daniel_taylor

"Color casts (?): I use RAW and use a grey/white card to get "correct" white points. White surely looks white with a proper white point setting, but other colors, particularly green, turn to colors I didn't expect to see."

You set a custom white balance by shooting a white card every time you take a shot? Or one for every general "area"? If the former, that's a lot of work. If the latter, you can be in the same location and turn a few degrees and the balance of the light has changed a bit.

I suggest shooting RAW and setting the balance in the RAW converter. Capture One is great for this because with a couple sliders you can quickly see what settings provide what look and choose. I think auto with JPEG works alright, but sometimes it's off which may irritate you.

You could set to one of the presets and shoot JPEG. Which is the equivalent of loading a particular type of film, or film + filter, and shooting. This is guaranteed to be "off" much of the time, but then so is film. You might be used to how daylight balanced film interacts with certain light and/or have a better idea of how to deal with it as long as daylight balance is your starting point.

"I just saw this photo in Photo.net. It's a gorgeous capture of a waterfall, but to me, the colors don't seem right."

They look a bit warm and saturated, but I wouldn't call this any less "right" than using, say, Velvia to make the colors in a landscape explode.

"VIsual punch: Film images seem to have a sense of depth (not talking about DOF) while digital camera images appear flat. I can use an "S" curve to increase the contrast, but I get a contrasty image without a sense of depth. Scanned film images seem to produce visual punch even without drastic curve/level adjustments."

I'm afraid I'm really not sure what you mean here by "depth". But it sounds like you've having issues with levels and saturation.

"I uploaded an image to illustrate this. Just casual snaps of my kids, and not meant for serious comparison. The left image is digital, right image is film (Provia I believe), taken seconds apart. Both pretty much out of camera/scanner with minor adjustments in color casts, curve/level, cropping."

I copied this to Photoshop, played with the left, and posted below. On my monitor they appear pretty much the same, though I won't claim they're exact since I only took a minute to edit the left. (And since sometimes one imaging device will minimize a difference while another emphasizes it.)

The original (left side) looked too yellow to me, and needed the levels dropped a notch. I also added some saturation to try and match the right.

"Now, can Photoshop in the right hands produce anything? For example, is it possible to closely emulate the look of different film emulsions?"

I have a problem emulating Velvia and, under some lighting, Provia 100F. NPH seems pretty easy to match. To be honest I don't try to emulate any film as a matter of course. I try to get each image looking the way I want it to. (Or in the case of casual snapshooting, I just set the camera parameters to what I know will produce decent images for the shoot.)

"But every time I scan films, I'm awestruck by crisp colors, and by the visual impact I can't objectively describe. They simply look better than digital camera images."

Funny...I have the exact opposite experience. I do still sometimes scan 35mm and MF, but I end up working to get it to look like the slide. The initial scan is often way off in terms of color balance, levels, and saturation. I can move pretty fast through RAW images off my 10D in Capture One though. I've come to think of my 10D as "just working" and scanning as requiring a ton of screwing around.

Either way, in the end, I get the image and print I want. Which should answer your original question.<div></div>

"No offense John but you must not frequent too many online discussions regarding Epson printers as the forums are littered with clogging issues with both 3rd party and OEM inks. Some clog and some don't--nobody can say what the difference is except amount of printing."

Epson pigment printers with OEM inks do not normally clog. Their dye printers tend to clog quite a bit. The 2200 should not cause any problems in this department.

"I also wouldn't compare the 2200 to the 8750 in terms of BW--everyone knows the 2200 can't compare. I don't have to worry about not printing with the yellow as I only use gray inks. Longevity? I would say HP 8750 and the Epson 2200 are equal in this department. I assume you have read the reports? In fact, if you want the best longevity and zero clogs but still want to use pigment (why I could never understand)"

I'll stay way from the BW comment since I just don't normally print BW and probably am not as picky as others in that area. As to why use pigment inks the answer is longevity and stability. You cannot get around the fact that chemically pigments are more stable and much more resistant to degradation from all sources. Dye inks can test well under glass in light fade tests, then fall apart due to humidity or atmospheric pollutants.

"M. Try to ignore the Epson fanatics that have spent too much money on their equipment and spend too much time trying to "tell" people theirs is better. They are just upset with a company like HP that has begun to take over this market and don't like to claim Epson is playing catchup."

HP "fanatics" spend too much money on ink cartridges and paper. Which is worse?

HP makes some very good printers, but Epson still dominates pigment printing and has an edge in paper choices. So give the 2200 a try.

