william_carter1

Keh has several reasonably priced Contax 645 lenses at the moment.

I use Vuescan with my 9000 and I also find that it does a poor job of picking up the framelines and that the "offset" procedure is needlessly opaque and confusing. For those instances where the scanner is having trouble picking up the framelines using Vuescan, I simply switch back to using NikonScan and it works more often than not.

Thank you. I emailed them and will report back here when I get an answer (hopefully in English).

Again, thanks. But it's not clear to me how I contact F&H, since (a) I don't speak German and

therefore can't read their website and (b) I'm not in a major market like NYC or LA and

therefore don't have a local Rollei dealer. And further thoughts?

 

Thanks!

Erik,

 

Thanks for your detailed response. Another question: you said that "Also, for people pre-

ordering it with a Jenoptik back there will be a step-up program: first they will receive

their back with a 6008AF body and by the time the Hy6 becomes available it will be

swapped out." I would love to wait for the Hy6, and will get one eventually, but have qite

a bit of upcoming work for which I'd need medium format digital. So, this step-up

program would be ideal. Do you have any idea of whom one would contact regarding this,

i.e., Jenoptik or Rollei? In other words, I want to buy the eMotion w. the 6008AF body and

step-up to the Hy6 when it's available, but I want to make sure I'm doing it thru the

correct channel and process.

Erik,

 

Can the camera comfortably be held vertically (e.g., for shooting portraits)? I realize the

backs will rotate, but my understanding is that it's not a "push a button then turnt he

back" operation, but rather a "remove, rotate, reattach" operation. I find that when

shooting portraits, I turn the camera quite frequently, and removing the back and putting

back on wouldn't be very practical.

 

Also, does anyone have any insights on the eMotion versus the Leaf Aptus (new versions)?

Both the eMotion 75 and the Aptus 75 cost roughly the same. (Unfortunately, there's no

eMotion equivalent of the reduced-frame and much cheaper Aptus 65). Both have very

large buffers for continuous shooting and both use Dalsa chips. I believe the ISO on the

new Leaf backs (Aptus S series) is up to 800, while the eMotion is up to 400. Also, I think

that the Aptus can shoot in DNG RAW format, while the eMotion uses a proprietary RAW

format that can only be read by Sinar software, correct? (I'd much prefer to have a RAW

file that can be read by Lightroom/Camera Raw, which is why I'm asking. Of course, it's

possible that even if the eMotion uses a proprietary RAW format rather than DNG, the

eMotion RAW file could be readable by Lightroom/Camera Raw, which would work equally

well for me).

 

Any other thoughts on the eMotion v. the Aptus?

I have tried it and like it somewhat (and I am a former darkroom printer). However, for reasons that I don't have time to get into now, I prefer Innova's new F-Type Gloss paper, which is similar to Museo Rag, but better. (Try Jim Doyle at shadesofpaper.com for either of these papers). There's a ton of info about both papers on the Yahoo "Digital Black and White: The Print" group.

Oh, and Albert, I also have a DMR and love it. It's far from perfect, but is

unique in many ways. Enjoy!

Peter A said:

 

"Storage capacity is indeed important. However, people do make a big deal of

this. In my case, I haev levels of storage fr digi shooting. First level is cf card

full transfer to computer.

 

Second level is, delete stuff not worth taking to raw procesing mode ( exit 95%

o shots)

 

next level is raw processing. Atthis point I ususally save original file nd RAW

processed file.

 

next leel is revisit these files a while later -exit 95% of shots. "

 

You know, I totally understand this philosophy and it would save a massive

amount of storage space. My concern with keeping only the "best" shots is

that later, upon reflection, you may find work that you really like now, but didn't

think were "keepers" at the time.

 

This recently happened to me. I needed to make a big print of an image that I

shot several years ago at a client's request and therefore wanted to go back

to the original RAW file and re-work it. In the process of browsing through all

the shots, I found about 10 "non-keepers" that I've now decided are

"keepers." Granted, I do delete shots that are clearly useless (way out of

focus or underexposed, etc). But I keep everything else.

 

This, of course, would not be practical for people shooting high volume

(weddings, etc.).

I have them both (for now -- one will eventually be sold). I'm really enjoying

the DMR, but I just can't see giving up the low-light performance of the Canon

series. I find the "out of the box" DMR color more pleasing , but I guess that

can be corrected in Photoshop (depending on how good you are and how

much effort you're willing to put into it). DMR images are also significantly

sharper out of the camera, presumably b/c of the lack of an AA filter. I have

not found the difference in resolution to be discernable in print sizes up to

16x20. I'm still not liking the DMR's crop factor, though. I am, however, loving

the Leica lenses (obviously).

 

In short, there is no way to quanitify which is objectively 'better" -- each has

compromises. It's a question of whoch compromises you can handle. I'm still

deciding. I do think, however, if the question is "which is the most versatile

camera" (which is probably the key question if you make your living from

photography), the answer is clearly the Canon.

Thanks for the leads. Ritz does't have any, and Dale sold theirs on Friday.

Any other suggestions?

Does anyone know of any U.S. dealers that actually have the DMR in stock or

expect to any time soon? I've checked all the usual suspects (B&H, Adorama,

etc) and none of them have it. I realize that the DMRs are in very short supply,

but if anyone knows of a particular dealer that has one, I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks.

