hultstrom1

<p>Here's the latest working link to the PDF:</p>

<p><a href="http://litpixel.com/m9_brochure_english_RZ_low.1.pdf" target="_blank">http://litpixel.com/m9_brochure_english_RZ_low.1.pdf</a></p>

<p>/M</p>

<p>Leica probably inadvertently put up their next M-system information folder at: http://m9.leica-camera.com/res/dnl/en/m9_brochure_english_RZ_low.1.pdf</p>

<p>It was quickly removed again, but the info got out. In short:</p>

<p>23.9mm x 35.8mm<br>

18.5 megapixel<br>

16bit DNG RAW files<br>

ISO 80-2500<br>

shutter speed 32s-1/4000s<br>

flash sync 1/180s</p>

<p>Find more at rangefinderforum.com: http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=78976</p>

<p>The PDF is still circulating, get yours now.</p>

<p>/M</p>

<p>Ah, the once and future M9. My pixies tell me that it will have a full frame 32 MP Phase One + sensor producing flawless 16 bit files. It will have sensor shifting image stabilisation and automatic sensor cleaning. It will shoot virtually noise free from a base ISO of 25 to 2500 and, with binning, 8MP to ISO 10000 or 2 MP to ISO 40000. It will be as thin as a film Leica, as quiet as any cloth shutter and still go to 1/16000s with a flash sync speed at 1/500s. Oh, and you will be able to read the exposure on a top side dial, and ISO will be set on its own dial around the shutter release with a lift and turn collar to change the binning.</p>

<p>Anyway, that's what my pixies tell me.</p>

<p>/M</p>

Yes, that is indeed the difference. I have used the 28/35, but now I only have the 35mm round metal viewfinder, it is one of the very best and brightest I have ever used. The main difference as I see it is that the round 35mm finder is fantastic and the minifinder is compact, two very different animals.

Yours,

Michael

To fit within $429 I can only see that the Cybersync is the one. 188 USD per pop for PW times five, will be too much and the Skyport will put you back about a hundred per unit or $500+ for four recievers and a transmitter. I have been using the cactus system and it will get you a set of four with one transmitter for under a hundred, you will miss one in ten pictures, at least because of missed sync, but it is cheap.

So, if the money is dead set at $429 and you want a quality system there is only the Cybersync, or maybe a used Skyport or PW system.

/M

I have shot a little tethered, and it was very easy to set up. I used the canon software to save the images directly to disk and then had Capture One pointed to that library. The pictures pop up in Capture One after a second or two, very easy, very elegant and very comfortable. I guess the same is possible in most raw converter, it's the "Auto import" setting in Light Room.

Good luck,

Michael

Well, best is a relative word. Elinchrome Ranger is fast and rather small, pro-photo has some really powerful ones and alien-bees are recieving lots of accolades. Personally I use vivitar 285HVs, theyr'e cheap and manual, and come with a PC-connection cable.

Yours,

Michael

That looks very much like sensor overheating looks on the old Canon 1D. There it was a problem already after more than five seconds, and it was one of its major problems. The best way to get rid of it is to use a dark field image and deduct the noise. You can probably turn on a noise reduction function in the camera, I haven't used much Nikon, but it is such a new camera. The alternative is to take another similar exposure with the lenscap on and stack the images in photoshop or similar software.

I do not think it is light leaking in through the view finder, that behaves more like flare with a general reduction in contrast.

Yours,

Michael<div></div>

f 36 is way into refractive unsharpness for the EFS 18-55. In effect your aperture is so small that it acts as a lens and you then get two slightly different lenses and the image gets unsharp. But at the same time you want all of the necklace in focus, so you have to use a small aperture to get the depth of field.

It is probably undoable with your current lens. As Dave says their image was probably shot with a tiltable lens, either a view camera or an SLR tilt-shift lens. Your best choice is probably to either shot from straight above to get all in focus or to willfully create more of a perspective with the back part of the necklace out of focus.

