bmichel

<p>Pentax has a nice banner ad for the K-5 in the DealBook section. Looks like Ricoh is going to be more aggressive in its marketing. Their price is still $1200 as is B&H.</p><div></div>

<p>Some good news: I got my Tamron lens back in 23 days, door to door. Exceeded my expecgtations.</p>

<p>To check it out I did some experiments with focus points. When I chose a specific point in the camera, that point did show up red in Aperture. But, I noticed that when I tried manual focus, the center red point in the view finder flashed. And Aperture reported an autofocus point. Go figure.</p>

<p>Botom line, I will have to judge my photos on their own merits and not read too much into the Aperture display. And retest my lenses.</p>

<p>My point is that a lot of the photos I have in Aperture only show white rectangles. Thus, making me wonder if my camera really is not quite in focus, despite letting me take the shot. The exact mechanism used internally to transfer that data from camera to Aperture is unknown. It is just that when I do see a red rectangle, the focus is good (excepting the lens issue). In most cases DOF appears to cover any front/back focus issues. </p>

<p>My understanding of front/back focus issues is that the AF thinks it is in focus, but the resulting shot is off a bit. If the AF has a focus point, then it presumably would display as red. So that differentiates this concern -- maybe -- from a front/back focus issue. </p>

<p>The Tamron lens showed the worst left-side fuzziness at f2.8 @28mm. I took a bunch of photos of a tape measure at various f-stops and zooms . They were sufficient for the US service group to send the lens to Japan. </p>

<p>Michael: thanks for the link. I haven't been brave enough to modify my K10 firmware to accomodate front/back corrections. I did tests a few years ago using 45-degree tilted image and my lenses were OK. </p>

<p>I'll see if the Apple Aperture discussion group has any insights.</p>

<p>Aperture 3 can display the autofocus points as white rectangles and shows the ones used in red. However, a majority of my photos do not show a red focus point, but are not necessarily out of focus. I usually just use the central point. </p>

<p>Does this mean that I normally am not really getting a good focus, although the viewfinder hexagon says otherwise? Or is this some shortcoming in Aperture?</p>

<p>My biggest issue is not-quite-perfect focus. Obviously operator error is a major factor, but I am wondering how much is the camera. I am pondering an upgrade to the K-5 for that reason.</p>

<p>Here is an example of the display. Here I used the auto option. Note that the left side is fuzzy although the red rectangle is there. This is an issue with my Tamron 28-75, which has been accepted for warranty repair (in Japan). </p><div></div>

<p>I am attending the Dayton-area GearFest ("Get out and live"). One of the sponsors is Backpacker Magazine. I noted that Pentax was as prominent of an advertiser as many other reputable outdoor products on his vehicle. The rep I talked to indicated that this was an ongoing relationship and he liked his K-5. </p><div></div>

<p>On a better late then never note: as usual, many fine photos. The high notes to me are:</p>

<p >Jemal: The first one makes me want to know more about her. Glad you liked that unusual car.</p>

<p >Howard: the water lily is striking. The Lotus is an attractive car, glad you liked it.</p>

<p >Dave H: Clara is lovely, she appears relaxed and enjoying the attention.</p>

<p >Yury: I also like this flower in a sea of black.</p>

<p >Markus: the male's head reminded me of the early depictions of the devil as a goat. The young ones are pretending not to look.</p>

<p >Michael E: I like both; another great photo this week with a black background.</p>

<p >John B: We called them 'bubblers' in Milwaukee, did not know this term had spread. Nice.</p>

<p >Frank B: what an interesting critter.</p>

 

<p>Not my father's 1948 DeSoto. Loaded with a Viper V-10 and a wild interior.</p><div></div>

<p>A 1939 Sharknose Graham, the motif (sort of Art Deco?) did not catch on.</p><div></div>

<p>Went to a Concours in Dayton Sunday.<br>

A Lotus Elise with a bit of menace in the smiley car motif.</p>

<div></div>

<p>Solved this by looking at the plist. The token name is "IF ImagePropertyDate". Of course, we all knew that. <br>

I trashed the old plist and reinstalled the plug-in. BorderFX works OK now.<br>

A remaining mystery is what are the token names for the supported (?) EXIF entries.</p>

<p>I am using the latest BorderFX 1.5.3 with Aperture 3.1.3. I can't get the date to display in the exported photo . I can get caption, keywords and some other IPTC fields to display. I know this worked with earlier versions. The keyword "Date" is not in the default drop-down list for IPTC fields.<br>

Any guidance would be most appreciated.</p>

 

<p>The wake of the ship interacting with the waves. Got too busy trying to consider the right shutter speed that I did not reset ISO, so a very small aperture.</p><div></div>

<p>Southern Alaskan / BC coast. I'm generally wary of ISO 800 with this camera, but needed and no apparent noise.</p><div></div>

<p>Some from our Alaskan cruise. Mostly really great weather despite the following two.<br>

Tracy Arm, Alaska</p><div></div>

<p>Immediately brought to mind the Beatle's song "Taxman"

