daniel_taylor

"Funny I am thinking that the 5D is far away from film in the sense that it cannot approach Kodachrome 25 or Ektar 25 in resolution. The 5D is still more expensive than all the bodies put together."

Framed such that the subject fills the viewfinder, a 10D is edged out in extinction resolution by the best 35mm films, but out performs them on every other measure (MTF, noise/grain, color fidelity, color accuracy).

Framed from the same position so that subject details occupy the same physical space on sensor and film (i.e. framed as if the 10D had a 36x24mm sensor), the 10D will out resolve the best 35mm color films.

The 5D has a higher pixel pitch, more resolution per mm (and total of course) than a 10D.

So if a 10D can out perform film, mm per mm, what makes you think a 5D is "far away" from film?

There are tests online that seem to indicate the 85 is a lot sharper wide open than the 100 (assuming the 100 wasn't a bad sample --- the advantage disappeared stopped down a bit).

But I think the reason is simply people end up with the 100 f/2.8 macro.

"I wouldn't want to go back to The Good Ol' Days and I was a late adopter of OS X (10.3 to be exact). Trouble-shooting extension conflicts that crash everything isn't my idea of A Good Time."

Yes the extension conflict issue could have been handled better. But with extensions one could do things in Mac OS classic that simply cannot be done in X, and I still miss some of those enhancements to the old OS. Then again, I love X's stability.

But, more to the point, it's OS classic's file structure and organization I really miss. I don't see any advantage to the UNIX (or Windows) way of doing things, only more complexity, problems, and time wasted.

"OS X just Works and I figure that I spend a fraction of the time messing with my Macs than when I was using the old operating systems (7.6-9.2). Printing is easier, networking is actually possible, applications rarely crash, I can use third-party apps that don't undermine the system and I Just I don't have to be so cognizant of the inner- workings of the OS as in the pre-OS X era."

I agree with a lot of this, but I still think a modern OS should have a file system and organization which is understandable to the end user. You should not need special tools to make mirror copies of hard drives (that are bootable and fully functional!), nor should you need special tools to sniff out all the little places where a file can patch the OS or auto load.

X is better than Windows in this regard, but not much. Granted I do some things that are not typical of all users, but UNIX file permissions have caused me almost as much lost time and grief as OS classic extensions did.

"I believe that most of what you said is correct. However, I am confused on the color issue. I have run across the statement often before that Nikon sensors have superior color to Canon.

What puzzles me is that it is my understanding that digital color can be modified through white balance as well as through the traditional ways. Is this color thing strictly a matter of opinion and is it an important factor to consider when looking at these cameras?"

It's BS. The sensors are a lot closer to each other than the various films ever were. I would be willing to bet that the people who claim this would not be able to pick Canon from Nikon prints in a blind study.

Further, any one of a dozen choices by the photographer either during the shoot or during post processing will have an order of magnitude larger impact on the final color than the sensor.

Funny that when Canon went CMOS the rumor for a while was that Canon sensors had the better color, not Nikon. It was BS then to.

Look at dpreview's color chart and other tests. They try their best to normalize variables. There is no real difference between the DSLR's when it comes to color. Certainly no difference that is not overriden in Photoshop choices.

"Microsoft has said that they're working on VirtualPC for Macs, but it'n not likely that Windows will run at native speeds (whether under VPC or not) until Vista comes out... and even then possibly only under 64-bit Intel machines (which will start coming out in the fall)."

It will never run at "native speeds" because it will always be sharing resources with the host OS and emulating some components.

Having said that, VPC on Windows runs other OSes at near-native speeds and is a different world from the x86 emulation of VPC on PPC. So I'm looking forward to the day when I have an Intel Mac and some virtualization program that lets me run Windows in a window. (Even though I flipped out a bit when Apple first announced the switch over. Bad memories left over from 68K - PPC and OS 9 - OS X.)

"Scott, I would want you to shoot the Rand McNally map with your MF film and scan it at 2000dpi for comparison. That way the "DSLR beats MF" crowd can finally see too. BTW, I believe we've put the "spanking" criteria to rest grossly infavor of lossy scanned 35mm film over all DSLRs. Hey, maybe the soon to be released 1Ds MKIII can finally match it . . . ;-)"

Must I remind you again...