Yours,

Michael

Elyas,

I have thought about that myself. You can get some very cool perspectives using a very wide lens, like the 18mm wide end of your zoom, or even wider. The wide side is usually alright for whole body images, but if you want something without distortion, such as for a shopping page, longer is often better. The obvious choice would be combining the lens you have with a slightly longer zoom. For example the 50-150mm Sigma or 55-200mm Canon. Stopped down these relatively cheap lenses are very good, and for fashion photography with strobes this will be enough. Certainly on a small sensor camera.

If you think the range of your present lens is what you need, and you just want better glass, pick up the Canon EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 IS USM, it is supposedly one of the best zooms (certainly non-L) and has gotten fantastic reviews. I have never used it so don't trust me too far.

/M

Hello Elyas,

I will try to comment on some of your questions, but please keep in mind that I have rather recently started working on my flash photography so get some other opinions as well. Getting started, I think you have basically nice pictures, and appropriate for a shopping web page.

The lens is fine. I think a zoom lens is appropriate because it allows you to change the angle of view without moving, which would change your exposure when using strobes. Maybe you should consider 18mm is unusually wide for fashion, and 55mm is maybe too short for the more tightly framed pictures.

However, having chosen a white backdrop you could have pushed it to pure white. Check out a turorial on that here, http://www.zarias.com/?p=71. The harsh shadows you see on the models and in some pictures on the background is because of too big difference in intensity or distance of your two strobes, and because your model is rather close to the background.

With just two strobes it is hard to shoot pure white backgrounds, if you dedicate one to the background you only have one for the model, and then the shadows go dark. On the other hand when you don't use a strobe on the background you can balance the shadows on the model, but the background does not go all white.

To comment a little on your pictures, the exposure on the background varies quite alot between pictures. Either you have been moving your lights, and changeing the background light setting or you have been shooting with automatic exposure and been given different exposures by the camera. This can be avoided by shooting with manual exposure, and keeping your basic distance set up the same all the way. That is the distances between the background, the background light, the model, the main light and the camera. You change view by using your zoom.

In addition your background does not vary only in shades of grey, (I am guessing that it was a plain white backgorund) which means that you have varying white balance between pictures, set white balance manually and you will get more homogenous images.

I am certainly not the best place to learn fashion photography or flash photography. I don't know the best place for fashion, but I am fairly sure that David Hobby is the best (readily available) place for flash photography: http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/.

Hope this helps,

/M

This all sounds very strange to me. The hard drive does not care what kind of file you store on it or how you open it. If you normally import the pictures through the canon software, of other raw-converter, it may be that you have never told Windows which program to open such files with. In that case, Windows should give you the same answer when you try to open raw-files on the regular hard drive, and you can then choose to manually pick a program to open them with instead of using the web service. I hope this may help you to get it up and working.

/M

Hello Kevin, I have no experience with LTM cameras, so I will leave both 1 and 3 alone. As for two, since you are looking for cheat LTM lenses, might I suggest looking into Voigtl�er lenses many consider them to provide the most lens for the money compared with modern Leica and Zeiss. Indeed they often get better reviews than old Leica lenses. Check out cameraquest.com and check the classifieds here and at rangefinderforum.com.

/M

For your information,

After the first month of using the Epson Stylus Photo 1400 I did a quick calculation of the cost per page (in

Norway). According to the ink-monitor I have used about 4.15 out of 6 full ink cartridges and printed 33 full A4

pages (maybe one or two more, but not much).

The total is calculated for an average cost for paper (Epson premium glossy, semigloss and matte paper heavy

weight), since I haven't kept track of the paper number of prints per paper type. The total also reflects a mix

of black and white and colour printing.

At about 6 NOK or USD 1.2 per page paper and 145 NOK per cartridge original Epson ink. That comes to 18 NOK

ink/A4 and 24 NOK (USD 5) total per page A4 paper. Add to this the cost of the printer (2995 NOK) and that I will

use it for somewhere between 1000 and 10000 pages before buying a new one, that is about 0.30 NOK to 3 NOK per page.

Keep in mind that your milage may vary, and that Norway is one of the most expensive countries in the world.

I hope this may be of help to someone, I know I was looking for it before I bought the printer.

