Wouter Willemse

Not in place yet, and I think it'll take some time - photo editors will need to have support for the file formats, as well as the leading desktop operating systems (and possibly browsers), and probably only then the camera manufacterers may add it as an optional new format, to new released cameras. So it's reasonably safe to assume it will come sooner or later, but I wouldn't bet on "sooner".

I've been fortunate enough to turn a hobby into my job, and as time passed, the hobby was gone. It had become work, and the passion I had for it became simple professional dedication to being a bit better at doing that job. The vacant spot in hobby-land was taken by photography, and I've always realised for myself that it should never become a job - because I need the creative outlet, and the stimulus of that creative activity. And I like photography for that - but I know it means I have to do it on my terms, and my terms alone. So that pretty much rules out working with clients that pose requirements :-) Not saying you shouldn't do it, but apart from the "warnings" above about running a business and doing the necessary marketing, do consider that there might be a difference between making photos without any consideration other than your own creative vision (when you like to, the way you like to), and delivering professional work on demand, the way the customer asked. We're all different in this respect, so maybe for you it's no issue, but as a consideration upfront, it's worth thinking about.

In all fairness, the Dell U2413 is a reasonably affordable screen; apart from the consideration whether its panel uniformity would be acceptable or not, I'd also consider what it would cost to improve upon it, and whether that still fits the budget. Little doubt there are better screens available, but most of those command a pretty serious amount of money more than this Dell. Personally I have the Dell U2412M mentioned before, and sure it's not 98% Adobe RGB and not perfect by any stretch of imagination, it does the job for me because I know a serious step up would cost significantly more (screens as the NEC SpectraView 24"), which at present I couldn't justify. My prints are consistent enough with the screen on most papers, again it's not perfect but it's not so far off that I need to regularly throw away prints. So, while things certainly could be better, it is working now - maybe not a perfect screen, but a good screen nonetheless, and good enough for my needs. And that's the point: most of us have to draw a line somewhere when it comes to budget, and then it's about getting something that does the job good enough since perfection is too expensive. Of course, if your budget stretches well beyond this Dell, I would look around for a better screen. But at a budget, you will have to factor in compromises, and you have to consider just how vital the "colour correctness" is between your screen and printer - it's fair to say somebody doing prepress work or delivering high-end art prints have different requirements than amateurs who appreciate a well-done print.

Apart from the suggestions on film already given, at the core since you're used to shooting slides, you're probably already perfectly OK with exposing correctly. Slide film is a lot more touchy when it comes to exposure errors. As for the film: XP2 is indeed a very nice option. That said, developing at home isn't hard, does not require a dark room (as many think) and it adds a level of satisfaction of having crafted the image oneself. It's worth considering, as a "next challenge". In fact, this is the key reason why I once started with B&W film - to better train that pre-visualisation on how a scene will render in B&W. I guess there are no hard and clear rules, but to me there are some clear differences in "seeing in colour" and "seeing monochromatic"; in the monochromatic you have to be aware of tonality. Since colours tend to look different enough, it can be hard to understand that they'll end up being a similar grey. Take a tomato plant. In colour, you get the green leaves clearly distinct from the red tomatoes. But in B&W, the red and the green end up a very similar shade of grey, unless you use a filter. Without colour, another thing that seems more apparent are textures, and differences in textures. Which indeed leads (in a way) to B&W being more graphic normally. I don't know if it is really more emphasis on the content, but without colour, especially for landscape/nature, you do need to be more aware about the composition - a nice field of spring flowers makes a lovely colour image, but in B&W it won't do much. That all said, it comes automatically after a while. Get started, maybe start shooting without filters first to understand how colours pan out, and then a bit later add a yellow or orange filter to your kit.

I came home from that same fair having bought...... nothing :eek:. I am still amazed at having achieved that, there was plenty temptation.... The olive Werra as above kept me doubting a fair deal, but I have enough Werra's as it is. I hoped for some of the slightly-less-usual Jupiter lenses for my Kiev, but while there were plenty Jupiter-8 and Helios-103 around, I haven't seen any of the others..... So, I managed to stay on the self-induced leash. I'm not enough of a collector, probably, :-) Worse: didn't even finish the roll in the Werra I brought.....

Categories do not exist because of popularity, but for a certain logic in splitting up topics. HDR fits perfectly fine in digital darkroom, while Aerial & Drone doesn't really fit anywhere else. Plus, why would HDR be so much more popular? Seems like an assumption or a personal preference at best. Less categories would - in my view - be better anyway. Too much niche forums doesn't help navigation one bit, and spreads the attention of members thin across all those categories, which with the reduced number of people actively contributing, seems completely counter-productive.

Congratulations, David! This week a couple of shots from my Canonet QL17 with Delta 100, developed in HC110. A bit overdeveloped unfortunately, which my scanner doesn't appreciate.

A bit late.... I'm going to swim against the advice given so far: no, I would not invest a dime in an 8-year old system. I would put the money aside to start saving up for a new system instead. The big exception is a monitor, since you don't need change monitors when you change desktops, so those "upgrade paths" can run independent of one another. But at this point, adding RAM or a SSD to a system that statistically is increasingly likely to fail, to me sounds like a waste of good money.

