manuel_zamora_morschhaeuse

<p>The only downside of the f1.8 is that it flares very much when pointed into light sources. This and its color rendition, which is not that good as for example the L lenses or the more expensive primes. But its resolution characteristics are very very good!<br>

I personally prefer to use the 35mm f2 which is a real gem of a lens. Nice, sharp and contrasty even wide open. Here the only downside is its bokeh - nervous. Stopped down you get pentagon-shaped out of focus highlights which are not that pretty after all. But, the 35mm f2 is a comparatively small and, despite its flaws, a very competent lens!</p><div></div>

<p>First, thank you all again for your thoughts and advice!<br /> <br /> Mike Dixon, how do you like the Canon 28mm f1.8? It's reputation is not the best, but it sounds like a good lens, at least on paper. <br /> <br /> Matthew Newton, I calculated with 40 frames per day (probably a bit too much) and the local prices for Kodak E100G (6.60€ per Roll and 3€ for development). There is cheaper film, of course, but slide film is very expensive, at least here in Germany. <br /> <br /> Mike Hitchen, most of the time I will use just the small daypack for local travelling, so you're spot on with your analysis. I can make 95% percent of my photography with 3 primes, so that would be a preferred solution. But as I said above, three L-primes are not really lighter than 3 L zooms (but feature other advantages of course!). <br /> <br /> I can see three distinct options: <br /></p>

<ol>

<li>staying with Leica and film, less weight, but the logistic challenge of buying, transporting, developing and/or mailing film </li>

<li>using the 5D and a small selection of lenses (optimal mix of zoom and primes or just primes), distinctively heavier (especially when taking a notebook and/or portable hard drives, chargers etc.) but also distinctively the best image quality of all options or </li>

<li>reducing at least the camera weight by adopting a different camera system (Pentax w/ Limited primes) and probably also leaving the notebook at home and just take portable hard disks.</li>

</ol>

<p>Scott, you are probably right, at least concerning the over thinking part. The f4 Zooms are really not that fast, but one of my alternative plans was taking (and of course buying / complementing the existing ones) just selected primes (I can easily do with a 24, 35 and a 85/100), but 3 or 4 L-primes are not really lighter than 2 or 3 zooms. I am mostly concerned about the weight part - 3 or 4 kg of photographic equipment is a lot. But as you already said, most of the time you do not carry all your equipment with you.<br>

Thank you very much for your thoughtful input!</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I saw an article a while ago by a professional photographer who was doing a shoot with a very expensive digital Hasselblad. He had a $500 G10 along also and happened to take some of the same shots with it. When he got back to his studio and enlarged the images from both, he couldn't tell the difference.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, I read that too, that was on Luminous Landscape. I believe Michael Reichmann (the author of that article), but he was mainly photographing static landscapes, and I'm not sure if the G9/G10/G11 is fast enough for quick street photography. And, I'm a sucker for bokeh...</p>

<p>Thank you everybody for your input!<br>

I thought about staying with film for this trip, but my calculations resulted in some 2000€ cost of film and development. Combined with the hassle of taking some 250 rolls of film with me (or trying to find professional slide film in remote places) sounds like pain in these digital times. But it surely appeals to me to just take my Leica MP and a few small and light but top notch lenses. <br /> My normal digital kit consist of an EOS 5D Mk I and the 17-40L f4, 24-105L f4 and 70-200L f4. Not that I want to take all of these lenses, but this kit (w/ a lightweight 35mm f2) weighs alone 3kg (6,6lbs). I thought about aquiring a Pentax kit with a set of their "Limited" pancake prime lenses covering the same focal lengths, which would reduce the weight to about 1.5kg (3.3lbs). But as I want to maximize file quality and I really like the output of my 5D I'll have to think some more about that. And then there's the question of a backup body or backup camera (P&S vs second camera body).<br /> The G9/G10/G11 route sounds appealing, but I'd really prefer the image quality of a DSLR, as I was planning to print at least a small subset of the images rather largeish (16 x 24 inches or so).<br /> I also thought about taking a netbook or a 13" MacBook Pro to download the cards and probably update a blog while being on the road, but portable hard disks with card readers are of course (much) lighter.</p>

<p>Hello everbody,<br /> <br /> I've recently started planning a six month backpacking trip "around the world", which should take place in approximately one year or so. Starting from Germany and I'd like to visit India, South East Asia, China and then selected parts of the American continent. Besides the important task of choosing the right backpack and set of clothing, shoes, etc. there is the question of which photographic equipment to take. This trip will not be a photographic expedition, but taking photographs is a very important aspect of it. At this point I do not want to discuss any particular equipment choices, but mainly ask you folks from photo.net -<br /></p>

