason for that is as soon as your not looking at it from the "perfect" angle you get shifts in contrast and color which can make calibrating it a bit pointless.</p>

<p>As for the callibration device... I've had better results with the spider 3 then the others, although the eye one was a close second. My my only issue with the spider 2 was that I got very inconsistant looking profiles.</p>

<p>Yeah I'm gonna suggest doing your own little DR test, there's a few around, but esentially what you need to establish is how far into the highlights you can push before you clip them.</p>

<p>Unlike film digital is a linear rendering, which is why raw files and poorly converted jpg's/TIFF's are less pleasant to look at then one would like. I mention that because the curve you apply to your file can effect the DR as well.</p>

<p>Latitude varies a lot but in general a well handled raw will have a little more latitude then slide film, where the issue arises is how you display all the information in the file, digital commonly clips different channels in the highlights at different points and you always have to set an appropriate black point because otherwise noise will be noticeable in the shadows.</p>

<p>I'm not a Nikon shooter myself but I know on camera's as old as 20D's you get 7 stops to play with, and on newer nikons and canons you get 8-9 stops of usable range (note this number can change somewhat depending on the iso used).</p>

<p>establish how many stops above middle grey your camera can capture before chanel clipping occurs (which will also depend on the temporature of the light) and expose for that, while being aware of how much range you have in the shadows before noise interferes with detail.</p>

<p>Just my experience, as a former mac user, for the money a PC is the better deal, mac uses the same hardware as a PC now anyway and for the same money you'll get much higher speed stuff in a custom built pc from any decent computer shop.</p>

<p>If it's a dedicated editing machine look at a core i7 (the i7920 is a good starting point) cpu with the fastest DDR3 you can afford (6 gigs of quality DDR3 1600 mhz is about 260 AUD not sure everywhere else). Then add the rest of the features as the budget allows. You'll find that if you start with that as your base it'll run faster then mostly any mac and certainly faster then any mac in that price range.</p>

<p>Software also depends on how much edditing you want to do, but I agree you really can't beat the photoshop+lightroom combo as a general rule, there are other options to lightroom and photoshop. Lightroom being where you sort your images/catelogue and can do many global adjustments effectivly and quickly.</p>

<p>I'm gonna agree with most things here, and just add some emphasis on the exacting specs, amount of ram isn't that important, I mean yes you want plenty of it, but the speed of it is more critical, no laptop even the most expensive have ram speeds that match desktop pc's and ram speed is one of the most important features for running photoshop. Be ware of the cpu mhz race also, what's more important is the architecture of the cpu, ideally a core i7/i5 would be nice as they excell at photoshop and media, and the fastest ram you can get in a laptop and certainly nothing slower then DDR2 800 and make sure the ram is in duel or tri chanel.</p>

<p>HDD's are another thing to look at and yes most laptops include slower rpm HDD's which can reduce performance, putting a faster HDD into an otherwise good laptop is fairly strait forward, you may even want to look at Solid state hard drives as they are some of the fastest and most durable... but come with a big price tag.</p>

<p>In terms of calibrating a laptop screen, it's a really hard thing to do well, and a lot of the time if it's done badly it actually makes the color accuracy worse, if your gonna do any seriouse editing on it buy an external LCD for those ocasions and make a calibration for that.</p>

<p>What laptop you end up with is a bit of a personal choice, I am also one for durability as I use my laptop for portability and do all my seriouse edditing at home on my desktop. I would also recomend a macbook pro, but keep in mind the non pro macbooks don't have the same durability. I've had one for about 1.5 years now running windows (as I can't stand the mac OS) and it hasn't stopped working once.</p>

<p>I currently have 2 Samsung 245T's and find they have been very good in most measures, how ever I've been looking at getting a screen to put on a second computer and at the moment getting 245T's is pretty difficult where I live.</p>

<p>So as a result I've been searching for the last 2 weeks for a decent alternative, and have come up with a the PHILIPS 240PW9EB, which on paper at least looks good, I've seen a few posts and reviews on it but none from the viewpoint of someone who really understands color management.</p>

<p>If anyone is using or has used this screen in a color managed work flow could they please tell me about their experience with it? </p>

