don_v.

<p>I think you should go digital, putting your money into a Sony 900 or Canon 5D2, a couple of good lenses, and a big inkjet printer. You won't lose much on your Mamiya gear when you sell it and you won't have the hassles of scanning. I don't know if you described your subject matter, but you did allude to stitching and that can work for some subjects when you want huge prints....</p>

<p>BUT -- if that last paragraph just feels wrong to you, for whatever reason (affection for film/Mamiya/grain/workflow/whatever), then you should try for a few months continuing with the Mamiya and jobbing out your scans. I say this because you probably won't be happy with large prints from a scan done on a flatbed and any decent MF film scanner is going to be very expensive. You don't have to go to drum scans; digmypics.com scans 6x7 negs at 4000 dpi for $8 (there are cheaper services that come at the expense of American jobs, sending your film to India for scanning). That size scan produces a 30x36 print at 300dpi.</p>

<p>After awhile, you'll have enough information to go on. You can figure out how many keepers you get per year that are worth drum scans, you can decide whether you should invest in your own 4000dpi film scanner, and you can judge whether it's even worth sticking with film at all. You won't have "lost" anything, as you'll always have very sharp Mamiya film shots in your archive.</p>

<p>Bottom line: I'm thinking you're not an ideal candidate for large-format at this point (judging from your description of your Mamiya experience and ambivalence about scanning) and I would think long and hard before investing in a really high-end scanner with a steep learning curve and lots of time demands. Since MF digital is out of the question, there are only so many choices left for someone who wants big prints, and those choices are relatively easy to sort out (there are many, many full-frame digital-SLR samples available on the web that you can download for free and print out at 30x45 to see whether the quality meets your needs).</p>

<p>Re: your metering hassles, it's a simple matter to calibrate your Mamiya to any digital SLR (preferably a recent one, as the LCD is larger). Just shoot a roll or two at 1/3-stop increments, noting what the SLR (with comparable lens) says is correct metering, what is 1/3 under, what is 2/3 over, etc. Whichever frames of the film look right to you will give your answer, whether it's 1/3-stop under the "correct" assessment by the SLR meter or whatever. Then just take the SLR with you and compensate accordingly when setting the Mamiya aperture and shutter speed.</p>

<p>At <a href="http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/">fredmiranda.com</a> if you read through enough user reviews of the Canon 1.4 (356 user reviews) and the Sigma 1.4 (90 user reviews), a pretty clear pattern emerges.</p>

<p>Both lenses scored an 8.9 (out of 10) cumulative rating. It seems that perhaps 10-20% of the Canon 1.4 users at FM have had focus-motor-reliability issues (as I have). Similarly, perhaps 10-20% of the Sigma 1.4 users at FM have had focus-accuracy issues (I haven't tried the Sigma yet, but I doubt [per a comment above] that "many" of the Sigma problem reports are "user error" when we're talking about a relatively expensive prime lens unlikely to be purchased by beginners).</p>

<p>Consensus is that you should buy whichever lens you settle on from a place that will let you return it without penalty if there are problems.</p>

<p>I'm with Dave Carroll's setup, 100 percent. Whether I carry the monorail camera (inverted, using the rail as a handle) in one hand and the tripod in the other, or with the camera mounted on a tripod over my shoulder the way Dave does, a monorail is for me much quicker to get ready to shoot than a folded field camera is. There's only a minimal weight penalty if one uses a lightweight camera like the F2.</p>

<p>Best of all, with a bag bellows mounted on a monorail camera you have almost limitless movements with lenses from superwide through normal <em>without forcing the bellows or deflecting the front and rear standards</em>. That is often not the case when using full-rise at infinity -- a common choice for my streetscapes -- with wide-angle lenses on a folding field camera with a pleated bellows.</p>

<p>But only you can know how much you'd use extreme movements, how much you're willing to spend, how wide-angle you're likely to go, how often you'd be walking with the camera ready to shoot vs. driving with it, etc.</p>

<p>It's hard to say who has discontinued and deemphasized-to-extinction more films and format-availabilities in recent years, Kodak or Fuji. Maybe I notice Fuji doing it more because I used to use more Fuji films, in more formats, than Kodak films.</p>

<p>But the fact that both of the two remaining film giants are d&d'ing at about the same pace suggests to me at least that neither company is consistently more unreasonable than the other.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I ain't paying $2300US for one of these, and yes I prefer new.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Calumet has the IID new for $2200, I think; adorama and B&H both sell it for $2300. I doubt you'll do any better pricewise than those places if you're buying in the US.</p>

