max_steinhardt

*grumbles* yeah, forgot about the whole aperture ring thing. Guess that's the end of that story.

I was wondering if anybody has used the Sigma 105 2.8 Macro on a Pentax MX (or other non-af camera). I was

looking at macro lenses in this range and this one seemed both well reviewed and affordable. The thing that bugs

me is that I can't really wrap my head around the whole auto/manual focusing scheme that sigma has going on.

When the switch on the side of the barrel is set to manual, does it matter what the focusing ring is set to? If

so, how hard is it to accidentally set the focusing ring?

 

answers to these questions, as well as any other advice you'd like to give (like don't eat the yellow snow, etc)

would be greatly appreciated.

I shot a roll of CVS 200 a few weeks ago, the markings on the negatives were identical to the fuji SuperHQ (aka standard iso 200 consumer fuji film), and the prints have that special SuperHQ character.

 

Edit: I just looked again, the usual fujifilm labeled stuff has "200" across the top of the negative, where as the CVS stuff has "200N". I can't tell the difference between the two other than that

after re-reading my post, i think i should clarify: I don't mean to bash digital or imply that photoshop cannot do the things i mentioned, but rather to take issue with the portrayal of photoshop being a easy to learn/use magic bullet, especially by sales people.

The best advice for a fresh faced new photographer is that you should only be concerned with getting the picture. With the advent of digital photography, any undesirable aspect of your photograph can be fixed quickly and simply with photoshop! Realistically, modern technology has relegated things like exposure, composition, and lighting as stuffy old anachronisms which you should never have to worry about. Photoshop can fix any of those trivial issues, as well as seamlessly edit people out of your pictures, remove the puke from your friend's shirt, or readjust grandma's lazy eye. Edits like these are very easy to do without any distracting distortion, in total photo realistic quality, and it only takes a few minutes to learn and seconds to do. Long story short, as someone new to photography, don't worry about getting pictures even close to right in camera, because it is easier and less time consuming to just fix it in what we pros call "Post Production" by simply using photoshop.

 

P.S. - As a side note, what camera system are you going to choose? I ask because picking the right brand when starting out will basically make or break your progress as a photographer.

Thank you for the heads up! I just got back from shooting it (film, no pic), but would have missed it if it wasn't for you. I actually went to a view point that could see the sunset and the moon rise with the intention of shooting both, but luckily another photographer told me that the moon rise happened right about the same time as the sunset, or else I would have missed it trying to get the sunset.

<p>yeah, I have used an old sunpack 333 on the family's MX, and it was a lot less fuss. At the moment, I'm not tied to the idea of a single flash for both cameras, but rather working with what i got.</p>

Wow, thank you everyone for the information.

<p>Honestly, i didn't even think about trying it. A quick test with the flash in TTL mode seems like it works. Now all i need is a shrink ray! The one thing that i did notice is that depressing the shutter button half way does not take the flash out of standby, so that means standby will probaby have to stay off when I'm using the flash, which isn't too big of a deal.</p>

<p>Good to know, thank you. I already had the storbist bookmarked, it is an interesting site.</p>

<p>Today is a very exciting day! As of 10:30am pacific time, I can proudly call myself a pentaxian.</p>

<p>Okay, enough with the melodrama. I have been lurking these forums for a little while, and feel like i have a handle on some of you, but this is my first time posting on photo.net, so I'll give you a (very) brief backstory on me (feel free to skip this paragraph to get to the question). Basically my parents had an MX while i was growing up. I always liked playing with it, but never really gave it much thought when it was out of sight. After high school, a series of coincidences landed me in an events videography job for a few years (ya know, the guy in the background of all your wedding photos). When I left that job, I was happy to be out of events, but missed filming. Later, armed with a 2mp P&S, I took pictures of a dragonfly that had just emerged out of it's larval form and realized that photography scratched my film itch. A short time later, I got a hand-me-down Nikon D70, which I learned a lot on. Eventually, I borrowed the old MX from my mom, fell in love with it, put a bunch of rolls trough it, and decided to divert my saved photography funds from a second lens for the D70 to a MX kit.</p>

<p>Now that my MX has arrived, I wanted to know if there would be any problems using my Nikon sb600 flash on my it (besides the slow sb600 menus and the fact the the flash is larger than the MX body in pretty much every dimension).</p>