<ul>

<li>Did any of you travel for a longer time (> 1 month) with limited luggage? </li>

<li>What type of photography did you do and what did you take with you? (Number of bodies, prime/zoom lenses, focal lengths, electronic devices like notebooks and storage, ...) </li>

<li>How much did the equipment weigh? </li>

<li>What worked, what didn't? </li>

<li>Do you have any particular tips, recommendations or resources (web sites, books, ...) for me? </li>

</ul>

<p><br /> I know that many of my questions highly depend on the nature of the trip and the type of photography one is envisioning, but as I am very curious about your experiences (and pictures!) please don't hesitate to express your experiences and opinions.<br /> <br /> Thank you very much,<br /> <br /> Manuel</p>

<p>Thank you everybody for your replies!</p>

<p>Yes, I'm probably overthinking this. But it's very reassuring to be told that the metering patterns of these cameras should not be the deciding criteria and that they both work fine even in these difficult lightening conditions. I will try to find a place where I can try out the M7 to compare it to the Ikon...</p>

<p>Thanks again everybody -<br>

Manuel</p>

<p>Thanks, Bob, for the quick answer! I have read the technical documents, and yes, the 12mm spot of the M7 is not a real spot meter.<br>

But it's the information you just gave me, that the M7 is very much capable of being used in low light situations, that helps me. If an equal number of ZM users say the same, I can make a decision which is based on other aspects of these cameras (build quality, handling... and by no means at last, price).</p>

<p>Hello everybody,</p>

<p>a short disclaimer before I begin - my question is *not* about brand loality or Leica vs. Zeiss in a greater scale, but refers to a merely technical aspect (on of many, of course) in which the mentioned cameras differ - metering.</p>

<p>I'm thinking about getting a rangefinder, for many different uses, mostly candid and street photography in normal daylight, but also in dim lightening conditions - in bars, clubs, at parties... you know what I mean, these occasions, where you need ISO 1600 and f/2 to get that 1/8th to 1/15th of a second.</p>

<p>Normally I'd use my EOS 3 (analog) or 5D (digital) with a fast prime (35mm f/2, 50mm f/1.8) and use the spot meter to quickly establish the exposure ballpark and either check the histogram or re-meter the important aspects of the scene, if necessary.</p>

<p>Now after deciding that I very much love b&w film photography for my private work and that I've never shot with a rangefinder before, I would really like to catch up with that experience. After I have now spent many weeks researching and reading up on rangefinder concepts, cameras, lenses (and shortly played with the Zeiss Ikon at the last Photokina) I still have the unanswered question of the different styles of metering patterns these cameras offer.</p>

<p>As I understand, the Leica features some sort of semi-spot metering, where the only center 8-10mm are used. The Zeiss Ikon features "just" a classic center weighted averaging meter - a metering concept, with which I didn't have much success when applied to photography in dark places (to be honest - my Minolta X-700 I used does not have the best meter you can find. But still.).</p>

<p>So I am asking everybody out there who has used both cameras or at least the Zeiss ZM in these circumstances: Which is more reliable and/or convenient, the semi spot metering pattern of the Leicas or the center weighted meter in the Zeiss? The Leica would probably fit more to my previous style of shooting in these conditions, but a new Zeiss is equally expensive or even cheaper than a used M7... I probably could imagine using a hand held meter, if that's it what it takes, but I would really prefer in-camera metering. Both the Leica and the ZM meter down to -2 EV, so the sensitivity of both cameras should be sufficent - the EOS 3 / 5D are not better in this regard.</p>

<p>Thanks for reading & helping out!</p>

<p>Manuel</p>

<p>Today I tried scanning the negatives with Nikon Scan - and voila, I got better results. Somehow, it seems, does Vuescan some sort of sharpening or processes the image data in a way which enhances the grain somewhat. I get more "white dust grain" in the shadows with Vuescan that with Nikon Scan. For the record: I used the positive and the negative mode in Vuescan, with identical results - no sharpening, no roc, no gem no whatever. With Nikonscan I only used the positive mode and converted to black and white using Photoshop (just desaturation, the rgb channels looked quite the same regarding grain and tones) - again, no sharpening or fancypants postprocessing. The overall tones seem to look better, too, regardless of postprocessing of course.<br>

<br /> Here is a new 100% crop (probably not the very best example, but there is a visible difference - not only on 1:1 view):<br>

<br /> <img src="http://zamora.de/tmp/delta400at1600microphen-100percent-nsnogem.jpg" alt="" width="327" height="327" /></p>

<p>And after using a GEM setting of 2 in Nikonscan:<br>

<br /> <img src="http://zamora.de/tmp/delta400at1600microphen-100percent-nsgem2.jpg" alt="" width="321" height="321" /></p>

