jonathans

<p>Wow, that's a long thread. And filled with the usual sniping back and forth. I'm just going to address the issue of building your own PC:<br>

Do you want to be a PC Tech? Do you want to spend your nights swearing at your computer because it randomly shuts off? Do you love tearing a computer down component by component, cleaning the contacts as you go, and putting it back together, praying a connector doesn't break, a screw doesn't strip, and that nothing shorts out as you put back together for the umpteenth time? Thrill to the thought of spending hours or days trying to track down exactly which part is malfunctioning (assuming it's not somewhere in the software after all) so you can figure out which manufacturer to call to get it replaced (hmm, wonder if the RAM or the video card is bad...)? Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? Then don't build your own PC. You're not going to save much, if any, money and given the price of PCs today, odds are you aren't going to be upgrading it (cheaper to buy a new PC in 2 years and donate the old one to charity for a tax write-off), and you're stuck being your own tech support. Purchase a computer (Mac/PC/Whatever) from as reputable a manufacturer as you can find and be done with it if you want to actually get some photography done. <br>

As far as a PC or a Mac - flip a coin. The tradeoffs between each tend to even out in the long run. The Mac has a better user interface in general, the pc is cheaper and has more software (you can try all 7,327 version of minesweeper). But if what you want is just a tool to help you produce photographs, they're both going to work just fine. <br>

No matter which you choose, budget for an external hard drive at least as large as the internal one (if not larger) and use it for a backup. If you're hoping to make money off your photography buy two or three. One to stay connected to the computer, and two to rotate between - you'll copy your "can't bear to lose" images to these, one stays in the house somewhere (not next to the computer, tucked away somewhere reasonably hidden) and the other lives off-site in a safety deposit box, friend's house, workplace (if they'll allow it), whatever in case the worst happens. I can tell you from experience, the only thing worse than having your computer hiccup and spending weeks recovering your data is having your computer hiccup and *not* being able to recover it at all. </p>

<p>I haven't experienced it myself, but from what I've read the cameras with electronic timer backs are more prone to jamming (the timer is a bit thicker). The fuji film uses a plastic carrier that's apparently a little more prone to flexing (or maybe thicker) than the polaroid so it makes the first couple of prints tight. You can bend the springs in the back a little to reduce pressure, or I've heard of people swapping a mechanical timer back for the electronic one to get a bit more space. </p>

<p>The archival CDs might be a better bet, even though they cost a little more. They're better quality than the cheap spindle packs and use gold as a non-tarnishing substrate. <br>

They won't replace the need for data conversion though - that's the side effect of digital at present. You'll probably need to check your backups every 5-10 years and move them to the current, stable, storage medium. If they're available, archival DVDs might be a better choice right now than CDs. <br>

I'm not sure of any tests that have been done regarding the long term stability of flash drives. Not sure I'd trust them to sit in a safe deposit box for a decade and still be readable. Hard drives are a better option, although you take the risk of no longer being able to physically connect them. <br>

Really though, this isn't that different than film's early days. Eventually some sort of long-term archival solution will be developed as the need becomes more apparent. Look at nitrocellulose film - highly flammable and has a tendency to destroy itself in storage, but it was in use for decades before an alternative was developed and widely used. </p>

<p>I am new to the world of light meters myself. I recently purchased a Gossen Digisix, and I am having really good results with it. It can act as a reflective meter or an ambient meter, has a digital readout coupled with an analog wheel. When you meter, you get an EV number on the digital display, you then use the analog wheels to convert this aperture and shutter speed. It sounds more cumbersome than it is, in practice you hit the button, rotate the ring to whatever number you get, and then read off your range of f stop and aperture values. <br>

I picked up the Digisix because I needed something:<br>

small - most of the time I carry it in my pocket in the included zipper case, when I'm using it I hang it from the lanyard around my neck. Very handy. <br>

has temperature and timer functions - I shoot polaroids and these two functions are very useful to me. <br>

