benbangerter

<p>Mark,<br>

I do like the very large prints - lots of detail, and a bit like looking through a window at the scene. It would have been very expensive to make prints like these just a few years ago, but with high resolution scans of the large negatives and current large format inkjet printers, it is straightforward and (relatively) inexpensive. The candid NYC subway photos didn't amount to much, and the collections of color polaroid photos of friends and acquaintances didn't do anything for me either. </p>

<p>Perhaps Ilford Galerie Smooth Lustre Duo might work? Fairly smooth shiny surface, double sided, but takes matte black ink.</p>

<p>There is a nice exhibit of Walker Evans' work at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT. It focuses on his work for the FSA in the '30s (of course), his later work with Fortune Magazine, and subsequent work while with Yale University, including Polaroid color photos with the SX-70. Some of the prints are gelatin/silver contact prints, most are archival pigment (i.e. high-end inkjet) from scanned negatives, with some large ones, up to 4' by 5' or so. Here is the link:</p>

<p><a href="http://walkerevans.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/introduction/index.php5">http://walkerevans.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/introduction/index.php5</a></p>

<p>For those who are unfamiliar with this museum, the Florence Griswold is a nice little museum just off I-95 in Old Lyme, CT, a two hour drive from either Boston or New York City. It honors an important colony of American tonalist and impressionist painters in the first decades of the 20th century, as well as hosting temporary exhibitions. Well worth a visit. The Walker Evans exhibit ends January 29.</p>

<p>You will have to focus and set the aperture manually. Set the exposure mode to Av, open the lens to the widest aperture, focus, close down the aperture to the desired value (i.e. for the shutter speed or depth of field you want), trip the shutter. In most situations, that is what you will do.</p>

<p>Here is what the setup looks like:</p><div></div>

<p>I use this: <a href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99851435">http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99851435</a> to hold my sp3800, and the drawer unit Alan recommends fits neatly beneath it, holding paper and ink supplies and flat print storage.</p>

<p>Depictions of the banality of evil...</p>

<p>I have an Acer Scanwit 2720 and two 2740s. I use one of the 2740s; the other two are for backup, as these have been out of production for some time and repair parts are not available from Benq (nee Acer). An Adaptec SCSI card is the interface, in a desktop PC running WinXP. I found that without the SCSI bus terminator, the SCSI card would hang the boot process if the scanner was not powered on. Using Vuescan, I find the scanner does a good job for the cost. There is a Yahoo! group for the Acer/Benq film scanners, which is your best source of assistance with these units:</p>

<p><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2720/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2720/</a></p>

<p>Financial fraud is a cornerstone of the Nigerian economy, second only to oil production I believe.</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses Mike and Doug.</p>

<p>What might this fine bird be? Photographed at Ding Darling NWR Feb 6 2011. Perusal of the Sibley guide suggests a cattle egret (adult, nonbreeding) as the likely candidate, though as I recall this specimen seemed a bit smaller than the expected adult size.<br>

[For the curious: Canon 5D, Pentax SMC-Takumar 200mm f/4 lens (M42 mount), ISO 800, exposure 1/3200 sec at f/5.6 or f/8, hand-held. I gotta get me a 70-200 lens with IS!]</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks for your various opinions fellows. I went to the Sibley guide and am now convinced this is a black-crowned night heron. The difference in the feather pattern between this bird and the YCNH shown in my earlier post was the clincher. Sibley's illustrations are very good matches to both juvenile herons I photographed.</p>

<p>Reduced photo size for in-line viewing:</p><div></div>

<p>Might this be an immature black-crowned night heron? Photographed at Ding Darling NWR on Feb 6 2011:</p>

<p>Thanks Roger. I generally find immature birds a bit confusing!</p>

<p>Can anyone identify this immature heron, photographed at Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel Island, FL, Feb 6 2011:</p><div></div>

<p>Dan, a quote from Shakespeare might be appropriate here:</p>

<p>"Men at some time are masters of their fates:<br>

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,<br>

But in ourselves..."</p>

<p>(Just substitute "Dan" for "Brutus" and "Vuescan" for "our stars")</p>

<p>JDM has offered some good advice, but don't let him lead you astray on the question of perspective. He states: "Shorter lenses will exaggerate the nearer elements of the face whereas longer focal lengths will 'flatten' the face" but that just ain't so! These are matters of perspective, which is not an attribute of a lens but depends solely on the distance of the camera from the subject.</p>

<p>Your SP3880 nozzle check pattern should look like this. This is from my SP3800 (scanned at 600 ppi, so the colors are a bit missed up). Inks left to right are: K lK llK C M lC lM Y.</p><div></div>

<p>I have photographed many b/w negatives, 2.25x2.25" and larger, taped to a lightbox. I used Canon 300D and 5D bodies with an old 50mm Takumar macro lens. It is important to avoid reflections from the negative due to ambient room light. I was very pleased with the results, and for me this procedure is significantly faster than using a flatbed scanner. Prints up to 8x10" are quite acceptable. These negatives were from the 1920s-1960s, and I suspect the cameras used were a variety of box and folding cameras of that era. So the lenses used to take the photos were less than wonderful. If your negatives were taken with good lenses and good technique, you might not be pleased with this method. Here is an example:</p><div></div>

<p>I lost some images on a CF card, so purchased ($39) and downloaded "Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery." This recovered all the image files on the card, though not with the original file names.</p>

<p>Another vote for 90 cd/m^2. This works well for me with a NEC LCD2690WUXi, calibrated with SpectraView and the Eye-One Display2, with prints made on an Epson SP3800. Andrew's point about adjusting monitor luminance and print illumination for the best match is of course correct. BUT - the problem is, prints are ordinarily viewed under a variety of illumination conditions that may depart greatly from the illumination provided by a carefully controlled viewing booth environment. If I use a monitor luminance higher than 90-100 cd/m^2, my prints look "too dark" under the variety of lighting conditions in which I view them. YMMV, of course.</p>

<p>I think your use of default contrast might pose a problem as well - ~800:1 seems much too high to me. A typical print might have a contrast range in the area of 200-300:1. Are you comparing your prints to the soft-proof representation on-screen?</p>

<p>This looks more like a problem with the reflex mirror to me. In any event, it is time for a new camera. Lucky you!</p>

<p>I assume you printed a nozzle check and all inks are flowing?</p>

<p>Ed: "... the perspective created by a lens in the 80-100mm range approaches that of the human eye..."<br>

Um, perspective is not an attribute of a lens.</p>