Yeah, I saw this too. So where does one buy these Rollei specials from if not

from dealers like Ctrades and B&H? Is Rollei now selling direct to

consumers?

I don't know the new technique you're referring to, but did you mean to say

"bicubic smoother", not bicubic sharper? AFAIK, smoother is for going up in

size and sharper is for going down in size.

 

But maybe you really are thinking of a new technique I'm not aware of that

benefits from using bicubic sharper to go up in size?

 

"Apperantely yes, David. It's the new techiniqe in Kelby's CS2 book. Enter

your desired up-size in inches and enter 360 dpi. With the bi-cubic choices

enter bi-cubic sharper.

 

I've yet to try this becasue the Frontier I've been printing off of lately wont

accept a 360 dpi image."

You can have all these things, plus AF (or focus confirmation w. manual focus lenses), in the Rollei 6008AF. Granted, the AF lens lineup is pretty limited at the moment.

 

"IMHO, I felt Hasselblad ignored its 3 great legacies - 1. 6x6 which it always promoted as "the" MF format (6x7 of little benefit and would require clunker bodies and lenses; 6x4.5 not providing enough opportunity for cropping); 2. superlative body construction; 3. Zeiss optics with their superb colour rendition.

 

To existing Hasselblad users the take-up of H1 was made harder by the: initial shock of using plastics (to cover an otherwise superbly constructed body); the initial inability to use manual focus V series lenses (now addressed by the adapter, but that should have been available on day 1); concern about Fujinon lens characteristics not matching the Carl Zeiss characteristics (many users like a commonality among lense characteristics in their kits and even among formats); need to adjust to 6x4.5 format."

When my daughter was born last Sept., I brought an M7 w. a 35mm 'lux (and 2

rolls of tri-X) and a Canon 20D with one midrange zoom lens.

I don't know, but you can turn off the paper size check using the front LCD

panel, which is what I've done.

Update: Matt's method (clicking the button in the thumbnail drawer so that you

get actual thumbnails rather than numbered framed) worked. Almost. It gave

me a much more accurate scan of the first frame, but the subsequent frames

were still a bit off (though not by as much). I also had to use the "film strip

offset" slider under Scanner Extras. I randomly slid it up to 15 and re-

previewed. Doing both of these things finally got me accurate scans.

 

Addendum: to be clearer, just clicking the thumbnail drawer button worked

with most of the film I was using to test this. The negs that were giving us this

problem originally were shot with a TLR. We noticed upon closer inspection

that the space between frames on this film was inconsistent -- there was

slightly more or less space between each subsequent frame than between

the preceding frame. With film shot with my medium format SLRs, the frame

spacing was more consistent and just clicking the thumbnail drawer button,

without messing with the Film Strip Offset slider, got me accurate scans.

 

Thanks for all your help.

Matt, I will try your method this weekend as well and report back.

David: I'll try your suggestion this weekend and see if it works. Thanks.

I haven't yet tried deleting and reinstalling the software, but it's worth a shot.

 

(Also, I should have mentioned that this problem happens regardless of

whether the negs are properly exposed or not)

We recently got a Nikon 9000 in our studio. We've found that when

scanning 6x6 film, the scanner does not get the entire image. I'm not

just talking about missing the outer borders of the film -- it's like

it's not seeing the frame lines at all and therefore randomly

scanning only part of each frame. So, for example, if I insert a 3

frame strip of 6x6 film, the preview will show the first half of the

first frame, then the next preview will show the second half of the

first frame and the first half of the second frame; then the last

preview will show the first half of the last frame. This problem

persists regardless of whether the film is negative, slide or B&W.

And we are telling the scanner software the proper size (we

set "6x6cm" in the Nikon Scan software). We've tried cutting the

strips into 2 frames rather than 3 -- same problem. And we've tried

inserting a single frame of 6x6 -- again, same problem. The only

workaround we've found is to (a) insert a 2 frame strip into the

center of the medium format film holder, rather than at the top end

of the film holder as the manual instructs and (b) tell the scanner

that it's 6x9, rather than 6x6. This results in the scanner getting

all of one frame and half of the second frame. We then have to crop

to select the first frame; scan that frame; then move the film and do

it all over again for the second frame. BTW, this problem does not

happen with 35mm film. This leads me to believe that perhaps the

scanner is having trouble seeing the frame lines of the medium format

film itself when loaded in the medium format holder, which doesn't

have the same plastic dividers in the holder itself that the 35mm

holder does.

 

Has anyone else had or heard of a similar problem with the 9000 not

accurately picking up the frame lines as described above? Am I

missing something simple in terms of how to load the film or perhaps

some software setting? Or do I have a defective scanner?

 

Thanks for your help.

I didn't hear his talk but I was at this show. Seeing his work in his books is

inspiring -- seeing it in person is amazing.

I have both. The screen on the G5 iMac is better than on the previous iMacs

but obviously nowhere near as good as the Cinema Display I have connected

to my G5 tower (Dual 2.0, 4 megs of RAM). Nonetheless, I'd say my 17 inch

iMac G5 is adequate for most photoshop work, but not ideal -- e.g., I regularly

print 17 inches wide and up and the G5 tower deals with these files much

better than the iMac. (The tower also has much more RAM than the iMac).

Thanks for the info. I asked b/c I need a longer lens and am considering the

90mm APO, the 75mm 'lux and the Zeiss 85mm (whenever it's released). Just

trying to get a feel for what the Leica increase is likely to be.