george_c.

<p>'Sunday morning, praise the dawning<br />Its just a restless feeling by my side<br />Early dawning, sunday morning'<br>

Back to shooting some film, this is HP5 @ 800 in DD-X, MX body with M42 Auto Yashinon 50mm f1.4. This is where I belong.</p><div></div>

<p>I'll second the comments already made, it's a lovely lens, I only stopped using it because I had to stop down meter on my Pentax MX and the exposures were well off. Beautiful bokeh though and it handles flare wonderfully. Outperforms my SMC M1.7. I might give it another go though...</p><div></div>

<p>I do with my DSLR, I find the logos garish, I also turn the strap inside out otherwise I feel like a billboard advertisement. I also black tape the screen because I don't like looking at images, I hated the impulse to view what I just shot, and as I've recently moved from shooting exclusively film, I prefer not to miss a shot because I'm staring at a tiny screen. It's not a problem when shooting raw, everything else is accessible through dials and the top LCD. It's also more pleasurable when I take my time later to view my images objectively. With my old manual SLR I don't bother, it's a smaller body, the logo is more discreet and I use it with a hand strap anyway so it's only visible when it's at brought up to my eye.<br>

Regards, George</p>

<p>1.</p><div></div>

<p>My (Chinese) split image focus screen arrived yesterday and I fitted it to my *ist D without incident. Admittedly I use a faster f2.8 SMC M 28mm lens but manual focusing is now so much easier, I'd highly recommend getting one. The meter now overexposes by 1/3rd of a stop but this was easily overcome with Exposure Compensation (stop down metering on a digital body requires you to think anyway, so I don't think 1/3rd makes a whole lot of difference, just use your head, and the LCD should you need to). Hope that helps, Regards, George</p>

<p>Sorry, the text posted before I finished: it was shot on an *ist D with SMC M 28mm 2.8 (later cropped for a 50mm equiv FOV). Justin, I love your first one, and Markus, well seen with the stairs. Regards to all, George</p>

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<p>Maybe 150 shots in, I've finally taken an image I'm reasonably content with and that I think I'll get around to printing. (That's four rolls of film, which I know would throw up many more keepers, so this is a steep learning curve for me). I've not been using auto bracket or FPS, I've stuck with single shots where I'm comfortable, and this image is horrendously underexposed by film standards but that's where I've found skin tones sit most comfortably in the mid range where I want them. I have to say I'd be happier still if I had this photo indelibly burned into emulsion and stored in my negative file, but this is the shot that let me know there might be something in this digital malarky... for the sake of practice at least! Any advice for printing would be greatly appreciated, I've never held a digital B&W print and I want that wet print look... (I've added grain which I'm happy with and which looks comparable on screen to real grain from a scan).</p>

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<p>Markus, they are stunning, and Ronny I like that image a lot. Well I've shot the *ist D with my M 28mm for a couple of hours all in now. I'm losing highlights so I'm gonna have to work out how to be more conservative with exposures but here's one I'm reasonably happy with. Got a Velvia feel to it, and, well, I did go digital in order to get some colour in my life! </p><div></div>

<p>Thanks to everyone: Ryan, I've now got the firmware sussed and I'm shooting with my M 28mm, much more at home with fixed focal length, centre weighted metering, aperture ring and manual focus! Justin, don't worry, my black and whites will remain 35mm, this will be an experiment in colour primarily, we'll see about auto everything later! The batteries indicated no life because they were outside apparently (it was cold), they've come back now indoors, not too keen on that (they're NIMH though). The manual recommends CR-V3 (and they shipped these with the cameras when they were brand new) though so I'm not sure where the confusion has come from surrounding their unsuitability...<br>

I look forward to posting some photos when I have some I'm content to share with you, gotta get my head around some post processing workflows now, wish me luck. Regards to all, George</p>

<p>Well, as some of you may know, I'm a film man and I've spent a long time deliberating over digital, but I finally bit the bullet and bought a DSLR, an untouched *ist D for next to nothing, and separately, an SMC 18-55 also on the (very) cheap to see what all the fuss was about. My initial reactions:<br>

The bulk! And yes, I am aware that this thing is tiny in comparison to many, I'm just used to my MX and M 50mm.<br>