Reflective or ambient - once again, matched the type of shooting I do. <br>

Uses a readily available CR2032 lithium battery, about $3 at my local store. <br>

Relatively inexpensive - it's one of the less expensive (new) meters</p>

<p>I have not had the battery draining issues others have reported, although I do keep a spare battery in my camera bag (I keep a spare of every type of battery I need in my bag). It does have a plastic feel, but seems sufficiently rugged for what I'm using it for. <br>

The downsides:<br>

no flash metering - wasn't an issue for me, I'll probably buy a larger studio type meter for flash exposures if/when I need it. <br>

May have an issue in very low light levels - once again, not a big issue to me. The display could be backlit though.<br>

hot-shoe adapter is sold seperately, costs around $15. It's so small you'd think they'd have thrown this piece of plastic in the box!<br>

ISO setting can be a bit tedious - you have to step through the full range to change, and you can only go up. 99% of the time I'm shooting ISO 400 B&W film so that's not a problem for me, if you change film speed often it could get tedious. (I don't use it with my digital camera, I change the ISO on that more often, and use it for my color work)<br>

Buttons are easy to bump accidentally - not a big deal other than you may pull it out of your pocket and find it displaying the time, requiring a couple of button presses to fix. <br>

That's what I have and why I purchased it. If your type of shooting matches mine (90% outdoors in sunlight, need something light/compact, etc) I'd heartily recommend it. If you're hard on your gear or you need flash functions, you might want to step up to a more full featured, larger, unit. I've read that the Digiflash (version of the Digisix that includes flash functionality) has issues under fluorescent lights, just so you know. </p>

<p>Check with your state, some have organizations that are set up to help individuals who are interested in starting their own business. For example, North Carolina has: <br>

http://www.nccommerce.com/en/BusinessServices/StartYourBusiness<br>

(and it would hurt to consult with a CPA or other professional as well)</p>

<p>They're becoming popular for converting into 4x5 cameras, in which case you can use a polaroid back for 4x5 or packfilm. However, the conversion is either:<br>

a) expensive if you pay someone else<br>

b) time consuming and requires reasonable fabricating skills if you try yourself<br>

I have 2 900's, one which I cannibalized for parts to make a lens mount. The project is stuck at this point b/c I really need some aluminum parts fabricated which means I either invest in the equipment (a good vice and drill press would be sufficient) or pay a machine shop to do it. <br>

Here's a page with more info on conversions: <br>

http://option8.110mb.com/polaroid/</p>

 

<p>Obviously everybody has their own experience and opinions about which is best. However, you need to decide which is best *for you*, so start with these two questions:<br>

How large do you want to print? (8x10? 13x19? 16x20?) <br>

How much can you spend? ($500? $1000? $2000?)</p>

<p>I've gotten good prints out of a $100 Epson R280 using the "black ink only" option in the driver, but they're not very archival. Good is a relative term too - some detail is lost and the types of papers are limited to Epson inkjet printers. If you're looking to get display quality prints using pigment inks then you'll be looking at a significant jump in price coupled with a significant jump in quality over a basic consumer dye-based ink printer. <br>

The three market leaders right now are Epson, Canon, and HP. Their introductory models that have the capability to do high-quality black and white are:<br>

Epson: R2880 (R2400 is the previous model, you can find it refurbed for a slight saving over the 2880, there's also the R1800, however, I haven't seen good reviews of it's B&W performance although it's supposed to produce excellent color prints)<br>

Canon: Pixma Pro 9500 (the 9000 is a dye based printer, but odds are the clerk in the camera store won't explain that)<br>

HP: B9180 or B8850 - same print mechanisms, the B9180 can use thicker paper, has an LCD display, and built-in ethernet. <br>

The prices of these printers varies pretty widely from around $550-800 depending on where you buy, current rebates, the phase of the moon, the mood of the CEO, and a numerous other factors. There are many reviews of these printers online, so check them out. </p>

