donald_bray

Lens - body alignment visual indicator is tiny and hidden. I would like lenses and bodies with tactile detail to enable easy lens alignment sight unseen.

In the art world, encaustic, painting with pigmented waxes, has shown to be the most lightfast. Wax, a precurser to polymer, could perhaps be furthered to your interest.

 

There are lots of dimensional printers now, unfortunately most of them developed with proprietary materials as the consumable.

A long lens is required as often you cannot and should not get very close to the animals.

 

As you probably know, most of SE Africa is very poor, '3rd world' status. If you photograph people it is common, sometimes expected, for you to pay them something. What many people do is have numerous give away items for this occasion: pens, hats, country flag pins, candy, toys, etc. It may sound cheap and patronizing, but often the items have surprising value and status. Also it is a security measure that you not fumble with money as often you will attract a crowd.

 

Also, in some areas, ensure someone is watching you when you are setting up a shot. Numerous stories of tourists being mugged, some killed, 'bushmen' jumping out of hiding, while your attention is diverted.

Chlorophyl, sunshine and time. Positive attached to a leaf and left for several months. Permanent image.

Consider your audience. I believe if you do a BW conversion, then you will be asking your audience to read the series partly through your interpretation. Leaving colour reasonably as captured will leave interpretation up to your audience.

 

Many years ago I saw a beautiful book by a Japanese photographer, all names have been forgotten, with monumental shots of the Himalayas. Some photos were bw, colour, and some appeared were posterized bw. All were beautiful, but indeed had different emotion, for me.

You should turn a perceived negative into a positive. Call them up and say you were recently at their banquet facility and noticed your photographs and thought it was awesome but can I come by and attach a business card in case some one sees them and inquires about who did your wedding photos...

 

And leave it at that.

AC is fairly relaxed with carry on camera gear. Over christmas AC gave me no hassles, no questions, no "please open your bag..." with my carry on camera gear. However, I only had 2 bodies, 3 lenses, assorted paraphernalia - no where near 10 kg. Are you really loading one bag with 20kg? That's alot, unless it has wheels.

There is an issue of physics at play in the size of DSLR's. Just about all packaged electronics are beholden to battery and display technologies. Batteries' packaged power capacity and performance adaptability is physical size dependant.

 

Optically, DSLR's comparatively big sensors require big optics to exploit them. Big optics require big frames to securely mount and provide adequate handhold.

 

Compare user's posture during photo composition with a P&S vs. DSLR. DSLR's provide tremendously more field of view through the pentaprism compared to the arms length P&S LCD field of view compositioner. Again, relatively big optics, again requiring adequate structure, are required to provide this field of view in DSLR's.

 

DSLR's may shrink in future with new packaged power technologies, or with new image capture technolgies. But their size will also always be related to usability: the 'man-machine interface'.

When I had only one film body I used to swap out partially exposed film rolls, you know B&W to color back to B&W, writing the frames exposed number on the can for later reinsertion and advancing to that number +1. So of course the ink rubs off, I forget the film canister has been partially exposed...

This is what I have. I phoned a few packaging companies asking for black polyethylene foam for electronics packaging. Got two blocks cut to fit the bag for $7 each. Then cut out recesses myself.

First 8-9 months of 2006 I tracked new and used Pentax lenses on typical sites prior to buying several. Specifically Pentax brand only, wide angles, macros and a few zooms. I also compared them to Canon and Nikon although I did not record prices. I checked again just prior to Christmas.

 

There was a small but continuous selection of wide angles and macros, and several zooms were always available in widely distributed prices. In December the number of Pentax lenses availabe was about 3x what it was earlier in the year, and prices for the wide angles and macros I had tracked had marginally increased, with occasional insane asking price. Similar Canon lenses during my research were grossly more expensive, but more of them were available.

 

New Pentax digital lenses were always available, some locations reported sold out, others had them in stock; it just took dedicated looking to find them. I assumed this was due to high turnover in certain popular stores.

 

I got the lenses I wanted at what I could afford, but it took several months. I missed a few great deals (look for people selling kits of multiple lenses), laughed a bit at what some people payed, and also saw some online retailers buy online to resell online. I notice two retailers are still trying to sell the same prize Pentax lenses (a 15 and 18mm 3.5) 10 months later, the result of overpricing!

 

The Pentax lenses are available, but it takes time to search out the deals.

As Pico said, its been discussed before, by me too.

 

All my oil paintings are photographed outdoors in sunshine up against a white wall. Previous studio efforts could not consistently eliminate glare, causing 'sueding' of the color, technically structural color. Post processing attempts were unsatisfactory. However, disregard if they're not oil paintings.