"I think that if you look at recent primes, L vs non-L's, the L glass will ALWAYS provide better image quality. This is true even if the 85L focuses much slower then the 85mm F1.8...we're talking image quality here nothing else."

I think you better take a second look. The 50 f/1.0 most definetly did not produce better image quality than the 50 f/1.4. And the 85 f/1.2, while very close, tests with lower image quality than the 85 f/1.8.

But why actually do some work comparing things when one can generalize and feel better about the letter "L".

"I shoot NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS), and I see it all the time."

Well then feel free to send me a couple prints, identical image printed on a Frontier and R800. I would like to see for myself. If I'm wrong, I certainly don't want to continue praising Epson's printers.

"But then, if there's no light cyan and light magenta as the 5th & 6th "colors" in the R800 inkset, then skin tones stink: Pick your poison."

Never had a problem with skin tones.

"Daniel is using statistics from a 1987 USDA study that measure only

urbanized land as developed land. It did not factor in agricultural,

mining, timber or ranching use of the land as developed land."

Whoa. I might agree that agricultural and mining should be included in

a definition. But timber and ranching? No. Just because humans decide

where some animals should graze rather than they grazing themselves

does not mean the land has lost all natural value. And forests used

for lumber have ecologies every bit as important and active as

protected "old growth" forests. As we have learned from fires, forests

which are cleared and regrown benefit nature in critical ways.

"Regarding the statement that there are more trees today than say 200

years ago, I've read that too. However, to state that there are more

forests now than then, is simply ignorant and smacks of talk-radio. If

we consider just the basic definition of a forest as any biological

community of plants and animals that is dominated by trees and other

woody plants and of large land area than we must exclude those areas

where most of the tree population growth has occurred, tree farms and

urbanized areas."

I couldn't disagree more. It is skewed to automatically label any

piece of land that a human has used in any way as "developed", where

to the average person "developed" means nature does not exist there

(i.e. a Walmart) but they can get gas and a coffee 24 hours a day. If

I dropped the average American off in the "ranch" that my friend's

parents own in Colorado, they would call it "wilderness" and die of

starvation before finding their way to a "developed" area.

Any way...I should probably post a photo...will do tonight.

"Daniel I just want to start off by telling you that I am an American.

Born and raised. In fact I'm even a car loving American. I wonder how

I could of sounded even the least foreign to you unless you think it

is un American to question America (our founding fathers didn't)."

It was your characterization of America as going from all forest to

all road.

"The point to my earlier comments was not to bash Americans of which I

would be including myself as well. It was simply to state that we have

gone from viewing cars as a relative novelty at the turn of the last

century to having them become essentially part of our individual

identity. Sort of like an armored second skin. As the population grows

each year the number of cars grows causing roads to get widend and new

roads to be added. Sure we got lots of room in this country but we

also got lots of roads too. Just take a look at the sattelite photo of

LA. Its a concrete lovers paradise. And just imagine if you can what

california looked like 100 years ago. Paradise absolute paradise.

Parts of it thankfully have been saved by the likes of Theodore

Roosevelt the rest squandered. Sold to the highest bidder paved and a

starbucks put up in its place."

Some of California was a paradise. Much of what was a paradise remains

a paradise, thanks to many people including some that you mention.

Much of the rest of it was fairly plain, even ugly, empty land and desert.

This would include most of LA and the Inland Empire.

Looking at a map, I really don't have a problem with LA's concrete

when much more beautiful areas are preserved, especially when they

tend to be larger.

"The price I'm speaking of is the scarring up our beautiful

countryside with the roads. And I'm not talking about the sedate

meandering country roads that I love to drive on. No I'm talking big

honking interstates and mini interstates that connect wal marts to wal

marts."

Picking a route maybe we've both taken, I-15 from the southern

California area to Las Vegas: does that really bother you? Yeah, it's

crossing an otherwise "pristine" desert, but look at all that desert.

If you got out of your car and hiked a ways, you would never know the

freeway was there.

If you hiked far enough, you would die and turn to bone before anyone

ever found you, if you were ever found.

Is it really destroying nature to take that thin artery between

cities? How would we get between them otherwise? Railroads also take

up space. Planes burn more fuel.

"Lets face it we are addicted to cars. And one thing an addicted

person never does is question there addiction."