<p>The Epson 3800 some have mentioned is a step up from the 2400/2880. It prints on larger paper and uses larger ink cartridges. The downside - it's more expensive and it will cost you more up front to replace the cartridges. The upside is that the ink is actually cheaper - you're paying twice as much more for a cartridge that holds ~3 times the amount of ink of a 2400/2880. If you print a significant amount the 3800 will cost less than the 2880 due to the savings on ink. <br>

Kodak's new "all-in-one" printer/scanner/copier is supposed to use a pigment based ink, but I haven't seen any reviews or buzz about it on photographic sites. It'll only print up to 8x10, but Kodak is advertising the ink as costing much less than other manufacturers. <br>

There are also printers that do higher quality, larger print sizes, and cost a lot more from HP, Epson, and Canon. Unless you are thinking about starting a pro printing business or you have a huge budget for your hobbies they probably aren't what you're looking for. <br>

I'm looking for a printer right now too. I'm leaning towards the HP B9180 or the Canon Pixma Pro 9500. They'll cost about the same, both do very high quality black and white prints along with very high quality color, and they both have their quirks. The Canon is (apparently) more of a pain to use w/ non-Canon branded paper, while the HP seems to have intermittent quality control issues. I'm probably going to hold off on the purchase for a few months to see if HP releases a new/revised version of the B9180 or if Canon improves the driver for the 9500. <br>

So - how much do you want to spend and what size do you want to print? </p>

<p>I'm in a similar situation, looking at going with an Epson 4490 for medium format scans b/c that's all I can afford at the moment. From the reviews I've read, it will do a perfectly acceptable job of scanning images that will be posted online, and a fair job for images I want to print up to say 8x10, maybe larger. If I could afford it, I'd go with the Epson V750 - from the reviews I've seen it has the potential to very nearly match the quality of a dedicated film scanner. <br>

Regarding losing quality - I'm not, at all. The negative itself isn't actually losing anything from the scan process, so when/if I get an image I like and want to have printed larger I can either sit on it until I can afford a high-quality scanner, send it out for scanning at a professional lab, or have it printed traditionally. Actually, the ability to get decent scans with less costly scanners is part of the attraction of medium format to me. The larger negative simply scans better on a flatbed from everything I've read so far. <br>

Getting back to the original question - for web use, it seems that flat bed scanners will produce an acceptable scan of medium format negatives. Very high-quality flatbeds can produce exceptional scans but even relatively inexpensive units like the Epson 4490, V500, and Canon 8800 can produce good scans. Don't discount them for making web-ready images. Plus it's useful for more than just negatives - I take the occasional polaroid and have old maps and newspaper articles that I need to scan on occasion. Having a decent flatbed will give me that capability even if I update to a dedicated film scanner in the future. </p>

<p>You can still get Time Zero manipulable film for the SX-70 (fresh even).  It's pricey at around $30 for an 8 exposure pack though.  Once the last batch is sold out that's probably it for SX-70 film unless somebody else picks up the manufacturing (unlikely at this point, it's apparently complicated, expensive, and almost entirely by hand).   I bought an SX-70 for $7 at a local junktique shop just because I love the design.  I've tried to avoid acquiring "shelf cameras" but I'm making an exception for the SX-70. </p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies.  I'll have to investigate the local store a bit more and see if they can do better quality scans.  I was expecting TIFF or at least high-quality jpegs, but the files I got back were around 1 meg each (and I'm missing a few images, they apparently never made it through the scanner).  <br>

As for doing it myself - that's the goal, and if all goes as planned I'll be acquiring the various bits I need to do so and starting to learn.  </p>

<p>I shot a roll of Kodak Tri-X Pan 400 the other day and had it developed and scanned at the local lab.  The negatives look OK, but I don't have a loupe handy to really check them out.  The scans, however, are very grainy/noisy.  My first thought was the film must be the grainiest ever, but after searching through the archives I'm starting to suspect it's the scanning (which is dissapointing, as I'd hoped to use them until I can learn to develop B&W myself and acquire a decent film scanner).  At this point, I'm hoping it is just their scanner - I like some of the shots on the roll but this level of grain/noise is a bit excessive for my tastes!</p>