Which is a completely right question indeed. It need not be either/or, nor do zooms affect creativity in any negative way by themselves. Yet....speaking only for myself obviously, I tend to prefer primes, and manual focus primes more so than AF primes. It's partially because the ones I have tend to be chosen for character more than anything else, so they tend to push me to particular types of images where those lenses can leave their own distinct fingerprint in (hopefully) a good way. Whereas the zooms I have are chosen for versatile, ease of use and being allround reliable companions that will get me consistent results. And when I use the zooms, I sort of miss the previsualisation that I do have with primes - that is my flaw, not a lens fault, but it happens to work that way. Likewise, when I use AF lenses somehow I feel like I forgot to do something. Again, my quirk. So, yes, somehow the primes I use seem to work better for me, just because things have worked out that way. I can completely imagine for others, their zoomlens of choice can have the exact same effect. It's not an either/or, but rather chosing gear carefully to match your own prefered way of working and the results you have in mind. (No turntable, no fountain pen, no oldtimer car etc., so you can do all this, and still just generally feel fine with contemporary items)

Just another vote for Orange filter.... I find it the perfect balance. Red is often just too much, and with yellow filters too often I was left a bit underwhelmed. So got orange filters for most of my cameras. I have found that in the more exotic filtersizes, they can be harder to find that yellow filters, but all in all twith a bit of patience, eBay can deliver :-).

Frankly, things become a lot easier if you do develop some fondness for the terms - since it makes it much easier to understand explanations given. Troubleshooting expsoure issues without understanding what's what, is not really going to work. A good learning book is 'Understanding Exposure' by Bryan Peterson - it covers the important basics in a clear and accessible way. Alternatively, a short version of that book is available in the Learning Section on this site. Shooting all auto on a Canon SLR should at least give a reasonably well-exposed image (and most of the time, a quite perfectly exposed image). So I too expect something could be wrong with the camera. Either way, shooting with everything on auto with film is not very educational, unless you note for each frame which settings the camera (shutter speed, aperture) has chosen for you. You'll learn a great deal more once you start shooting in the Av, Tv or M modes, though, and take more control. While I like shooting film, I do agree that for learning, digital has clear benefits: make more shots without a price penalty, makes it easier to experiment and test different settings, and you keep the information on the settings used in the file, so also in retrospect it's easier to understand why an image came out the way it did.

.... and suddenly I have an idea what to do this weekend. My wallet will probably not like me for it :-) If I go, probably with a Werra 3.

An inktjet paper worth considering could be Ilford Gold Mono Silk.

Thanks for bringing this technique to the attention! (= I was not familiar at all with the technique indeed!). The best forum here would probably be the digital darkroom, it covers issues around inkjet printing somewhat regularly.

If you have a decent smartphone, there are a lot of apps available that turn your smartphone into a decent lightmeter. Some of them are free, and work just fine. If you frequently shoot old(er) cameras, getting a dedicated lightmeter might be worth it. Since you only need the batteries for the metering, I would look for alternatives like this. My Nikkormat FT works perfectly, but I never bothered with its meter - my smartphone does just as well, and for a lot of occassions, Sunny 16 works decent too.

Well, at least one ingredient for a sandwich is in the image.....

The vignetting is all natural; the image is minimally processed.

Glad to see I'm not alone anymore at seeing the virtue of the 35mm f/1.4 AiS wide open. It's all about character indeed - a marmite thing, but if you love it, it is the one lens to get.

It's been too warm lately to develop the measely one roll I've shot in the last month (more or less).... so one from some time ago. Ilford FP4 in Pyrocat HD / Leica R6, Summicron-R 50mm

MS DOS was limited to 8.3 file names. WordPerfect for DOS as a result also had 8.3 filenames; no DOS program could do 10 character filenames since the file system had no support for it whatsoever. I never heard many people complain about WP5.1 actually, apart from it being a rather technical program... like nearly all software at that time. The biggest problem for WordPerfect were the first two versions for Windows 3.1: WP5.2 was slow, needed more memory than most had and looked outdated compared to Word 6, while WP6 was great at consuming loads of memory, at a time that was still a very precious commodity, and wasn't particularly stable. WP6.1 was actually really nice, but came too late. The versions of Word and Excel that swayed people from WP and 1-2-3 were Word 6 and Excel 5 mostly. Those were released well after Win 3.1, and it wasn't businesses that drove Windows 3.1 adaptation all that hard - until 3.11 became available, networking in Windows 3.x was missing a lot. And to run all of these a bit speedy, you really wanted a 486; 386 was sluggish and the 286 missed support to address the additional memory that Windows 3.1 application loved. Anyway. Hopefully Nikon will be smart enough to officially properly license this lens mount, to ensure they're not alone in building a lens line-up that is interesting enough. We'll see.

Come on, all responses already answered that question by now. The D810.

The assumption that larger pixels equals better quality is maybe true for sensors of the same generation at higher ISO. For studio work where you can use the base ISO of the sensor, higher resolution tends to win despite smaller pixel sites on the sensor. And then there are the generational leaps ahead, since development hasn’t stopped.... so the much newer D810 can actually equal the ISO3200 performance of a D700 with its much larger sensor sites. At lower sensitivity.... no contest.

Welkom op p.net! Probably you'll find the Classic Manual Camera forum satisfies a lot of the interest for B&W film photography. A huge wealth of knowledge available there, and plenty activity. Looking forward to see your photos.

I know a lot of people prefer the f/2.8 Tokina lenses, but the wider zoom range of the f/4 lenses is definitely a plus too, in my view. I used to have the 12-24 f/4, which is a really nice lens too - optically, and also has a nice solid feel. The extra 4 mm at the long end can be the difference between frequent lens changes or not. If you mainly work in daylight, the slower aperture need not be a problem, maybe. That said, the 11-20 combined with the 35mm f/1.8DX is a good idea too. Yes, used the Ai 24mm f/2.8 (which is optically identical to the AF-D version) on my D300. It's not a bad lens, but not great either. It does the job, and gets the 35mm look. No surprises really, of any kind.

Enjoy it!