Oh yes, we are addicted. But what else would we use? Nobody has

invented a teleporter yet ;-)

"P.S. Thanks for the reply. I always enjoy a good discussion. And

since this forum is really about pictures doing our talking for us it

would be a disservice not to add one. Oh and BTW super unleaded (what

my car takes) is 2.99 a gallon."

I paid $3.49 this morning :-(

"The reason it would do better with a map are as follows:"

Les, it wouldn't do better with a map. I was being sarcastic. You're an idiot for ranking an ist D @ ISO 200 below Superia 1600 (among other things you've done), in case that isn't plainly obvious from the crops above.

"However, stupid people may not know how to use it, afterall, "Stupid is as stupid does"."

Stupid is spending a hundred hours alone in a room shooting a map over and over again, then scanning and post-processing the film 15x trying to exceed the quality level a child could achieve with a couple minutes practice using a DSLR and the Fuji Frontier at Walmart.

That same child, within about 15 minutes, would start to exhibit greater artistic sense than that exhibited by the shots in your Fototime gallery. I'm not saying you couldn't be a good photographer, I'm just saying it's a little hard to develop an artistic skill when you spend 20 hours a week alone in a room stroking a film scanner.

"BTW, what's with the halo around the edges of that image? Is that self inflicted or due to poor PS skills."

I may have used a touch too much USM on that one, though the target was an 8x10 print where no halo is visible.

I could crank USM up triple that and the halo would still be thinner than the blue edge around your flower. Not sure if that's the film, the scanner, or the post processing, but I guess it doesn't matter since nobody looking at an 8x10 print would notice it. They would be too overwhelmed by the muddy grain and thinking to themselves "gosh, my digicam does a lot better than this!"

BTW, where the heck are the 1Ds mkII images you promised? Or are you still unable to shoot the machine well enough to produce an image sharper than what a real photographer could get from a Holga?

"Daniel, none of us enlarge images to extreme sizes for either technology where the weaknesses begin to show (grain, or pixels)."

...snip...

""ISO 1600 film vs ISO 200 DSLR"..... what an example for a photo, talk about mismatch!"

I agree with you on both points. But try explaining those points to Les Nessman. If you look at his chart, he thinks it's a fair comparison, ranking Superia 1600 above an ist D. He shoots maps all day long then studies them at extreme enlargement. *That's* why I posted the comparison.

I don't believe I argued with you regarding the quality of MF or LF, or the price/performance they offer. So why rant at me? If you think it's silly to enlarge small format film and digital to extreme sizes and compare ISO 1600 film to ISO 200 digital...rant at Les Nessman.

"Why all the fighting?"

Maybe it's because any time any topic comes up even remotely related to digital vs film or film's presence in the marketplace, fanatics have to come out and make hyperbole claims about film or against digital.

Let's see...we have one person arguing that fast primes are useless on digital *after* it has been pointed out that people use them all the time. We have another claiming that to match film security in the field, one must have 5 mobile HD backups. (Funny, I've lost film to labs and accidents, but never once lost an image on a CF card. Or HD. Or CD-R for that matter, including 7+ year old CD-R's of film scans.)

Then there's the guy claiming that simple motion blur effects are impossible to do digitally without hours in front of Photoshop and "plastic" results. (Hint: try something a bit higher up the food chain than your kid's Barbie-digicam.)

Then we have Les, a man who spends an unhealthy amount of time alone in a room with a world map. He thinks ISO 1600 color film is superior to DSLR capture...*at ISO 200.* Looking over his history, I'm scared to argue with him any more because I just don't know what I would say to a cop asking the following: "We believe he started the rampage after seeing a couple images you posted on a site called 'photo.net'. Sir, didn't you realize that a man taking hundreds of pictures of a map might be unstable?" "Uh...well...gee officer, had I known he would ram his car into a Best Buy and start shooting up the digital camera section while screaming 'why won't they just use film?!', I guess I wouldn't have pushed...."

All because Scott points out the obvious: that a scanner *is* a digital camera, and that high technical quality with film requires a heck of a lot more screwing around than it does with digital. Or surrending your control to a lab at a time when lab quality in general is sinking like the Titanic.

I'll agree that cropped viewfinders suck. And I'll agree that MF equipment at current prices offers excellent price/performance vs. equivalent digital capture if you don't shoot a large amount of film. Heck, privately I've even been known to tell people on a budget to just pick up some old 35mm equipment and *gasp* shoot film. But I still can't figure out how a thread about whether or not Sony would continue KM scanners turned into yet another "digital sux, film rulz" fest.