<p>I'd be especially keen to know how well it calibrates, and if it has any color/contrast issues after calibration (or before for that matter).<br /> </p>

<p>Any first hand experience with this screen is welcome as are other suggestions for screens, bare in mind I've got first hand experience with most of the current dell Ultrasharps and can not say a positive thing about them personally.</p>

<p>Thanks for any input in advance.</p>

<p>Hi all, I know this thread is a bit dead, but one thing caught my attention that made me want to share an experience. I've had this discussion about the 2408WFP for color critical photo editing, and even after calibration, this is one of the worst screen choices for it's price point in my opinion at least.</p>

<p>I do a little retouching and have a color managed work flow down to the lighting in the room I edit. In an ideal world would tell you to get either an eizo, or even the samsung XL20 or XL24. But even on a budget, stear clear of the Dell 2408WFP. It's issues start with color, continue with input lag and finalize with a somewhat irritating hum. I owned 2 of them, the second because I thought the first I had was just a faulty one, and ended up taking that back too.</p>

<p>Ok, I'll start with input lag, input lag is different from response time, and is a common issue in panels based on PVA/s-PVA, it's not a huge problem for photo editing, but has the tendency to make your computer just feel a bit more sluggish then it is... like when the mouse feels a bit slow to respond or text takes a long time to come up after you type it, many other companies use this exact same panel (eizo included) the input lag the dell suffers is just due to the cutting corners on other hardware in the screen</p>

<p>The other issue is color, the screen is notorious for rendering color on one side of the screen different to the other, it's not an issue of viewing angle or backlight unevenness, but look at a plain white background and you'll often see a slightly different hue on one side then the other, which impairs your judgment, when trying to edit an image you want something as neutral as possible. It has also been noted in some cases that the screen has a color ghosting problem whereby you can see a trail behind a moving subject on screen can have a faint "ghost" trail of one color or another.<br>

The final issue being the noise, a minor one for most perhaps, but for those who value silence the screen is noisy at brightnesses bellow 40 or eve 60%.</p>

<p>My recomendations in the same price range would be the Samsung 245T if you can still get one, many people complain about samsung inconsistancies, but the 245T and 275T (both models also come in a + version which is essentially the same) are both very solid neutral screens that actually use the same panel as the dell (samsung own the rights to s-pva). I have 2 245T's which I had to import because they were hard to get in aus for a while, and they are some of the finest screens I've ever used even when compared to some of the eizo's or NEC's.</p>

<p>Hi Mike,<br>

I'm saying this on the assumption a high speed/fast auto focus body isn't what your after.</p>

<p>if your priority is image quality, sharpens, and that optical "feel" that traditional landscapes have, you really would be best going full frame, I'm not saying cropped 1.5 and 1.6 bodies can't produce fantastic photos, but they do have some subtle differences.</p>

<p>If your looking at used stuff I'd have a look at the the original 5d, which you can pick up at a good price, it'll give you enough resolution to print fairly large, and will give you some of the best per pixel sharpness of any camera.</p>

<p>In regards to depth of field, I've had this debate of aps-c vs FF and there's arguments either way, but really in the end it's subjective, I'd recommend trying a FF and 1.5/6 camera out for yourself and see which you preffer. To be honest, in landscapes I don't think it'll be an issue on either body, although probably less so on FF as has been stated diffraction limits sharpness more quickly the smaller the sensor is, and stopping down past f/5.6 or f/8 on some of the high resolution cropped bodies will start to limit fine detail. Another nice plus that comes with FF is the viewfinders are generally a little bigger and nicer to look through so you can often get a better feel for composition that way. You may also want to consider live view as feature for landscape work.</p>

<p>As for getting committed to a brand, what people say is true to a point, you can't go TOO wrong getting stuck into either canon or nikon, and probably in the near future sony, even if the system is small at the moment. I would personally say that canon is over all the most flexible system on a budget if you consider some of the mid range primes which are often very good value and of good optical quality. Nikon have great glass too, but it tends to require slightly deeper pockets in some cases.</p>

<p>Finally as for software, I would argue that a current version of photoshop would bring your computer to a crawl, and even photoshop elements, would provide a challenge. If your not willing to pay the price for a photoshop license and don't like breaking their copy right, then you may want to look at the open source software alternative GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ which is free for all to use. In any case, doing more "serious" editing on high rez images may require a computer upgrade sometime in the future.<br>