The batteries don't last long! (The MX's will last years, but that's an unfair comparison, it being mechanical and all)<br>

The viewfinder is disappointing, but again I'm led to believe that this is almost as good as DSLRs get<br>

The lens is too slow (max f4 @ 33mm, e.g 50mm equivalent), but this is my first zoom, I'm a prime man<br>

For all the metering algorithms, exposures are hit and miss (but I'm used to B&W film so my shooting style needs to adapt I reckon)<br>

I'm currently waiting for a cable I've ordered so I can upload new firmware and get my M 28mm metering on the body and start shooting prime (42mm equivalent), think I'll feel more at home. The positives:<br>

The interface is good, glad I got the D with the twin scroll wheels.<br>

I'm loving and hating the instant review, it's compulsive but frustrating, I might tape it over if I'm shooting for the day so I'm not hunched over the screen when I could be taking a shot (auto bracketing with RAW should cover most exposure scenes comfortably no?)<br>

Love having all the exposure information in the viewfinder.<br>

Love the focus confirmation in the viewfinder, almost makes up for the size and magnification. <br>

Quite enjoy being able to make a cup of tea when I'm downloading the images (no rubber gloves and open windows here!)<br>

I like having a 'winder' built in, and the FPS are more than I'll ever need for my style of shooting, ditto the automatic bracketing though I can see myself using this quite a lot depending on how accurate the metering is with old M series lenses. <br>

I've not taken any keepers yet but the light has been awful here in London and I haven't been out in the daytime. My workflow is obviously going to have to adapt hugely but I'll happily post some up when I'm happy. Who knows, I might even post some colour!<br>

Want to buy a 35mm lens now so I'm near the magic 50mm equivalent, just can't justify any of the auto focus prices, anyone got an M 35mm 2.8 they want to sell??<br>

Thanks to all of you who helped answer some of my questions over the past year, and I'm glad I stayed Pentax (not that I would have strayed!)<br>

Regards, George<br>

 

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<p>Thanks for the response everyone. What I did was look at the original image size (3008 x 2008) and work out what 84% of those dimensions would be (2527 x 1687), as 28mm is 84% of 33.33mm which is the true focal length I want on my 1.5 x crop sensor in order to achieve the look of a 50mm on a FF camera. It's a handy workaround until I buy a 35mm lens. Whether or not I use it or just shoot 43mm equivalent and be done remains to be seen, I just have an affinity with the 50mm on film that I'd like to continue with digital. George</p>

<p>I'm relatively new to digital photography and to CS3, my question is this: is there a simple way to create an action that will crop the images from my Pentax *ist D and 28mm prime (equivalent to 42mm in 35mm) so that they appear as an image from a 50mm full frame prime? I realise that the crop tool has default settings for 5 x 7 etc but I'm unsure of what the sensor format is in these terms, and how much to crop by in order to get an image which appears as it would with a 50mm FOV (33.3mm on the cropped sensor). I hope I have made some sense. Thanks in advance, Kind Regards, George </p>

Even with Delta @ 1600 it's DR isn't all bad. Get the Epson V750, I reckon that could handle digital printing, although to my mind, if you've got

the negative, print it wet...<div></div>

Even with Delta @ 1600 it's DR isn't all bad<div></div>

I'm with Bonifaz on this one, I scan my home developed Ilford negs on the cheapest Epson flatbed (V200) for web and email and if I want to

print I get into the darkroom. Even this scanner does an okay job as far as I'm concerned:<div></div>

sorry, the second version is correct...

A second, of my Mother and my sister last Easter<div></div>

Number 2, Mother and Sister<div></div>

A couple of film shots:<div></div>

MX, M 50mm f1.7, Delta 3200<div></div>

Windowlight<div></div>

Javier and Jeff, thank you for your kind words, the first and third were taken this summer (if it wasn't for that phone the guy is

tossing in the first I might be able to claim another decade), the middle one was taken in 2005<div></div>

another from the first series Javier, backlit into the sun<div></div>

the first was with an SMC M 50mm 1.7 and FP4 souped in LC29, this is HP5 in DD-X, M 28mm and a cheap Haminex flash:<div></div>

they don't make this upload thing easy do they?<div></div>