For the record, I don't have any problem with the hobbyist who likes to shoot 35mm and scan at home. I've always said that good technical quality was achievable via that route. But I don't care to take the time to screw around with that route any longer.

And to bring it all back to topic: I am seriously considering picking up what will probably be my last 35mm scanner now fearing that they either won't be available, or will only be available at absurd prices, in the future. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks to me like the masses couldn't care less what a map looks like on drugstore color film, and if 35mm scanners don't sell at a certain rate each year.... Let's just say I don't want to be stuck paying a lab or scanning old 35mm film on a flatbed.

You think it's bad that they're using a drug abusing model? That's nothing! They used Canon to shoot the series.

(Just kidding ;-)

"You make several valid observations, Daniel - but the above won't happen while U.S. troops are in Iraq, it won't happen for a long time after U.S. troops leave, and it won't happen until the Iraqis sort out for themselves how to run their own country."

Well, Iraq doesn't have to be all that stable to produce more oil. They're linked but still separate issues.

At any rate, I tend to have a more optimistic view of Iraq. I know two marines who have been back and forth, and it just amazes me how different their assessment is from the nightly news. Not that there aren't problems, just that if you ask them Iraq's future is bright. Maybe they're wrong, maybe they're right, time will tell.

BTW, I liked your photo.

"If you don?t have something to say with the photograph all the sharpness of a KH-11 lens system won?t help."

Phrases heard around the NRO after the launch of the first KH-11...

* "I stood on the roof holding a ruler at an angle and it focused on the parking lot. Does my KH-11 have back focus issues?"

* "It looks sharp at 100%, but zoom in to 1200% on Gorbachev's head. See how the edges of his birthmark are fuzzy? I don't know...I think we have a soft satellite."

* "See that Soviet sub launching test missiles? Look at where the bright plume of the missile overlaps the black of the sub. CA!"

* "Look at this...right here, under the microscope...the KH-9 recorded two extra line pairs that the KH-11 did not. I told you film was superior!"

"I hesitate to blame the lens..."

Agreed. I tend to think the 17-40L reputation is at least partially due to how it is used. What does someone do when they get a 70-200? They shoot some subject so that it fills the frame, then ohhh and ahhh over the detail. What about the 17-40? They shoot some landscape at f/16 then wonder why the detail in the flower in the lower corner just doesn't come off as well as the flower that filled the frame with their 70-200. (Maybe not that extreme, but you get the idea.)

I consider wide angle landscapes to be technically more difficult than some other types of shots, yet that's the bread and butter of the 17-40L.

Having said that, the 17-40 is not as good as lenses it is often compared to like the 50 f/1.8 or 70-200. One wouldn't expect that looking at the MTF charts. Nor should one expect it considering the lens types being compared.

But it is good and quite usable.

I should note that this is from a file setup for a print. Levels, color balanced, sharpened a bit. Oh, and I just realized I did not crop this one for 8x10, but left it for 8x12.

So is that good or bad? I have better pixel view crops from my 50 f/1.8, 70-200 f/4L, and 300 f/4L IS. Those lenses seem to capture subtle texture better. I feel like I can reach out and touch the surface of subjects shot with those lenses. By comparison I feel like I want more out of the texture captured by the 17-40L.

But, I don't consider this bad, especially viewed in an 8x10/12 print. Full frame may magnify the differences, *especially* towards the edges. But on FF I would have probably been shooting a prime or one of the 24-whatever L's.

I've seen a comparison of a Zeiss prime to this lens, and naturally this lens lost big time. But that's not entirely fair. I've never seen such a comparison with, say, a 35 f/1.4L.

The 17-40L is what it is. I think it's very good on cropped cameras, and a good walk around on FF.

"Yet the improvements in image quality are limited to telephotos and normal lenses at moderately slow apertures (since they are generally next to impossible to focus at f/1.4 or f/2 accurately on a real-world subject), as far as I can tell. Wide angles on reasonably priced (non-MF) digital are either poor quality, or heavy and large, or both."

This is silly. I regularly shoot a 50 f/1.8 at 1.8-2.8 with no AF problems. Granted, manually focusing with any lens is a challenge on a cropped digital. But I seem to remember thinking the same comparing my first EOS film camera to an old AE-1 with the split-screen aid in the center of the focusing screen. I seriously doubt a human can out perform AF with a 1.4 lens @ 1.4 in rapid shooting without one of the old screens, if even then. If you have time to use a tripod and fiddle with the exact focus, but don't have the eyesight or available light to pull it off with a digital body, use an angle finder.