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I did this due to next-day requirement, from a slide. However, maybe better - maybe worse, "lightbox" was a blacked out windowed LCD monitor showing white screen with bright white paper diffuser. Result was poor-acceptable for its undemanding purpose.

It's a good question, I asked myself similar surfing numerous photo sites over the last year prior to recently joining. I believe all these sites have some relevance. I like photo.net's size, extraordinarily simple and readable layout, something extremely rare on the web and certainly not shared by any of the new photo sites: all adopt the modern mantra of cascading multi-colored features and 'user selectable' everything all at the cost of simplicity and readability.

 

I attribute our shared ennui to two things:

 

1. Photo.net's size, both an attribute and an annoyance, dumbing down by mass and popularity.

 

2. Photographic mediocrity raised to a very high level due to #1 in conjunction with the affordability of very good quality digital equipment. History repeats, as this happened with the advent of desk top publishing: suddenly millions with a computer were publishing...

 

Also, altruistically with no insult intended, familiarity breeds contempt, to some degree. Anyone "visiting this site since the late 1990's" has to have seen it all before. But it's a conundrum as the inrease in content and members has to assure new photos, new insights, new ideas, no matter how rare they may be.

 

In today's technology, age and size can be an attribute: meta data, meta.photo.net?

 

For me, there's still lots to see and learn.

I have CS2 and a ds2 and I can not get it to recognize PEF, always getting "Could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document."

 

I assume it's just File - Open...

 

Could it be a firmware thing? Haven't upgraded since I bought the ds2 in March 2006. Is there some incompatibility I don't know about? Does it work on the 10th try?

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Ngorongoro is incredible, from the crater rim to the floor and all around: grasslands, forests, a lake. The animal life is extensive, you'll see the big 5 plus more, and captive within the crater. The elevation/crater depth makes its own weather; I saw brilliant sun - sudden downpour - brilliant sun within small areas only, including dramatic clouds and rainbows, every day in Ngorongoro. There are several lodges and a campground on the crater rim. I've traveled the world and I rate Ngorongoro in my top 3 destinations.

 

The Serengeti is huge and you are guaranteed of seeing all the big animals plus more, only the cheetah and leopard are rare sightings. There are several 'lodges' operated by Tanzanian tourism ministry, they are actually very beautiful, comfortable and well run, affordable but not cheap, but they are the only places available within the park.

 

October+ is rainy season in southern Africa, so November+ is best time for Ngorongoro, Serengeti, Masai Mara. It is possible to slowly drive up as close as the animals will allow. I do not know about trekking, I asked but never found out whether it was possible. I doubt it as these are well managed national parks.

 

I found popular destinations in Zimbabwe disappointing. Victoria Falls is beautiful (the town is not), but it's done in a day or less. Boating on the Zambezi was boring and dangerous because of the hippos. Whitewater rafting the Zambezi is highly recommended. Hwange park pales in comparison to the Serengeti, plus an elephant charged me there.

 

Another place I recommend is Luangwa in Zambia. It's an unknown mini-Serengeti but with a lot of water, hippos and crocodiles too. Trekking, driving, all the animals, interaction with local villagers, small outdoor lodges on hippo/crocodile pool.

 

If you are going Aug-Nov inclusive your budget may be too small, unless you are experienced budget trekker travelers. If you mean a typical 2 ? 4 week safari between Aug-Nov, then your budget is fine, with care. Africans are excellent at getting your money; you will be charged US$ for everything and given local currency change. For non residents, it?s tough to spend local currency.

 

Package tours operate Toyota and VW minivans and mini school buses, some with open roofs for viewing. If they're well sold they will pack you in. Some of these vehicles are dubious, especially for navigating the Ngorongoro crater road. Look into private 4x4 operators, it's worth it.

 

Long lens is required as you never want to be too close to these wild animals. Wide angle is required as some of the African vistas are incredible.

An artist's response.

 

Having professional photographs of my oil paintings done in studio with lighting similar as described above, I will tell you the results were terrible. 'Sueding', or differential color (technically, structural color) was obvious, as was glare. The photographer took 5 - 10 shots of each painting with bracketing, different lighting setups, filters. None were good, a few were salvagable after scanning and post processing.

 

The only acceptable photographs of my paintings were taken in bright daylight in an alcove of a white stucco house. Talking with other artists I learned this is common - outdoor, daylight, white walls. The trouble is, you are trying to satisfy a very demanding, particular client with strong preconceptions of what he/she expects to see.

 

Not to dissuade you from trying studio controlled lighting, you may find success. If you are shooting for an artist-client, I would strongly urge you to try both and compare. I would also advise debriefing the artist: if you're shooting paper drawings he/she may be particular about the paper tint, something that can be overwhelmed with studio lighting.

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