Attached is your latest 5400 scan put next to a 10D image shot at the same distance from the map as a 35mm or a full frame camera would be shot. The light falling on the 10D sensor was the same light that was falling on your film, the crop covering the same physical size on sensor as on film. It's absolutely clear, even to you, which has better image structure and resolution, which crop "spanks" the other one. Which is why whenever I post it you have a temper tantrum.

The 5D and 1Ds mkII each have a higher pixel pitch than the 10D sensor, which means that they would, without question, out perform your "lossy scanned 35mm film", even on the sole criterea of resolution.<div></div>

Not sure if it's too late or if you'll even read this far down, but...

"I can afford that, but then I checked out what Nikon had in the D70s. The price point is a good $400 cheaper than the 20D."

At B&H it looks like the D70s is about $200 cheaper than the 20D. Not sure how much longer you will be able to get the 20D new, but right now it's cheap and that might affect your decision.

Good luck!

Hoya S-HMC UV filters sit on all my lenses all the time...with the exception of the 50 f/1.8.

The lens is well recessed with the hood on, and the price of a high quality filter is a significant fraction of the lens itself in this rare case.

So I just didn't bother.

Wow...completely forgot about mirror lockup. I use that all the time.

But I thought you could get a high speed sync flash for the D70?

Any time you ask a question like this you're going to get answers all over the place, from 8x12 to "...I made a billboard and it looks good."

The answer is complex and involves subject matter, artistic tolerances, lenses, technique, post processing, and viewing distance. All in addition to the one parameter you asked about, sensor resolution.

Shoot a portrait using a tripod, a good lens, proper technique and post processing and you will *easily* go past the 8x12 size commonly cited for 6 MP. Shoot a landscape hand held with a consumer zoom and even 8x12 will leave a lot to be desired.

Viewing distance is, of course, critical. Hold an 8x10 at arms length. Does it look good? Now print the same image to a billboard. If you're standing far enough away that an 8x10 held at arm's length would "cover" the billboard to your eyes, the billboard should look every bit as good.

FWIW, I find it's easy to produce excellent 8x10's with my 10D. Many of my tele shots could go to 16x20 and still look very good: sharp, detailed, clean. I'm not saying they would look equal to or better than a higher resolution system, but you would need to see the same image recorded on a higher resolution system to realize it. You wouldn't look at them and think anything was missing, in fact the comment is often how sharp and detailed they look.

My wide angle landscapes struggle to go past 8x10 and still look excellent, but I honestly feel that my widest lens (17-40L) is the weak point here. It just does not have the MTF of my other lenses, even though I consider it a good lens. Still, a good shot is a good shot and nobody looking at one of my favorite wide angle landscapes printed to 16x20 would say "gosh, I could like this if only it was shot with a prime on the 5D." That's just not how people view images unless they're viewing side-by-side examples of different systems at close ranges.

I will say that I feel prints from my 10D are equal to or better than my best 35mm work, regardless of print size. That might ruffle feathers, but the combination of grain and lower MTF means 35mm prints "break down" quality wise faster than digital prints. Still, I have 35mm 16x20's that impress people and look good artistically speaking even though I think they would look better captured on my 10D, and better yet captured on a 5D, and better yet captured on MF, and better yet captured on.... You get the idea.

Now that you mention it, maybe Canon does need another body in their lineup. D200 vs. 5D is invalid IMHO, image quality wise the D200 is far closer to the 20D/30D and is not FF. But as for the rest...maybe Canon should lower the XT price and introduce something with a xxD body but with lower MP and just enough difference in features so as to not take away 30D sales.

Bring back the 10D! ;)

I can't imagine the 18-200 super zoom could hold a candle to the 70-200 f/4L. Your choice, but I wouldn't give up my 70-200 f/4L for a super zoom, stabilized or not.

Have you considered a used 10D or 20D? I still haven't upgraded my 10D. It has been a great body and is easily the D70s equal.

Don't get me wrong, I respect Nikon and they have a competitive line up. But your switch involves lenses and it sounds to me like you would be downgrading there.

