wind.dk

As DX lenses reduce the incentive for people to buy Nikon DSLRs and subsequently full frame DSLRs (if you're going to buy a set of new lenses anyway, any brand will do; if you already have DX lenses, full frame will require you to buy new lenses again), they'll make 36x24mm full frame bodies either some time before most people have switched to DX (or another brand) or they won't make them at all.

 

So it really depends on how widespread DX lenses have become by the time full frame sensors are economically feasible.

 

If you want a full frame DSLR, don't buy a DX lens, it will send the wrong signal to Nikon.

"1. Silent - Okay, buy why would you need that?? Any silence is negated by your body's mirror slap.

 

2. Fast - Okay, but again, other than convenience, why the need for speed??"

 

All you're saying is that you personally don't need or even feel the slightest want for the silence or the speed. That's hardly a refutation of the arguments.

 

(How do you define the difference between "need" and "convenience" any way. Is the use of fire or heat for preparing food anything more than convenience?)

 

Regarding the mirror slap thing, a whirring motor makes an entirely different kind of noise from that of a shutter mechanism, and even if less in power, it's usually much more noticeable, partly because it hasn't stopped by the time you notice it.

Unless you use your cameras to earn an income, it is indeed financially prudent to sell your film cameras now - and even more prudent not to have bought them in the first place.

 

For amateurs, cameras are not investments, no more than toy trains, camping equipment, DVD players, chess boards or pop science literature. Is it financially prudent to buy a couple of DVD movies?

 

If you don't use your cameras any more either for making pictures or for fondling, by all means sell them, they have lost their value to you. If you do use them, selling them will prevent you from that use, it's your choice.

 

For professionals, cameras are investments only in terms of what income they can generate, just like any other tool. It doesn't take much income to counterbalance the decreasing used prices, if prices do decrease, but if they've already been replaced, then that's it, out it goes.

 

(The Leica purchase excuse of cameras as investments "they can be sold for as much as they cost you" has never been anything but an excuse, supported by a bit of anecdotal evidence, but not really an argument in favour of using a couple of thousand dollars on expensive equipment, when that money would surely give a greater profit if left in the bank)

My ink seems to come to an end with all too great regularity <CODE>:-(</CODE>

Good explanation, but the numbers are wrong. For randomly ("non") polarized light it blocks a bit more than one stop. In principle it should block exactly one stop, but the filters aren't that perfect.

 

For strongly polarized light it blocks considerably more or even considerably less (if you rotate it to give the most dull effect) than half the light, but on average if you just leave it in some random orientation, it blocks a bit more than half the light or one stop.

 

The two stops is a number often repeated for polarizers, but it is supported neither by theory (which gives an average of exactly one stop) nor practice (which gives an average of exactly one stop plus some random not particularly neutral grey filter - can easily be verified with a light meter, as I just did).

 

In any case the number is just an average, and the effect depends a lot on your use of the filter. TTL metering is to be preferred. On an overcast day the average effect of a bit more than one stop can be assumed.

Top eight for me - half a windowful. It would be useful with an option for cross-forum sticky posts to avoid such doubles and triples and use for sitewide announcements and the like (admin initiated only of course), but I think there are plenty of more important things for Brian to take care of these days.

First, great photograph :-)

 

Second, don't expect any lab to have a clue about processing fast black and white film. They may know, but that's the exception.

 

Third, don't expect any lab to bother with decent black and white rush prints. They may do, but that's the exception...

 

Fourth, I guess from the look of it, that it *is* possible to print that negative better. The other lab either didn't care working with a possibly difficult negative or they thought it best to diss their competitor as much as they could.

 

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it has the qualities I with my very limited experience like best for making copies, I like dense negs...

 

Fifth, developing yourself is always recommended, and the number of lost frames need be no larger than zero (it is ridiculously easy, just read a guide like the one from Ilford, and stick to it until you know what you're doing, around the second roll or so, and remember to rotate the tank as well as invert it). The amount of lost paper when making copies is a different matter, but no masterpieces are lost in that part of the process, you just try again.

Hip hop and R&B... Extreme wideangle to begin with (and stick a shoe right in front the lens), postprocessing to finish it. use bright backgrounds and blow out the highlights. That should do it for most (not all, but most) of the HH/R&B videos I've seen - the budgets must be spent mainly on suppressing inventive ideas and the rest on the video equivalent of Photoshop, whatever brand is currently in fashion.

 

I haven't checked the one you reference though, so I may be way off.

As you can deduce from the other answers, yes it does matter that your hand is an arms length away, if your subject is literally a mountain.

 

Your hand is a grey card substitute and a grey card is sort of an incident light meter substitute. An incident lightmeter should be used in the position of the subject and working back from that, so should your hand (if this were the People Photography forum things would start to get interesting at this point :)

 

The key for incident metering is to meter the light that falls on the subject. So the meter needs to be in the same light as the subject. This need not mean the measurement should be made in exactly the same position as the subject, but obviously the greater the distance, the greater the uncertainty, with only a few exceptions.

 

A spot meter is best for this, as your hand should cover the metered area, but if you have a spot meter, then for mountain photography it's probably better to spot meter directly on the mountain.

 

Remember to compensate for your tan also...