If I was in your position, looking to get into digital SLR's for landscape/city scape stuff I'd look at a second hand 5d maybe with one of the grid focusing screens (which you can buy and put in yourself) and any of the non L USM primes or if your interested in mid to high end zoom the 24-105 f/4L IS or the 17-40mm f/4, which ever matches your preferences/needs better.</p>

<p>Sorry I got way way carried away</p>

Here's what I don't get... all this focus on 2.8 for DOF, which sure... is true to some extent even at 11mm, but does anyone else think that focusing both manual and auto is made so much easier with the addition of even just one stop of extra light? I mean shooting on something like an 85mm 1.2 isn't going to be a necessity for most people, even I think it's over kill and it's a favorite lens of mine. But at the same time has anyone else ever found trying to focus either manual or auto on say an f4 or f5.6 just a bit cumbersome?

I wouldn't go as far to say that all glass that's faster has to be better, I've seen 50mm 1.2 with more light fall of in the edges then a 50mm 1.8 when both are shot at f2.8...

I think in some way it boils down to the choice of who ever is using the lens... not everyone can justify thousands for a super fast prime, but those that do will usually find it hard to understand how people can settle for less. At the same time most people will agree that having a faster lens is advantages, in one way or another.

Point of interest, has anyone considered the other end of the scale? is f16 or f22 really a low enough maximum aperture? I guess there's always ND filters but what if you want just that bit of extra DOF?

Just my view, but for your average person viewing an image it's hard to understand all the elliments that make it "good" to them, so they do what most people do when they don't understand something but like it anyway. They try to compliment it on a level that makes sense to them. In most cases the intentions are positive, in those cases I really think you just have to look past their ignorrance and take it as a compliment.

How ever in some cases, there are the people that indicate the only reason you can make good pictures is due to your camera and those people you should ignore, or perhaps even give an insightful witticism. I think in some cases there are even photographers who believe they can't make good pictures without the best gear. I think at the end of the day you have to admit to yourself as a photographer, that while having gear that let's you down or hinders you is definitely not ideal, with creativity and a bit of resourcefulness you can work within most limitations to create something powerful.

Maybe I've gone way off the mark, and maybe that was all not very insightful, but that's my view on it.

Thanks you two, really appreciate the quick and helpful responses. I guess it's just a matter of using them on slightly lower power and hoping that my light modifiers don't knock off too much power.

Out of interest does anyone know the duration of the metz 60 ct?

Thanks again :)

I've done a bit of freezing motion with flash in the studio using floor packs and had mixed results due to the

longer durations of the strobes at higher power, but now I want to take it to another level.

I want to take 3 metz 45 cl-1 and cl-4's on location with triggers and freeze some water particles, It's going to

probably be at night so ambient light causing blur shouldn't be an issue. What is how ever is I have no idea what

the flash duration is of the 45's is and I'd hate to put a whole bunch of preparation into a shoot that without

making sure that these flashes are up to the task. So does anyone know the flash duration of these particular

flash units at full power? I'm hoping it's shorter then a 2000/1.

Anyone who has any experience with this or knows the specs of these flashes well, would really be helping me out,

I looked and just couldn't find anything on the duration of the flash.

Hello, I'm a photography student of about 3 years so I may not be as experianced as some of the other people comenting.

I have shot on EOS 30v's (Elan 7EN), EOS 30's (Elan 7E) and the Eos 300X. Personally I'd advise, especially if you plan to persue photography, to invest in the 30V or 30. the controls are much more convenient, the camera has a much better over all construction and from my experiance (though it may have been to do with the lense) the auto focusing performance was faster and more reliable. It is simply a much more professional camera and definitly worth the investment if you wish to keep using it (I have seen second hand EOS 30's for as little as $200 Australian).

As for lenses I don't know what sort of budget your on but if you can't offord the higher end EF zoom lenses (L series or at least usm) I'd invest in a nice 50mm f1.8 rather then setteling for a lower end zoom, as the lower end zooms tend to have rather poor optics and very laggy auto focusing (again that's only in my experiance).