"Resolution aside, digital prints I've seen appear to have less color subtlety than those printed digitally from scanned slide films. Digital's wonderful, I suppose, for sports and casual snapshots, but I'll stick with film until people no longer look like plastic dolls."

I've shot a lot of flowers and people on 35mm film, and I've shot a lot of flowers and people on digital (10D).

And the 10D clearly out performs film in color subtlety. It will pick up skin texture, facial blemishes, and petal texture that 35mm simply does not. (I mention portraits and flowers because this is where I notice it the most.)

That said, shoot a DSLR at high ISO and over process it (or sometimes just over process it) and you will get that "plastic" look.

"This is the dilemma the manufacturers have put people in ... making it our problem instead of theirs. EFS "digital" lenses to make up for the crop factor robbing you of wide angle focal lengths."

snip

"IMO, all Canon digital cameras will use full frame sensors in a few years, and the EFS lenses will only be usable on passe' crop frame cameras no longer in production ... which the manufacturers absolutely love. Planned obsolescence."

Yeah, this is all a scheme. It has absolutely nothing to do with the realities of sensor fabrication which at this time make affordable FF DSLR's for the masses an impossibility. Those pesky manufacturers pushing their problems on us.

While we're at it, they just love to give us zooms with limited focal lengths and apertures. Where's my 14-600mm f/1.0L IS USM??? Why do they push their problems designing glass on me???

:-/

Blame UNIX file permissions. It's not like the old days where you could simply drag and drop a System Folder onto a volume and then boot from it. (The old Macs would have boot from toast if you could figure out how to plug in the toaster and scratch the binary code to the Finder and System files on the bread.)

While we're at it, I miss those days. The file structure and overall design of Mac OS classic that enabled users to backup, move applications, repair their OS, and create bootable volumes by simply dragging and dropping was excellent. You shouldn't need special software to backup and create boot volumes, nor should you be able to break an application simply moving its parent folder.

While we're at it, I can't imagine a spyware problem existing on Mac OS classic. Did some malware auto load? Reboot with the shift key, look through your Startup Items, Extensions, and Control Panels, and delete anything that shouldn't be there. Files had recognizable names, there weren't a billion of them for each process, and there were only a couple places where something could auto load, none of which were "hidden" to the user. Not like Windows where every other week someone fines a new, cryptic way to make Windows execute code.

Yeah...sometimes I miss the old days....

"Bjorn Rorslett writes a lot about Nikon equipment, but he gets respect because he has plenty of great photos on his website. Reichmann has photos of his equipment, and boring shots of the Toronto skyline."

Thanks for making it clear to everyone here that you've never actually looked at his work.

"Well, just got done viewing his entire gallery. I guess I must not be a fan of extremely low contrast, pastel/muted landscape images. Did not see any really striking compositions either. Nothing really here that strikes me in any way or that would keep me coming back. Certainly nothing that would do justice to thousands of dollars of the best gear on earth. To each his own I guess."

His images keep a rather large number of people coming back guessing from his "currently visiting" counter which is typically in three digits at any given time of the day. I wonder if any of the people who complain and moan about him on photo.net have such numbers?

Still, it is true, to each his own. I look at some of the work presented as stunning by Leica fans on this web site and think "WTF?!?".

"The main part of this resentment comes from the content of this review. What, what! A 16MP DSLR as good as medium format? A 39MP back as good as 4x5? HERESY!"

Yep. Reichmann has been on the s**t list of many photo.net members ever since he dared to compare a D30 image to 35mm Provia 100F. He bar-b-q's people's favorite sacred cows and eats them with ketchup. I'm surprised some of his articles haven't resulted in fatwa's and jihads among the faithful.

"Just a question from a holdout CRT person: how long does an LCD monitor last before one (or more) of the guns (a CRT term for the R/G/B) can no longer be calibrated to an appropriate level? With CRTs it is about 2-3 years of heavy use. Does anyone have a handle on about how long for LCDs?"

With LCDs it's the backlighting that will wear out. Not sure how long, but I have seen dim LCDs due to old backlights.