<p><br /> Here's one of the images:  </p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Lenovo notebooks have a good reputation (they used to be IBM Thinkpads).  Everything you use runs on a Mac, so that's an option.  If you want to stick with Windows Lenovo is good or check out Dell's Business Unit.  When you go to the Dell homepage select "for Office" rather than "For Home" and price out a laptop there.  In the past the customer service was handled by 2 different divisions, and the Business Unit had a <span style="font-weight: bold;">MUCH</span> better reputation than the Home division.  <br>

These days I think Dell home is about the same as walking into Wal-Mart and buying a PC.  It's going to be pretty craptastic, with equally craptastic support.  </p>

<p>I worked in the computer/network consulting world for many years.  Our advice with Microsoft products (we installed and supported MS and Novell) was always "wait for the first Service Pack".  <br>

If you are stuck on Windows, go with Vista.  Windows 7 (or whatever MS decides to market it as) may be out soon, or it might be out in a couple of years.  Either way you really don't want to be the first to jump on that bandwagon.  THere *will* be driver and program incompatibilities and lots of annoying little bugs to be worked out - which usually happens when SP1 (of any product) is released.  Unless you enjoy paying for the privilege of being a beta tester, never jump on a new product release if you can avoid it.  <br>

I mostly use Macs these days, but I have Vista Business loaded on a partition so I can boot into Windows for the one or two programs from companies that still have their heads stuck in the sand.  Vista Business hasn't given me any trouble - you might want to look into it as opposed to Vista Home since it doesn't have all the media center crap built into it.  <br>

Ditto the advice on making sure it's from a reputable company (don't go buy the $299 special at Best Buy), clean all the crap you can off when you get it (or pay the extra $15 or so to not have it installed in the first place), and make sure you have lots and lots of RAM and a good video card.  </p>

Apparently it's supposed to be a Nikon. The original(s) are on exhibit in the Superman museum in Metropolis. Check out

this link:

 

http://www.supermantv.net/messageboard/article1853.htm

 

Basically, the camera you see in many of the scenes was a (not overly accurate) balsa wood prop camera. It was used

because it weighed a lot less than the real thing. There's a photograph in the link above of the exhibit at the museum with

the balsa wood camera and a crushed Nikon, both from the movie.

There are times when flash (focus-assist or otherwise) simply aren't an option. I've often found myself in a museum or

archive photographing a sensitive document or artifact. It's almost always in low-light where autofocus has problems

anyway *and* flash is not allowed, period.

I've converted a 330 and 350 to use newer batteries following the instructions on the following site:

 

http://option8.110mb.com/polaroid/index.html

 

It's easy to do if you have basic skills at soldering. If you don't, you can still find 3v batteries that will work in the

polaroid cameras like the 350, but they're pricey (around $10/ea). Check out the website and see if any of the

conversions are within your skill level.

Polaroid's film/camera nomenclature is confusing. I'm really just getting into shooting polaroid, I've learned a bit by

reading but hopefully somebody more knowledgeable will answer.

 

In the meantime - Polaroid produced a Polaroid 600 and 600SE camera that were basically professional packfilm

cameras - they use the 100 series (confusing renumbered as 6xx film) peel-apart pack film. The good news is that while

Polaroid is leaving the film business, Fuji makes peel-apart film that will work in these cameras. The FP3000B,

FP100B, and FP100C films should work fine.

 

If you are talking about the plastic bodied cameras that shot the 600 series integral film (the "classic" square polaroid)

then you're out of luck, Polaroid is stopping production of this film and no other company has announced plans to

produce compatible film.

 

A good resource is The Land List: http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist

Something you might want to consider as a "just in case" failsafe is burning 2 sets of DVDs and mailing one back home to

a friend, mail holding service, or PO Box. That way you'll have a backup that's not in your luggage. You'd have to decide

on the level of hassle you want to deal with, but at least once a week or so would give you some additional peace of mind.