"one for you and nineteen for me"<br>

As always, striking and imaginative photos.</p>

 

<p>A few quick thoughts:</p>

<p >Bob Marz: I like Vermillion Lake. I am impressed that you were willing to carry the great but weighty K10 and 18-250, plus other lenses, for such a long hike. I ponder whether to carry mine just for a day hike. Perhaps you can share with us how you carry your gear.</p>

<p >Markus: interesting, as always. I liked the artsy stone, the B+W treatment makes it stand out.</p>

<p >Hank: I liked 2 and 4. Nice to see a different part of the world -- and is not sweltering.</p>

<p >Dave Hollander: Does the sign in the Shanghai shot say "fixer-upper for sale"? It is interesting. The Chinese government, I understand, is arbitrarily destroying the old sections in their quest for modernization. Great composition for the Great Falls. Nice both as scenery and as an abstract.</p>

<p >Doug: Yes, not bad. 850mm is quite a reach ( x 1.5), you are in spy satellite territory. </p>

 

<p>Would a "lemon law" apply locally that would allow you to get a new camera because of the amount of time or number of times in service? From what I have seen so far for K5 issues, when I get my K5 I will need to keep my K10 as backup.</p>

<p>Remains of a dragon.</p><div></div>

<p>Rialto Beach has miles of washed-up, bleached logs. We let our imagination run rampant on a few of the forms.</p>

<p>An angry sea monster.</p><div></div>

<p>A few from a recent trip to Washington state. <br>

An Avalanche Lily. A bit overexposed due to the very strong backlight.</p><div></div>

<p>Really nice images, Michael. Congratulations on your anniversary.</p>

<p>We spent a few days in the Seattle area before an Alaskan cruise. We went to Mount Rainier on August 13, which was an incredibly clear and warm day. The Paradise area was extremely crowded. I thought this shot of picnic tables still buried in snow contrasted well with that beautiful day. </p><div></div>

<p>I assume the lens data is not showing in list view. For Aperture 2, sometimes I had to do Metadata>Update from Master to get the data to show. However, that may not be true for Aperture 3. You could try that, otherwise it makes sense to verify in a separate EXIF viewer.</p>

<p>I am in the middle of a similar project. I have a mix of rather old slides and 35mm film shot with various consumer-grade cameras. I thought about trying a similar device but thought I would get better results with my V500. Plus what do for the film? I posted several questions on and found other interesting tips on the Digital Darkroom forum. Since lots of the slides are not keepers, I borrowed a slide projector and culled out those not worth scanning rather quickly. I decided that the original quality of the slides did not justify more than 8-bit color at 2400 ppi. So far, I have had satisfactory results with the Epson software as import to Elements 6. All I do with Elements is cropping, rotation and mirroring (still get the sides wrong). The TIF files then go into Aperture. Definitely a slow process. The next step will be trying to do a decent job of adding keywords and captions. I am numbering each slide so I could easily go back and rescan at higher quality if warranted for the exceptional photos.</p>

 

<p>I have a disorganized bunch of family photos negatives. Some of them I want to scan and archive. The bulk of them probably not. The issue is quickly identifying the keepers and then keeping a record of them.</p>

<p>I am using an Epson V500. Mounting the strips in the holders and then scanning takes too long considering the retention rate. I need to simply have a modest-quality positive photo that I can use to identify those worthy of scanning. </p>

<p>My plan is to load the negatives into clear plastic sleeves and then simply scan that at modest resolution as a document on the flatbed. I can buy holders that have seven sleeves, each holding five photos. The rub is, of course, that the resulting color makes it hard to view the contents. </p>

<p>Is there a simple way to convert the images into some semblance of the original color? I am using Elements 6, but am open to getting other software. I did experiment with going grayscale and that appears to be a reasonable alternative. That is simple as I can scan as 8-bit grayscale, then invert and equalize. </p>

<p>I will keep previewing until every sleeve row contains at least one keeper. I can then mark on the sleeve the ID, once scanned. I can also retain the rather small TIFF file from the indexing scan. </p>

<p>Does this make sense? Better ideas are most welcome.</p>

<p>I have a mix of prints, 35mm color film and 35mm slides. These are generally of not high quality to begin with. I hope to be able to get satisfactory results using the Epson. I have experimented with the Epson holders and the Epson 'Professional' settings. I expect to scan to TIFF files and then import into Aperture. I am reasonably competent with Aperture, so I don't need to have the scanner or its software do too much regarding the images. Dust / scratch removal during scanning would be most useful. </p>

<p>A few questions:</p>

<ul>

<li>My reading of other posts indicates that I should not go over 2400dpi for this scanner. Is that even more than needed? </li>

<li>Would 24-bit TIFF be adequate? </li>

<li>Would Vuescan be advantageous? Silverfast is too expensive considering my objective and equipment.</li>

<li>Any advice about using the Epson software? I am running OS X 10.6.7 on an iMac 24.</li>

<li>How and when should sharpening be done?</li>

</ul>

<p>I will need to experiment but would appreciate feedback on some reasonable starting points.</p>

<p> </p>