I have to admit that getting to use 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm primes instead of a 15/16/17-to-something zoom is a compelling argument for FF. But I would still rather carry the extra weight of a 17-40L and use digital than fiddle with film and film scanners.

Its strength? It has the right combination of features to be the best choice for wide angle work on cropped digitals, including image quality better than the 3rd party competition. (Though you naturally need another wider zoom for extreme wide angle work on cropped digital.) Namely, it goes to 17mm or 27mm equiv on digital (Canon does not offer a 17mm prime, and the only 3rd party 17mm prime doesn't out perform it), it's a constant f/4, and it's weather sealed with USM.

Its weakness? It's a very wide angle zoom designed for FF use, a combination of difficulties from a lens design standpoint.

Its sweet spot is f/8. Below that sharpness drops, above that diffraction sets in. It's certainly usable below or above, but it's not going to have the clarity of the Canon telephotos which it's often compared to. Canon's wide angle primes do not have the clarity of their telephotos. Canon's strength is in telephotos.

It doesn't have great bokeh, but the bokeh isn't horrible.

I think it produces very good images at either end on cropped digital. Perhaps not excellent, but I'm not disappointed in it.

I think on FF you're better off with a few primes, though when I go FF I will probably keep this lens.

"HP, Canon, Microtek"

Actually, judging from B&H Photo and Adorama, the remaining competitors in dedicated desktop film scanners are Microtek, Nikon, and Pacific Image.

I don't expect Sony will introduce any KM scanners, and it looks like KM has dropped out of the scanner market.

This is going to be the achilles heel of film. Film production is relatively low tech and can be done in China or potentially in a small business in the U.S. But quality processing and printing is already dying out. Take away good film scanners and color film will be a real pain to deal with.

I've honestly been thinking that now may be a good time to get one of the KM models still on ebay just to have a "fresh" scanner to deal with my old film and any old slides or negs that pop up from family members on occasion. I'm sure the light source on the model I've got is less than 100% and won't last forever.

"You see America used to be one big forest..."

No, it was never "one big forest." It always contained a wide variety

of environments like today, including massive deserts.

BTW, in many areas there are more trees and larger forests today than

there were when the pilgrims landed. U.S. forests have been growing in

area for decades.

"...now its one big road."

No. I forget the exact percentage, but less than 10% of the

continental U.S. is developed. Less than 5% of the U.S. including

Alaska. We have national parks that easily eclipse our largest cities

in land area, and massive swaths of undeveloped, untouched land.

Take a drive (oops...maybe a train) across the country sometime and

open your eyes.

"Even where I live its almost unheard of to see someone walking

because quite frankly its too dangerous. We need cheap gas and lots of

it to keep the ants scurrying along the paths quickly moving goods

from one place to the next."

We need cheap energy to live and work in a land area so massive. The

U.S. is the third largest nation in the world by land area. The

world's entire population could fit in an area the size of Texas.

Alaska is twice the size of Texas. Getting a clue as to our land area yet?

"Without it we have no identity or purpose because what is an American

except for a person who works in order to consume. That is our

national psychosis, that is America and gas is our blood."

When I was younger it was Catholics telling me I was sinful for

wanting to touch my girlfriend. Now it's environmentalists telling me

I'm sinful for wanting to drive.

If you're going to try and make Americans feel guilty, at least get

your facts straight first.

"Granted, but doesn't that mean still paying significantly more for a gallon of gas at the pump than we have been paying in the relatively recent past?"

Probably at first. Technology will bring down production costs in either case (solid petroleum resources or bio). For example, tar sands used to be a pipe dream but are now profitable at something like half the current barrel price. There's a lot of room for improvement in bio production. But yeah, if these oil prices hold and force a transition to other resources, those resources at first will be just as expensive. The only "cheap" option, which still takes time/money, is to drill.

"I agree other methods of utilizing energy are out there, the concern for the OP and for me is the rising cost of traveling with our cameras."

Sorry if I went off topic. I just find it frustrating that America could be doing better energy wise but always resorts to "the sky is falling" type bickering and fighting when a price spike occurs. And then when prices drop back down, forgets there ever was an energy crisis. And as I'm sure you can tell, I'm furious at politicians who complain about profits when they make several times what the actual producers make per gallon.