<p>Enough pixel peeping for today ;-)</p>

<p>Thank you all for your help!</p>

<p>After some more reading in the archives I tried several different scanning techniques. The best effect had reducing the analog gain of the light source to 0.25 in Vuescan - the Histogram looks better than before, but the grain is just a tiny bit better/smaller and less contrasty. I really do think that the design of the LS-5000 contributes at least somewhat to the coarse grain, but as you all said, there are many different factors to that.</p>

<p>I also tried using Noise Ninja and GEM, which both produced results not to my liking - too much smearing.</p>

<p>For the next pictures I will experiment with TMY2/Microphen and Neopan 1600 and try to compare my results to the Delta 400.</p>

<p>Thanks again,<br>

Manuel</p>

<p>Thank you both for the heads up. As I said, I was unsure, because I saw samples of exactly this combination with much smaller and neater grain. I will try again, with fresh film and fresh developer.</p>

<p>Are there any recommendations you can give me concerning film and developer types at these speeds? As a social shooter I take many candid shots in dim lightening conditions - I need something around ISO 1600. I know that B&W at these speeds comes with grain, and don't get me wrong, I really do like it! I just want to make sure I don't miss anything...</p>

<p>Hello everybody,<br>

<br /> last week I developed several rolls of Ilford Delta 400 shot at 1600 with Microphen. Unfortunately I'm not quite sure if everything went right, because my results are very grainy, much more than I anticipated from several samples I saw on the 'net. This is my first time pushing film, but I have successfully developed Delta 400 and HP5 with ID-11 several times with quite good results.<br>

<br /> The film is expired (3 years), but was kept refrigerated the whole time; the Microphen was mixed about three months ago, but kept tighly capped at room temperature. I developed it at 20°C for 10.5 minutes using the stock solution. For the next films I adjusted the development time by 10% for every developed roll, as suggested by Ilford - every roll looks approximately the same, at least concerning grain and contrast.<br>

<br /> Here is an example of a whole correctly exposed frame, scanned with a Nikon LS-5000 (processed with curves to mimic a print):<br>

<br /> <img src="http://www.zamora.de/tmp/delta400at1600microphen.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Here is a 100% crop:<br>

<br /> <img src="http://www.zamora.de/tmp/delta400at1600microphen-100percent.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<br /> What I would like to know - is this a result within the normal parameters or did something go wrong? Any clue what my problem could be? Somewhere I read that my Nikon produces scans with huge grain because of its light source, especially with pushed film... but I do not believe that this effect would be *that* severe.<br>

<br /> Thanks for your help!<br>

<br /> Manuel</p>

Another point: January is not that far away. If you're used to your F-1 and to shooting film, the time until January might not be enough to

familiarize yourself with your new digital equipment and its possibilities - your end results would be inferior to shooting film. But that is of

course highly dependant on how much time you've got to learn digital. Just something to think about!

Just think about your use case: You want to work on 14MB Raw Files, probably with mutiple layers in Photoshop.

Typical file sizes will be between 100 and 400 MB (PSD file format) I'd say. You have plenty of RAM, which Photoshop

will only use 4 GB of it, even on Vista64/XP64. Modern desktop harddrives are fast enough, so that writing 400MB to

disk happens in a very small amount of time.

For your system, get a very fast drive, like the Velociraptor or the cheaper and still very fast Western Digital

WD6400AAKS (640 GB). The access and seek times are important here, not the sequential transfer speed. The fewer

platters in your hard disk, the higher rotational speed, the better (in theory). The same things apply for a scratch disc -

you need fast, random access.

RAID is never, EVER a means of speeding up your system. Raid 0 is a no-go, if anything goes wrong, your system or

data is gone - you COULD use it for the scratch disc, take two very fast drive, and get one logical drive, which is 20-30

percent faster... But two times the money, 20 percent speedup? I wouldn't do that...

RAID1, even with an expensive Hardware Raid controller (not the cheap pseudo-stuff you find on motherboards!), is

slower than your single hard drive. RAID is not for backup purposes, but for reliability. If you absolutely need to continue

working, because you make money with your photography, and have no replacement machine, then you take RAID.

For data storage, get something big, Samsung Spinpoint F1 1 TB, for example. All 1 TB models are quite fast

(sequential read/write speed) and comparatively inexpensive. You only save your image once, after you've modified it. It

does not matter if that takes 3 or 4 seconds.

Finally, I have to agree with Michael, unless you're a big pro, spend more money on your photographic equipment, and

less for the computer stuff. Btw, do you have any backup devices? This is very important! Get some external drives,

eSata or Firewwire, and make backups!