Check out the Land List - tons of good information on older polaroids ranging from the 95 up to the SX-70. Here's a link

directly to the battery info page, but it's worthwhile to explore the site:

 

http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landbatt.htm

What's your budget, that's the biggest limitation, I think. I'm in a similar situation, but my budget is around $500-$600 and I

mostly print matte and black and white. The Epson R1900 won't cut it for me, I rarely print glossy and that's what its

optimized for. It's a good printer if you mostly do color glossies though!

 

I'm leaning towards an HP B9180 at the moment. The B8850 is its less expensive sibling. Great B&W prints, very good

color prints, pigment based and rated at 200+ years. It's around $500-$600. If budget were less of a concern I'd probably

jump up to an Epson 3800 for the slightly wider format.

Of course it is! I just bought CS3 last week, and that's a sure sign the manufacturer will come out with something new within 2 weeks.

 

On the bright, since I'm teaching myself to use Photoshop, the various guidebooks for CS3 should be in the clearance bin for 75% off before too long!

Sounds like you'll only be printing a few photos a month. Any idea if you'll be using glossy or matte papers? Papers up

to A4 size won't be a problem on most good home printers. I've got a Epson R280 right now, and it makes nice prints

that I've been happy to display and give to friends and family. You can pick it up for less than $100, it uses Claria ink

like the 1400, although the 1400 can handle larger paper sizes. So far ink consumption hasn't been insane w/ the R280 I

have, my first set of catridges lasted through several 8x10s and multiple experiments in inkjet transfer and alternative

papers. Ink isn't cheap, but if you look around you can find multipacks for a good price.

 

Canon and HP make some good printers as well, I'm just not familiar with their line.

Regarding the monitor - get the 24" if you can afford it, it seems it might be better for photo editing, but the new iMacs do have support for an external monitor, so that might be an option if you need a better display in the future.

Do you have a Windows or a Mac? I've used DiskImage to do a byte-by-byte image of flash drives - http://www.dubaron.com/diskimage/. It's a windows program - can be a bit technical to use but its free.

 

A good file recovery utility shouldn't delete anything off the flash drive - it will just read it and attempt to recover files.

A little background: I've recently been getting back into photography after purchasing a digital SLR. I'm a

college student, and its time to upgrade my laptop for school-related reasons. At the moment I'm leaning towards

a macbook (a macbook pro would be stretching my budget *very* thin). The laptop won't be dedicated to photo work,

although I'm taking the opportunity to load it up with some useful software at academic prices. I'll probably be

purchasing Photoshop CS3 - I'd like to really learn to use it, and since I have the opportunity to legally

acquire it relatively cheaply, why not.

 

Anyway - since I'll be mostly using a laptop I'm planning on keeping the bulk of my images stored on an external

hard drive. Currently I may end up with 2 external drives - one that will travel with me and be used strictly

for photographs (I have a 160gb, bus-powered drive already I'm using for this), one that will stay home as a

backup, and then some storage space on the internal hard drive (I can foresee wanting to keep a selection of my

"best" photos on the laptop drive).

 

I'm looking at either Aperture or Lightroom for managing the photos. The question is - which to get? From what

I've read in terms of functionality they're quite similar, esp. since I'm planning on using Photoshop for most of

my heavy editing work. My main concern, then, is how well does each do managing collections stored on an

external hard drive - will the program have issues if I attempt to start it when the external drive isn't

connected?

 

From what I've read it's possible to manage this sort of setup in Aperture using different libraries - have a

working library on the external HD w/ all my photos in it, a select library stored on the internal HD, and then

backups using whatever backup method I end up going with for the system. What about Lightroom? How would it

manage the external drive?

 

In addition, I may continue using my desktop PC. The software licenses will be expensive, but Lightroom might

give me the option of using either the desktop or laptop depending on where I am and what I need to do - how easy

is it to transfer an external drive full of photos between two computers running Lightroom when one is a PC and

one is a Mac?