berardi

>I am not sure where I will end up yet - I am accepted to NESOP, Hallmark and UofH. I may

>decide to stay in Houston and attend Glassell to get fundamentals and continue taking

>workshops and assisting/working locally - rather than spend so much money on school.

I just graduated Hallmark. Fantastic school.

Just my own two cents on the matter, I'm not a huge fan of the 18-200, especially for a

more serious shooter. I'd rather have lenses that do specific things really well than a lens

that can do a semi-resonable impression of a bunch of things. It's wide angle but 18 isn't

super wide on a nikon sensor. It can be used as a portrait lens but the aperture isn't really

as wide as you'd like for that. It focuses to 1.5 feet so you can do details but it's not nearly

as good as a true macro. You're also likely to lose some optical quality by having such a

massive zoom range. Buy Capture NX if you get this lens, the "auto aberration" button

alone will be worth the price.

As general advice in the matter, make sure you take the time to think about the kind of

shots you take, and would like to take, and what kind of lens you need to accomplish

them. Are you going to be in a situation where you need a lot of versatility and can't be

changing lenses all the time? This could be the lens for you. Do you prefer to work with a

tripod? Don't pay for VR then. Do you want to take detail shots? Make sure you get

something macro. You mentioned wanting to do wide angle shots, maybe you should

direct more of your budget in that direction. Think about what you need, not what

someone writing a review or some jerk on a forum likes.

In regards to monolights v. block and head system, monolights might work better for what

you're doing. They're easier to spread out for a bigger shoot in my experience, since they

don't all have to be plugged into the same place. Also, what do you plan on shooting with? If

it's a DSLR, you probably don't need super-powerful lights.

>This will make it harder for Canon and (eventually) others like Nikon to charge $5000+

for cameras that may match MF in resolution but will be a smaller format.

Well, it's tough to get a medium format camera to shoot 10 frames a second. The only

small format DSLR that this really presents an alternative to is the 1Ds Mark II. It's multiple

times the price than everything else, and really an entirely different type of camera.

That said, medium format digital is really fantastic stuff and it makes me happy to think I

might actually be able to afford it one day.

>A light drawing.

What he said.

Short answer: they will be, but I won't be the one collecting them.

My guess is that it'll have a following somewhat similar to what vinyl recordings do today.

Perhaps less because film is really less different from digital than vinyl recordings are...

>Also, what is the general resolution that you guys save in, when you want to post it on the

web?

The only numbers that matter for the web is the actual resolution. An 800 pixel file is 800

pixels wide on someone's monitor, no matter if it's at 360 or 72 or any other ppi. Is that what

your question is?

By RGB sliders, are you talking about the channel mixer? I think that's the official, proper way

to do it in CS2.

If you know how to use actions, there's also a pretty cool one for B&W conversions on Adobe

Evangelists that basically builds a contact sheet of different possible conversions: http://

www.adobeevangelists.com/photoshop/actions.html

There might still be some bias against it in certain circles, but there's certainly no technical

cause for them to not show it at this point. The 5D should certainly cover you, as far as

image fidelity goes.

Camera Control is only $70... I actually thought it was way more, or I might have already

bought it for myself.

Tethered shooting is ridiculously useful. If you're doing studio work on a regular basis, it's

invaluable. It takes instant feedback to a whole new level... instant, big, detailed

histogram, clipping warnings, loupe tool to check fine focus. I've also seen some people

like <a href=http://www.laforetvisuals.com/main.php>Vincent LaForet</a> do really cool

stuff with a tethered camera strapped to an extendable pole attached to a helicopter and

such. Definitely a very, very useful tool.

I don't have any experience with Nikon's tether program, though, so I can really speak to

it's specific qualities or features. But tethered capture, in general, is really great stuff.

Well there's the D200, it's a pretty huge upgrade in my opinion. Significantly better image

quality, a lot more features, a far superior body. It's usually considered a consumer grade

camera because of it's price but it's pro quality in most every regard.

As for the future, I don't really know. I'd think the D200 or D2Xs would be the next in line for

a major upgrade since they're the oldest, but I haven't heard any actual rumors or anything.

Nothing wrong with the D50, but as others have mentioned, the D70 has some additional

useful features and really shouldn't cost much more. Also, $400 seems a little high for a

D50...

"Several times I have wondered why DOF seemed so shallow shooting with the D100

compared to my film bodies--using the same lenses. I thought it was my imagination. I was

just to lazy to reason it out."

I think it is your imagination... Smaller sensor/film plane = deeper depth of field, not

shallower.