ed_hopper

There really is something therapeutic and satisfying about trashing a terminally misbehaving hunk of technology - throwing it out the window, or, in my case, smashing it to smithereens on the garage's concrete floor. Heck... I wanted to move up to an F5 anyway!

I've used the Strathmore textured watercolor card stock sold for ink jet printing with very good results. If you shop carefully, you can find pricing with a unit cost of about $0.35 per card AND matching envelope. Hard to beat that!

Ditto. Concorde Rag is a terrific paper - and it's the only 100% cotton paper with which I'm familiar that has that nice antique off-white character.

Bill Silliker, nationally known wildlife photographer ("The Moose

Man", themooseman.com), died yesterday while conducting a photography

workshop in Maine's Baxter State Park. He suffered a massive heart

attack and all attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

 

Exactly one year ago, I had the good fortune to spend three hours

with Bill in Baxter while we patiently waited for a bull moose to

turn into a position where we could photograph him. That was the only

occasion on which I'd spent time with Bill, but in three hours

together on a pond edge people can get to know each other. Bill was a

a gentleman and a fine man in all respects, totally dedicated to

nature and conservation. He'll be missed by many who knew him and his

work. RIP

Bob, Unsharp Mask is NOT a convolution process. If you wish to try to understand it, these links are good starters...

<a href="http://www.mic-d.com/java/digitalimaging/unsharpmask/">Here</a>

&nbspand&nbsp

<a href="http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-usm.shtml">here</a>.

Vladimir, is it closely equivalent to using a logarithmic conversion from a 16-bit to an 8-bit image?

<p><h3>How long do you spend in the digital darkroom?</h3><p>

Much too much - and suffering without the comforting smell of chemicals too!

The safe (and correct) thing to do when you're not printing from the roll is to re-wind all the paper back up on the core while it's still sitting in the printer's roll holder. When I bought my 7600, Epson provided a springy white plastic thing to keep the paper tight on the roll when it was re-wound. If you don't have that, a Velcro srap will do just as well.

I haven't used the multi-sampling, because I haven't needed it. However, my full- resolution scans with ICE take about 5-6 minutes. I wonder if you're using a USB Ver. 1 interface? The USB 2.0 interface is much faster. Other than that, I don't know. Perhaps you should replace your Mac with a PC.

I've been using BusLink 120GB 7200rpm USB2 external drives. The thing I like about the BusLinks versus competitors is that the Buslinks each have their own power switch. Since the drive is powered up only when I'm backing up or retrieving data, it ought have a much better chance for a very long life. The USB2 interface makes these just about as fast as an internal disk. They stack vertically nicely too, so three have the same footprint as one.

<i>So what are you gonna do when you change printers and start getting funny color results?</i><br><br>

 

"Convert to new colorspace and make adjustments as required -- Hue/Saturation, Curves (etc.).

 

No big deal, eh?"<br><br>

 

Well, yuh... it is sort of a big deal. When you saved your data originally in a limited, device-specific color space, you actually compromised the color quality of the data. You can try to hide the problem with those adjustments, but you can't fix it. And the image will never look as good on another printer as it would if it had been initially saved with something like AdobeRGB.

Charles, my own experience is quite different from that. I've had a number of cases where clients have paid to have drum scans done of slides I've shot, and I've subsequently found that my Polaroid SprintScan-4000 produced significantly better results. And my new Minolta 5400 does even better. OTOH, for real problem slides (badly under-exposed, extreme contrast, etc.), the drum scanner certainly will be superior. But for good slides, the best hi-res desktop scanners produce superb results. I've made and sold many hundreds of fine art prints, up to 20x30 in size, from desktop 4000 and 5400 dpi scans (almost all from Velvia film, a few from Provia). And I'm not talking about inexpensive prints either.

The original HP PhotoSmart scanner driven by VueScan does a great job and is easily the most economical solution. However, it's also now a well known solution, so it's become harder and harder to find good prices (e.g., at E-Bay) on the old scanner.

I find it amusing that when you had a problem, you jumped to some off-the-wall conclusion about Epson arrogance. Whenever I have problems like that (and I've had many), I chalk it up to operator error. That's almost always a correct diagnosis and it's also much less off-putting to people who might potentially help me. And, FWIW, I wish more American companies had their act together as well as Epson does.

With respect to Nikon and Canon responding, I have to wonder about how much longer this under-$1K film scanner market will be attractive to so many vendors. At the professional level, film use is already down dramatically. Most portrait/wedding pros are now using digital for a majority of their work. Most commercial photographers are now using digital. Even as of about 18 months ago, nearby Portland Color (formerly Portland Photographics) was telling me that their E-6 volume was down more than 50% due to pros switching to digital. That was 18 months ago! Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Edward, there's a world of difference between the Tamron 28-300 and the Nikon 24-120/VR. The Nikon is much, much better. However, the perceptible differences between the 24-120/VR and a pro-level f/2.8 lens on the D100 are virtually negligible if the 24-120/VR is working at f/8 or better. Ultimately, you're being limited by the resolution and other characteristics of the 6MP CCD array, and that's why I feel the 24-120/VR is a good match for a 6MP DSLR.

Markedly better? I wouldn't go quite that far. It's very slightly sharper, has slightly better contrast, and has a bit less distortion. Its big advantage is the VR feature - which works very, very well. At least, that's my take on it after shooting with it for a week and after comparing it with my older 24-120. It still doesn't qualify as a pro lens for an F5 shooting Velvia, for example, but the D100 (and S2) are much less demanding of lens optical quality.

Like books, manuals for cameras are normally copyrighted. Does anyone know if B&H is authorized by the camera manufacturers to copy manuals and distribute (sell) copied manuals? This seems like it could be an awfully dicey situation.

B&H <b>had</b> it in stock - for a very short while. No longer. Anyone know of anyplace else that has stock???

Does anyone have any knowledge as to whether or not these licensing agreements have been upheld by any court? It seems to me that there are all kinds of onerous things that people are required to sign as part of the purchase of software, but I've heard that frequently the agreements havve no legal standing at all.

Yes, Enhanced Matte is Epson's new name for what was previously called Archival Matte by them.

Many professionals who are the most assiduous about monitor calibration believe that about two years is the useful life of even the best monitors. After that, reliable color calibration becomes excessively difficult.

Dear Mr. Lee,

 

If Mr. Gibson didn't really want critical comments, then he should not have posted the image.

 

FYI, many (most?) serious photographers consider subject selection, lighting, and composition all to be fundamental to the making of a good picture. I consider "poor subject selection" to be a highly valid critical assessment of this photograph.

 

That was, in fact, the most constructive comment I could make. It was difficult, if not impossible, to find any redeeming value to this photograph. Usually, even with bad photographs, it's possible to see what it was that attracted the attention of the photographer, even if the execution was poor. In this case, there's nothing there and not even a hint of anything interesting.

 

Now, that's my honest, critical opinion. You are certainly entitled to a different opinion. However, the whole rationale for posting photographs is to invite a full range of opinions. While one may not feel flattered by some highly critical opinions, they can learn from critical opinions honestly stated.

Poor subject selection, poor composition, poor light - otherwise, an admirable effort.

The F100 is rated for only 3 years of life or 250 rolls, whichever comes first. However, I am collecting expired F100's for distribution to the photographically needy. Sounds like your's is ripe for collection. Send it along!