<p>Beyond that, I'd echo everything that Dave said. If you're not willing to pay what something costs new you may have to rethink your preference for not buying used. Lightly used Pro II bodies are a tremendous bargain right now, selling for $400-500 on eBay.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"I can easily shoot at night by pushing Tri-x or T-Max 400 to 1600 and 3200, but I would like to use color."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm surprised more people haven't recommended trying the new Kodak Portra 400. A number of photographers have raved about their results with shooting new Portra 400 at <strong>ISO 1600 and even 3200</strong>, so you'd be remiss not to at least try it before spending too much time with older-design emulsions.</p>

<p>Just do a Google search for "new portra 400 review" and start with the figitalrevolution.com four-part test (especially part 3 on usable ISOs). Also see apug.org and rangefinderforum.com, of course, always two good sources for film advice.</p>

<p>And do please report back on your experiences with it if you try it!</p>

<p>I have two M3's: a "nice" one with a 50 'cron permanently on it, and a beater on which I have a CV28mm with external finder. This question is about the latter camera.</p>

<p>The beater's frameline lever is stuck in the "135 on" position, and I was thinking that when I send it in for a CLA and to turn off the 135mm framelines, if possible I'd like to have the 50mm framelines removed completely. I never use any lens but the 28-with-external-finder on that camera anyway and because of its cosmetics the camera has almost no resale value. For those reasons, and since I do look a lot through the camera's viewfinder (i.e., I often compose without using the shoe-mounted finder), having a frameline-free viewfinder would seem to have no real downsides.</p>

<p>Can the 50mm lines be permanently masked off? If so,<strong> to whom should I send the camera? </strong> Sherry Krauter? (I'm in the Midwest, but I understand from web searches that DAG has a backlog of months and I'd rather not wait until summer or fall to get it back.)</p>

Kelly, after your first post (the one about the VW Bug and the Yugo and the elephant), I was under the impression

that we only need wait for Adobe to build a bigger 2-car, 64-bit "garage."

But your later posts seem to say that 64-bit Photoshop won't make handling multi-gig files significantly easier

or faster; improvement won't really come until we have an OS that can directly address 8 or more gigs. Is this

an expectation of the next Mac OS?

In other words, are you saying that everyone's whining about Adobe not catching up to the OS when in fact it's

the OS's that have to move ahead?

OK, that's helpful, esp. the RAID reminder and the part about "fast RAM"; one often hears about quantity of RAM but not speed.

A followup question: Are gaming computers a good starting point, or is one paying too much for things that are of no benefit to photographers? Whenever I check out the super-capable machines, from any manufacturer, it seems like the gaming PCs are always the most loaded. I would imagine that a lot of the components requiring speed for gamers would be useful with Photoshop as well?

What kind of setup should I look at for working with 3gb files? These are 3000 dpi drum scans of LF (sheet) film

for mural-sized output; I'm starting to get the scans back and now I need more computer power to handle them.

I've done as much reading as I can take and am just starting to get a handle on RAID options, multiple hard

drives, video

cards, and RAM needs. (I've always heard the "RAM should be 4-5x file size" rule of thumb, and I have to say that

1gb CS3 files run pretty leisurely on my current 4gb machine although there are other factors there too. But I

also don't know that current software can make use of more than 4gb and don't know how much other factors can

compensate for this.)

I'm thinking of buying from a semi-custom assembler (suggestions of specific vendors are welcome). For me at

least, that seems a good compromise between complete d-i-y (I'm willing to do whatever research is necessary, but

I'm not a "natural" with computer innards and thus want someone else to put the parts together) and buying a

one-size-fits-all package from Dell/HP/Sony etc.

Finally, I'm certainly open to a Mac - I've been an Apple user since the early 90s and have a 15" MacBook Pro

running Leopard as my travel computer - but only if a Mac solution is fiscally competitive

with a comparably performing PC. My overall workflow is split almost exactly 50/50 between Mac and Windows: Both

platforms are fine with me, I run CS3 on both with no problem, my parents and their senior-citizen friends

depend on me to be moderately conversant in both OS's, and I'll never go 100% to one or the other, so the choice

probably will come down to performance vs. cost. Fwiw, I'd prefer to NOT have to replace the computer when CS4

comes out. (No Mac/PC name-calling, please; we're all adults here.)

Budget is flexible, but I'd like to stay under $5K or so for the box (i.e., monitor and pointing devices additional).