nicholas_wybolt

Leica M6 TTL / 90mm f2.8 wide open / Ektachrome 100VS / All on a

tripod.<div></div>

Walter,

I'm not aware of an on-line tutorial beyond the one that ships with Elements. If you're willing to try another book, I highly recommend "Photoshop Elements 2 Solutions" by Aaland.

-Nick

Hi Steve,

The "place" would be Naperville, IL USA. The tree is a maple in my front yard.

-Nick

Richard,

Thank you for the kind words.

Sorry for the lack of details. The posted photograph was from this morning with my Olympus C-5050, white balance set to "cloudy,", zoom at 50mm, and spot-metering on the leaves. I also shot some Ektachrome 100G with my M7 and 50mm lens at f11 with exposure on AUTO; but they won't be back from processing for a while. Since autumn colors are so fleeting, I thought that I'd post the digital version now.

I turned the bathroom lights on in order to illuminate the inside of the window frame. Outside light was heavy overcast.

-Nick

Justin,

I think one area where the industry can go a lot farther is cost. For example, full-frame DSLRs becoming affordable by prosumer / amateur price standards. The same would hold for medium format backs.

I believe that the latter, for example, would help to re-energize the medium format segment of the industry. Perhaps some joint marketing / pricing strategies would help to buy down the cost of say, the Kodak DCS back.

-Nick

"When the leaves of fall turn brown, the Red Sox will go down." It's true fact.

-Nick

As it turns out, the serial number of the box and the serial number on the camera are the same. I suspect that the labeling of the M7 as having the 0.58 viewfinder on the M7 box from Leica is a mistake. I don't think that Calumet is at fault.

-Nick

I bought a black M7 0.58x viewfinder at the Leice Day hosted by

Calumet Photographic in Bensenville, IL last week. They didn't have

the M7 in stock at the Bensenville store, so one was shipped from

their Chicago store.

Box from Calument arrived the next day. M7 box said "black M7

0.58x" on it. However, out of the box came a black M7 with a 0.85x

viewfinder.

Isn't that special?

Also got to meet Leica district rep Bruce Michelsen. Nice guy.

Very knowledgable and enthusiastic. He didn't have any of the

recently announced gear on-hand as show & tell items. But it was

nice to fondle the MP and the R9.

-Nick

Sanford,

Should you find yourself in or around Union, IL, I highly recommed the Illinois Railway Museum for its cornucopia of peeling paint on a variety of surfaces and in a variety of colors.

I like you image quite a lot. However, the grass doesn't do anything for me.

-Nick

Hi Lindsay,

I've experienced that same thing. When "superslides" were common this problem was rectified by using the appropriate back on your MF camera, provided it was an option. In general, I have found that the 35mm requirement was more of an economic decision rather than an issue of fairness.

The group that I currently hang out with (not really a camera club) addresses this problem through digital projection. The downside is that this requires MF users to have their transparencies / negatives scanned. We set aside time to view projected slides, projected digital images, and traditional / digital prints.

-Nick

Marco,

I use the Adobe Camera RAW plugin with Photoshop on the Mac. Works just fine. $99.

-Nick

After reading Kodak's own <a href="http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/pressReleases/pr20030925-01.shtml">announcement</a> I'm inclined to believe that "shifting investments" doesn't imply that film is dead at Kodak. I wouldn't expect any significant R&D dollars to be directed at new chemical processes or film products and we'll likely see some products retired.

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If Kodak wants to go after the strategies outlined in their announcement, they need to re-direct investments. That's B-School 101.

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It would be nice to see the prices for some of their digital products (e.g., DCS backs) come down as part of this strategy.

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-Nick

Hi Barry,

Wildi's "Hasselblad Manual" has tables presenting this information for the 80mm lens with all of the extension tubes. Other lenses are covered, as well.

There is also a close-up photography document on the Hasselblad USA website at http://www.hasselbladusa.com/Archive/documents/Downloads_files/Information/Closeup.pdf .

-Nick

Jesper,

I find the parallax error on my Olympus C-5050 to be sufficiently bad that I rarely use it. I shoot almost exclusively with the LCD.

-Nick

Sam A,

You need to read the TSA regulation and the recent advisory re: cameras and other electronic doo-dads carefully. You may request a hand inspection of film, not a camera.

With all due respect to your friend, a professional photographer should be savvy enough not be going through airport security with a loaded camera as the TSA may open a camera to inspect its insides (which would probably be entertaining with a digitial SLR...).

-Nick

David,

Two recent articles that might be of interest are "How to Manage Large Image Libraries with iPhoto 2" at http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/06/17/iphoto2.html and "The Digital Shoebox: Organizing Images on Your Computer," that appeared in the Aug/Sep 2003 issue of Camera Arts.

You might also want to get a copy of "iPhoto 2: The Missing Manual" by Derrick Story.

-Nick

Travis,

My daughter (17) has been a life-long snapshooter, mostly using disposable cameras. Last year she got more serious and now has a Canon EOS Rebel and shoots mostly B&W (Portra 400BW 'cuz it can go to the one hour lab).

This year she will learn darkroom techniques in school.

-Nick

Bob,

My daughter travelled between Chicago and Seattle the week after the advisory was issued. TSA folks at both airports let her camera bag (Canon SLR, lenses, film, cable release, filters - No flash unit) sail through the security checkpoint without any additional inspections. She did not ask for hand inspection of her film at either airport.

Your mileage may vary.

-Nick

Hi Craig,

You can produce very competent 8x10 prints with say, a 10D and Epson 2200 combination. Don't know enough about the Digital Rebel to render an opinion on it.

Do keep in mind that there is a 1.6X factor with the 10D or with the Digital Rebel. Depending on what kind of lens you have, you may find that it's not wide enough for your needs on a digital body.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

-Nick

Great news. Good luck and have fun.

-Nick

Travis,

I don't think that the "wow" is solely attributable to the quality of the raw landscape. Although it is easier to produce a good photograph with compelling subject matter.

Lighting, composition, technique, print technique, all contribute to the "wow" response. For example, my "wow" response to a number of Ansel Adams landscape changed when I viewed the images in the "Ansel Adams at 100" exhibit. AA reprinted a number of images later in life based on how he was feeling about the environment and other factors. For me, the "wow" went up and down based on his reinterpretation relative to prints that he made earlier.

Personally, I'm less wowed by the grand landscape then I am by say, Eliot Porter's studies of details within the landscape.

Good topic.

-Nick

anno,

Fred Miranda (www.fredmiranda.com) has a soft focus action -- Don't know if this is what you're looking for, but it might be worth a peek.

-Nick

Peter,

The practice of reinstalling a Windows OS periodically to fix configuration problems, fix a damaged installation, or to improve performance is fairly common. While you're not likely to find this advice in a manufacturer's documentation, it's passed on using the oral tradition by many support desks.

I recently sent my Toshiba notebook back to the factory for warranty service (less than one year old). Once the hardware repair was completed, the technical support engineer responsible for my ticket advised doing a complete reinstall of Windows XP because system startup time is slower than it should be. I have also received the same advice from Dell regarding the home desktop.

While Windows XP, for example, is superior to previous versions of Windows IMHO, it still suffers from many of the problems of its predecessors with respect to leaks, leaving around 1 byte and 0 byte length files, extraneous registry entries, and the like. The cost of the transaction to backup and reinstall is often less than (knowing where to) poking around to clean things up.

I suspect that if you surf the various support forums or the "...in a Nutshell" books, that you may find the same advice. This was also a common practice that I performed during my tenure as a systems adminstrator. Most of the developers where unaware that this was even occuring.

-Nick