Gas prices have not affected my photography yet. I just got back from a short trip to Sequoia National Park actually. But I felt the pain driving there and back. It's hard to tell what oil will do in the short run. A lot of this price run up has been due to the bickering with Iran. There is enough oil supply to meet world demand at the moment, but spectators are betting on a conflict, and if you remove Iran's production for a while you have problems meeting world demand. Iran could comply with the UN, Iraq production could increase, and the price could sink back down to $30 a barrel just like that. On the other hand, Iran could make a move on Israel, war could break out, and gas could hit $5-6 per gallon.

The fact that it's fluctuating means that things are tight and likely to get tighter in the long run. So if you're an outdoor photographer, plan for that. Try to fit more into a single trip. Spend more of your trip hiking. And if you're in the market for a car, give the hybrids a look.

Not sure what else one can do other than not go, which of course is a huge disappointment.

"Most foreign (spelled it 3 times still looks wrong) countries I've traveled to have a better mass transit system than the average city in California."

Maybe that's because California is larger than many foreign countries you've probably traveled to. Mass transit only works in dense population areas. Take a look at a map of America. The world's population could live in a land area the size of Texas. If you split Alaska in two, Texas would be the third largest state. With the exception of the cores of our most dense cities, mass transit is simply not an option in America.

"The oil companies are posting record profits and all Chrysler can find to advertise is the horsepower ratings of their hemi.And we wonder why the world finds us irritating."

Oil company profits are about 9 cents a gallon. Federal government profits...excuse me..."taxes" are 18 cents a gallon. In California, state government profits...excuse me..."taxes" are 41 cents a gallon. Forgive me if I scream "@!#* hypocrit!" every time I see a government CEO...excuse me, Congressman or Senator...screeching about "greedy big oil profits" and calling for naked displays of self interest...excuse me..."hearings" on the issue. The Feds make 2x what "big oil" makes, while California rakes in >4X. If taxes were removed from gasoline, we would be back below $3 a gallon. There has never been a creature more greedy than the politician, and no company on Earth has ever matched a government entity in monopoly power.

Margins on refined oil products are generally lower than other industries. But there is robust demand and the companies people think of as "big oil" in America make more on the wells they own as market forces drive crude up. So yeah, they have "record profits." The same people screaming about this have been screaming against oil exploration for decades, yet can't see the connection between increasing world demand, restricted supply expansion, and skyrocketing crude prices.

Or maybe they can, which is why some of the most outspoken critics own oil stock. (Look it up.)

"The real issue is how people around the world can truly cut down the use of oil, which goes beyond coming up with ever more efficent means of using oil."

No, the real issue is increasing oil supply in the short run while transitioning to other fuel sources in the long run. The world is not going to use less energy. It is going to use more. India and China are not going to remain poor, and the western nations are not going to go backwards economically.

The U.S. has a lot more liquid oil than people realize, but it's all in areas off limits to production: ANWR, OCS, the Gulf, the Great Lakes. Americans need to decide, in the short term, whether they want to appease Sierra Club or have cheaper gas and more independence from foreign oil. Choose either side you want, but that is the choice life has given us. There are no magic solutions in the short run.

In the long run, there are vast deposits of fossil fuel in solid form in the U.S. The state of Colorado has more oil in shale deposits than ever existed in the Middle East in liquid form. And that pales in comparison to the coal available in the east. Both are harder to recover and refine to liquid fuel than liquid oil, but shale production would probably be profitable at current prices. At any rate, the average person wringing their hands over man's energy future doesn't realize just what's available. U.S. coal resources are pegged at 800-1,000+ years before running out.

Having said that, in the long run I personally prefer the bio-fuels. America can grow her vehicle fuel at prices comparable to today's fossil fuels. GM is transitioning every model in their fleet to FlexFuel, i.e. can run on fossil or equivalent bio fuel. This should be complete in a couple years. But it will take a while to both implement the infrastructure for fuel production/delivery, and to transition our automobile fleet to such vehicles through attrition. It's a long term solution, but for a lot of reasons is probably the best solution both economically and ecologically.

Short of a miracle battery, EVs are a waste of time. Neither EV nor hydrogen is a solution unless we a) accept greater production/use of coal and natural gas; or b) go all-out nuclear for electricity. Also, EV and hydrogen are not as environmentally sound as most believe.

"I have my own strategies for dealing with the current situation on a personal level, yet I worry about the longer term outcome for myself and for the world."

The long term outcome is not in doubt, energy is abundant. The current "crisis" is entirely self-inflicted. There is no scientific, engineering, or economic reason for the current crisis. It's all politics. Getting people to understand and then make rational choices about what they want is the greatest hurdle, sad as that may be.