Poor man's calibration: get a test target that you know is good. Play with your monitor's brightness, contrast, and RGB controls until it matches, as closely as possible, the test target. (Be careful what room lighting you do this under as that will affect your perception of the print.) This might take 15 or 20 minutes, but it will get you 98% of the way to a machine calibrated monitor.

I'm never surprised by what comes off my printer or what comes back from the lab, and I've used this method for a few years now. Works with LCD's and CRT's as long as you can access the RGB controls.

Oh...IMHO, go with a good LCD.

Frank,

It's not as simple as ink or paper. The combination determines fade resistance. In the case of Epson dye inks, ColorLife paper does a better job of trapping and protecting the ink from ozone than PGPP, which is a huge part of its fade resistance with the dye set.

In the case of Epson pigment inks, you are correct, PGPP prints will last a lifetime. Still, there are differences in fade resistance between papers even when using pigment inks.

"A little off-topic, but I recently saw a thread in another internet forum where someone returned a new 70-200 to B&H because at 400% magnification he thought he *might* be seeing chromatic aberration on a shot of a b&w test chart."

Sounds about right. I feel sorry for customer service departments that have to deal with these types. People like this need to spend a year with a Holga.

It's the same problem as on film for the same reasons.

If you look at a full frame or film image with vignetting, you see that it gets worse the further you get from the center of the image. Since APS sensors crop out the edges of the image circle cast by full frame lenses, they also crop out the worst of the falloff.

It's always been around, but now we live in an age where anyone and everyone can snap 1,000 test photos with their digital for free, study the results in Photoshop at 300%, and discuss them forever on message boards. So everyone has "noticed" this more, even though it's still only an issue in real pictures when you shoot wide open and the background is uniform and bright. Just like the film days.

* Yes, it will be faster than your PowerBook and iBook.

* There are a ton of 3rd party LCD displays that use VGA. If you can find software that gets around the mirror mode issue, you're fine. It doesn't have to be Apple to be good. Besides, I doubt you'll ever need more than the 20" provides.

* It's a very good machine. Add more RAM and Photoshop will run fine.

* 10 vs. 8 MP isn't going to mean much on an APS sized sensor. In dpreview's comparisons the D200 images were a bit larger (naturally) while the Canon images seemed to have a bit better per-pixel sharpness. Translation: scaled to matching output size, they will look identical. (BTW, the current Canon is the 30D, not that this changes the comparison much.)

While I'm on this point: any one who claims a major difference in image quality between Canon/Nikon low-to-mid-range DSLR's (whether resolution, color, or noise) is blowing smoke. There's just not that much difference. Your glass and workflow will have a FAR larger impact on your results.

* Both systems have poor, good, and really good glass. If your FM2 "takes better pictures", it's probably because you have a better lens in front of it. With minor exceptions you're probably not going to be concerned about (i.e. high end super teles; macro), you can get the lenses you want/need in either system.

* Nikon lenses comparable to Canon L lenses are no cheaper on average (you'll see some price differences lens vs. lens, but they are as likely to break one way as the other). Also, there are several really good Canon L lenses for well under a grand.

* You don't have to buy L glass. There are plenty of really good primes and some good consumer zooms in both systems. For example: the Canon 50 f/1.8 is one of their sharpest lenses for $80. That's a good place to start if you want your Canon bodies, film or digital, to perform their best optically speaking.

* Canon has more USM lenses (quiet, fast focusing with full time manual override) and more IS (image stabilization) lenses. This made the choice for me.

* Nikon's flash system seems to be less quirky than Canon's with more consistent results. That said, I haven't had a problem with E-TTL. You just have to learn how to work it.

So how do you decide? First decide if your existing Canon lenses are junk or not (i.e. their cheapest, consumer zooms). If not, stick with Canon. No point in changing course if you've got good glass (that's how close the bodies and systems are). If they are, you might still choose Canon, but dump the lenses and buy better ones.

Granted, this is one dye set vs. one pigment set.

Having said that, it was known LONG before photo ink jets that pigments are much more durable than dyes. This is due to basic chemistry and there's no way around it.

Pigment prints are much more stable, and I would not print anything I wanted to last on a dye photo ink jet.