markci

<p>"I have been around in Paris for years and have never made the effort of reaching the top of the Eiffel tower - too many tourist and to high to see much of interest."<br>

I'm glad we have experts who have never been up there to tell us what's to be seen.<br>

In reality, the view is incredible, and it's not that big a problem to get up there.</p>

<p>An HDR image may or may not go beyond the human eye's ability to capture the range of the scene (most probably do not). But in either case, that's not why they often look unnatural. They look unnatural because they COMPRESS the range of the scene into the range of the reproduction medium, which is far less. You are reacting to the fact that the shadows and highlights are far closer together tonally than they would be in the original scene. Conventional photography does this as well, but to a much lesser extent.</p>

<p>I bought one new, about 20 years ago, and used it for many years. It's a very nice camera, but I'd classify the AF as being mainly useful in situations where you don't really need AF anyway.</p>

<p>.</p>

<p>People see what they want to see or expect to see. It's telling that the first sighting of the Windermere monster seems to have been in 2006, yet there have now been eight of them. This lake is in England, no, not some remote Amazonian jungle?<br /> Nobody had seen a flying saucer or a bald alien with large eyes until the 1950's either.</p>

<p><em>"The only reason prices are going up is because market demand will support the higher prices. Production cost and currency rates only set a floor on prices; not a cap."</em><br>

Factually incorrect. Production costs and exchange rates have a great deal of effect on the profit-maximizing price. Take an econ course some time.</p>

<p>Re: the 35mm, a 1.8 would be a third of a stop faster than the 2.0 they already have. Is that somehow crucial? I guess it would be nice if they gave it USM, but it's a nice lens anyway.</p>

<p>Canon didn't sell $34 billion of cameras in a quarter, nor even in a year. Not even close. That figure is Canon's annual sales for all products.<br>

I don't know where they got the Nikon figure either. Their total sales were about $7 billion in 2007. Canon does sell more cameras but it's mostly a matter of Canon being a more diversified company.</p>

<p>@Shawn - you don't need quarks (which are unlikely ever to be photographed anyway) to show quantum effects, even to a layman. Double-slit experiments have been done with objects as large as buckyballs (60 carbon atoms). Hydrogen atoms are as good a quantum object as any, really, so your hypothetical experiment has just been done. You won't ever see any weird behavior in a photograph, because a photograph is just the sort of measurement that collapses the particle's wave function. <br>

I don't understand the fascination on the part of laymen with "photographs" being some sort of definitive proof anyway. They're just one way of representing certain data. Things certainly exist that can't be photographed, and not everything in a photograph exists.</p>

<p>It's true of art in general.</p>

<p>Replacing the album at cost was what I was going to suggest, so yes it seems fair.</p>

<p>The other "cult" cameras you mentioned have a following for legitimate reasons. The rationale you mentioned might some day make the D700 the answer to a trivia question, but that's about it.</p>

<p>Probably not much of an advantage, except as compared to the very inexpensive variable-aperture zooms, which are crap.</p>

<p>The point isn't that it was McCurry's last roll. It's probably NOT McCurry's last roll. The point is that it was the last roll manufactured. Is it really that complicated?</p>

<p>I paid around $1300-$1400 for a new one from B&H about twelve years ago.</p>

<p>Unless you have some fairly exacting technical requirements, photography can be done pretty cheaply these days. The old film gear is being given away, and if you go digital you don't have to buy film and processing. I would guess that you're probably the victim of marketing. You can do a lot with a Holga and Tri-X if you want to, or any number of inexpensive digitals. If money is keeping you from your hobby, you are doing it wrong.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org/home.do">http://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org/home.do</a></p>

<p>Oops, my original answer neglected the fact that these were senior portraits! Sorry about that.<br /> The botanical gardens adjacent to Piedmont Park would be my first choice. It does cost something to get in. I used to go there with a macro and telephoto with closeup accessories to do shots of bugs and flowers, but there is really nice landscaping for portraiture. </p>

<p><em>"The Leica M9 probably fills the bill, if you are not wed to reflex viewing and if an 18 megapixel full frame camera is all you need</em>"...and have more money than common sense, he did not add.</p>

<p>Only giant investment banks get to keep their gains and pass their losses on to the rest of us. Sorry. Maybe one day you'll be "too big to fail," but until then I'm afraid running a business does involve risk.</p>

<p>The guy was a jerk, but the prosecution is ludicrous. The courts should take a very dim view of any assertion that recording police interaction with the public is forbidden in any way. And no, telling someone to turn off their camera is not a "legal order." Telling you where you can stand to use the camera is, but there is no legitimate reason whatsoever to tell you to turn it off. On the contrary, in addition to dashboard-mounted cameras being standard, some departments are starting to put tiny cameras on officers' uniforms.</p>

<p>I guess I need to send the ACLU another grand or so. It's been a while.</p>

<p>The lens doesn't become 320mm. It's just cropped down to 320mm equivalent view.<br>

But to take the same photo from the same position with a crop body, you will need to zoom out, shortening the focal length and reducing background blur.</p>

<p>You can expense capital equipment in a single year, no problem. The limit is over 100 grand. I've expensed basically every computer and business-related piece of software I've ever bought. On the other hand, if for some reason you're not anticipating a profit this year anyway, you'll want to depreciate it.</p>

<p>With your attitude, I'm sure you make a name for yourself wherever you go, by the way.</p>

<p>Adios.</p>