> The results of the colorimetric tests done by Karl Lang showed the 2490 to be the most accurate

Can you post the link to that please? Always eager to learn ;)

The NEC 2690 is a clear step ahead of its little brother and even the best display in this size and price class. An easy

recommendation if you can afford this one.

According to prad.de, the NEC covers sRGB "barely", which probably means something around 90%. If sRGB is your goal,

then go with the NEC!

Everyone of the mentioned displays feature a larger than normal LUT (lookup table), but for example the EIZOs feature a

six axis color control, which in theory allows for a better display calibration.

I recommend you check out the buyers guide on prad.de, where they are quite scientificly testing displays on everything from ergonomics to color space coverage: http://prad.de/en/monitore/buyers-guide/start.html

I am too shopping for a new display, and when I compare the reviews on this site, it seems that you have few options. If money is an issue and photo work in AdobeRGB is the main objective, either get the 22 inch Eizo S2231W with 98% sRGB coverage and 90% RGB coverage for 580 EUR, the 24 inch Samsung 245T with 93% sRGB and 90% RGB coverage for 900 EUR or the fabulous 26 inch NEC 2690 WUXi with 100% sRGB and a very very good (95%?) AdobeRGB coverage for 1100 EUR. Anything better will set you back more than 1500/2000 EUR...

The 24 inch displays by either Eizo or NEC have less than 90% Adobe RGB coverage and also do not cover sRGB as well as these monitors do - but they are still *very* good.

And, the panel is not *quite* everything. It's also about the uniformity of the back light (*very* important!), build quality, ergomics, internal 10/12/14 Bit LUTs...

So, to answer your question - if 24 inch is the size you want, get the Samsung. Otherwise, go for the 22 inch Eizo.

I had no luck in calibration my first generation Core 2 Duo Macbook. The calibration itself

worked, but the very small color gammut of the display cannot display the resulting profile,

resulting in plain wrong colors in the blues. I used the Spyder 2 device with either the Sypder

Pro Software or ColorEyes (iirc), both produced the same effect. I had to give up.

My recommendation: For non critical work use the display unprofiled, for critical work use an

external display.

<p>Look at the Ilford datasheets:</p>

<p>http://www.silverprint.co.uk/PDF/dev_chart.pdf<br />

http://www.pictureline.com/images/pdf/100_Delta.pdf<br />

(There is a developer related chart somewhere, couldn't find it quickly...)</p>

<p>ID-11 is a very good start, but use Microphen for pushing.</p>

If you're coming from a film (and so from a full 35mm frame) background, by all means,

get the 5D! I was in a similar situation and made the mistake of getting the 30d. Not that

the 30d was bad, not at all, but it didn't felt right, the images felt... not right. The dof is

different, the focal lengths are different and _for my style of shooting_ it was the wrong

choice. The more tele work you do, the better APS-C can work for you. But if you are not

into sports, birding, wildlife but more into social events, low light, photojournalist-style

shooting - full frame is the answer. Use primes at their intended focal length, have the dof

you are already used to and get it at the "correct" aperture. Even if the 40d is the

technically better camera (screen, fps), it's the sensor that matters. The 5d can everything

my EOS 3 could do, but digital and with better results, image quality wise. And that's what

I wanted and I think, that's what you probably want. The 5D and the 24-105mm are a very

nice combination, I can assure you that you'll love it.

I don't know the price of the agfa, but a 10 pack of Sensia is around 30?. Yes, the dm drugsture still produces the dm paradise film - but there is no need to try it: for me it looks like a typical consumer print film. Oversatured, too much grain. But then, the last time I used that film was 5 years ago...

Have fun in Germany!

Well, I do not want to argue with the Leica porn people here, but the man has a point. The search for a professional digital compact is a long and hard one (see here: http://bythom.com/compact.htm) and yet there are no definitive answers.

The best picks so far are

- Canon G9: Sturdy rangefinder design, high quality output, RAW, but no traditional controls and now very wide, 35mm equiv. is the widest lens setting

- Leica D-Lux 3 / Panasonic LX2: Manual controls / override possible, "designed by a photographer" the reviewers say, great optics, but very noisy sensor

- Ricoh GX-100 or GRD: 24-72mm zoom / 28mm equiv. fixed focal compacts, hiqh quality lenses, noisy sensor, classic controls

A used Digilux 2 sounds like a good M substitute, as you can now afford one ;) The maximum print size will be A3, but not much more. Be sure to check out the reviews:

- http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicadigilux2/

- http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/leica-digilux2-part1.shtml

- http://www.photo.net/equipment/leica/digilux2/

If you have decided, tell us what you chose and post some pictures!