Yours,

M

As for the best, it is probably the Pocket Wizard. Gonna be the most expensive as well.

/M

Mark, I am not really a large format guy, though I might become (the wife willing and so on). Any way have a look at the Razzle (http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~razzle/index.html) custom built 4x5 from Australia I think. I met a guy (no shit), who swears by them, especially for their fast handling.

/M

Buy a mat cutting knife, a large piece of black cardboard, cut a hole in the middle the size of your picture and mount it on the back of the mat facing out. Reduce the cutting depth of your knife and cut the text into the mat, either showing the white core or filling in with a white pen. Ofcourse, the really fine artsy look would be an disproportionally wide, white, mat and no text. You can generally get your local frame shop to do it quite cheaply.

If you just want it digitally, for, say a webpage, you can just write the web page to show the image in a black field and add some white text in any of you basic webpage programs. If you want to do it the photoshop way and create an image with a permanent black frame for whatever use, you can equally well use any image editing program you have. It is not a very advanced function that you would need photoshop for.

/M

Matt: I am glad you can scratch your head at my opinion. It indicates that at least opinions are still free for the taking or indeed deprecating. You will notice that I have in no way said that people should be "thieves and robbers of innocent artists". I have, albeight obliquely, said that I think the law is wrong to make 95% of the population, including my grandma, thieves.

Yours,

Michael

Tony: In most photo editing programs of quality you can pick a colour to desaturate, or up-saturate, while leaving the other as they are.

/M

It is actually a NO No, as you say, if you use almost any music that you have not produced yourself. Even with CDs you already own you generally don't have permission to make copies and sell. It may still be ok to make copies for friends and give away, but that will probably go soon.

The proper way is to contact the record company and pay a huge amount of money for a limited licence. The alternative is to be a thief and robber of innocent artists, like the other 95% of the populaiton, including my grandma (that should give you a hint about my opinion).

Try searching the web for "stock music" or "royaly free music" and you may potentially find lots of usable material. Check out Creative Commons, though often you can't use that stuff for things you will sell.

/M

I have to agree with Victor. It may also be all in post-production, but I think you could get it all out of the right equipment and technique.

/M

I think Brett has the lighting down. If you look closely you can actually see that the left side of the nose in the picture is slightly darker, more in shadow, and that the lighting pattern is very close to a classic short loop in this picture (http://www.audreywoulardblog.com/images/content/hurly3.jpg). With the addition of lots of fill light to avoid any deep shadows. Corresponding to this you can see the reflection of the window to camera right.

Concerning the lens. The first thing I notice is that it produces very shallow depth of field. With in-door photography that will mean a very fast lens (out-door it may be a long tele). On a 35mm or small-sensor digital it would probably be a 50mm f/1.2 or 85mm f/1.2. These are ofcourse very expensive lenses, and you may get similar results with a 85mm f/1.8. It is also nicely sharp and has good contrast, but at least the latter can be fixed in post-processing when you are shooting digital. So can the highly saturated colours.

/M

Yes, the money problem, I see. Then you should look the other way in the lists. The 100-400 is one of the most expensive out there, but I agree that it is nice. I would suggest two things.

One, upgrade to digital. It will be crucial for two reasons, the first and most important is that it is cheaper. Much cheaper than shooting film and developing and printing and then scanning (per picture, but you want to take a lot of pictures). The second is that the learning curve is steeper when you can check your pictures the same second you take them. Then when you see them full size at home the same day, the exif file will tell you what settings you used. Find a used EOS 300D (canon digital rebel) in the foto.net classifieds or on ebay. The house for 350D is going for around 400$ so the 300D should be cheaper.

Two, get a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, it is dirt cheap and at the same time sharp and fast. You can buy it on amazon.com for 79$. You can also get used tamron and sigma prime (non-zoom) lenses quite cheaply and they will have better image quality than the wide-range zoom.

Plus, christmas is coming up, and graduation, both are brilliant times to write very specific wish-lists. =)

Yours,

Michael

PS. Three suggestions actually, sell the car, then you will have enough to buy an even better camera. =)