If I were in your place, I would get some medium format equipment for serious use and a cheap 35mm SLR with a 50mm and 85mm for snapshots - or even a second-hand rangefinder with 35-50mm and 75-90mm (I *like* those lens combinations). But the main investment in medium format.

 

I haven't got any exact suggestions right off my head, and this may not appeal to you anyway.

 

Maybe the other suggestions for digital equipment is what you'd like (though these cropping factor times are exactly the period where I'd be reluctant to part with any money at all in that direction unless I used it professionally).

 

$3000 USD to spend all at once without having to worry about "backwards" compatibility is a lot of money, I'd really try to think alternatively to what I had before. On the other hand, if your earlier equipment never left you wishing for something else, just go along with your plans.

Incidentally and a little off topic, 1/1 and 7/7 are really the ratings that require *least* comments if there is to be any difference. A 7/7 can't be improved and a 1/1 is hopeless. In between there is potential for improvements, but at the extremes there is no more to say.

 

For a 1/1, how could the "helpful" comment ever be anything materially different from "This picture would have been better if you'd saved the film for another day"...

I did *not* look at the photo you rated, but if all other ratings were 4 or 5 it probably deserves 1 or 2. 4 seems to be the lowest rating people dare give because of fear of retaliation.

 

There is of course nothing about a very high or very low rating that requires *more* explanation than an average rating.

 

Also I think all this may be due to a difference in culture - Americans seem to have this weird belief that nothing is nor should be below average.

 

Det er ganske morsomt at iagttage :-)

 

Så bliv bare ved med at give lave så vel som høje karakterer og ignorer tosserne der gør gengæld eller rapporter det - i alle tilfælde skal man ikke tage de tal alvorligt.

If you really lose two stops there must be plenty of polarized light - unpolarized light (actually randomly polarized - all light is polarized) gives a loss of very little more than one stop through a polarizing filter.

 

Anyway, there's usually plenty of polarized light. Try turning the filter to see. If you don't turn the filter to achieve the effect you like best, you do indeed just lose one or more stops and would be better off without the filter as the effect may just as well be the opposite of what you want - and that goes for all lighting conditions.

This is a bit late I know, but I just happened upon this on the Bay <A HREF="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2974870009&category=15234&ssPageName=Merch06">http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2974870009&category=15234&ssPageName=Merch06</A>. I'd never heard about Reid cameras before, but it looks rather nice. The price however doesn't <CODE>:-(</CODE>

I'm sure a neutral density filter would be better for stopping down without increasing DOF, as adding a black dot in the center will likely create OOF areas with the same usually dreaded attributes as catadioptric lenses. Also the dot method may not stop down equally in all areas of the image (with many lens designs it most certainly will not).

 

The very rare Thambar lens may have been designed to avoid such problems, but with the prices on it I doubt anyone who actually uses cameras for making pictures will ever again have a chance to find out :-D (we're talking a few thousand dollars for something that looks like it has been dragged from the bottom of the ocean)

A polarizer could help with the sky on clear days and even increase contrast a bit in overcast weather, but you will need either the ability to rotate it in the lens or find the correct angle before inserting it and make sure it keeps that orientation.

 

A neutral density filter without graduation will as Edward mentioned only influence the choice of shutter speed and aperture, not the relative amounts of light on different areas of the film.

I'm in sort of the same situation as John Stark, in fact I'm very much looking forward to some day be in a position to support photo.net or eat fast food for a weekend for that matter. Best of all both. (Why is a photo.net subscription always compared to fast food?)

 

(I don't mind the subscription drives, but some of the comments of contempt against non-subscribers in follow-ups would be better unsaid - apart from being unjustified, they do *NOT* encourage subscription, I'd rate them as far more detrimental than some negative "why I don't subscribe" postings, in fact they're the best reason for not subscribing even if you can afford it)

 

In the meantime, I really, really like the design because it is so very 1997 :-D If only some more sites were still 1997ish.

 

How being 1997 is seen as compatible with thinking there are many ads is beyond me though...

Personally I couldn't care less about thorough comparisons of lots of different combinations, but if you want to do it, you owe it to yourself to do it right, so:

 

In order for the negatives to be in any meaningful way comparable to the others you have, it is imperative for you to do your own development with all factors other than film and developer kept constant. I.e. the same water, the same temperature, the same tank and reels, the same agitation moves, the same air for that matter and preferably the same light metering and lenses. "Properly developed" I think is too subjective a term.

 

Getting somebody else's negatives will certainly give you something to compare, but if that comparison leads to the "correct" conclusion, it will be by mere accident. You could as well toss a coin.

Yes, it's worth it. It's what I did for half a year before I recently started a little printing as well. I've only really used one developer for all that time, but even so the results are superior to lab processed B&W, and cheaper. Counting two trips to the shop and back for developing a film, it's also faster for my low volume needs to do it myself.

And I would guess there aren't that many second-hand Leicas in the Chinese market...

One correction and a couple of elaborations:

 

18x24mm does not leave room for the soundtrack. It's aspect ratio is 1.33, common in silent movies. For some reason when soundtracks were introduced, they put in relatively more space between the frames than on the sides, so rather than getting a ratio closer to one (approximately 1.17) we got a ratio of 1.37 (academy).

 

Widescreen formats both "European" (1.66 - typically used by Bergman and therefore Woody Allen) and "American" (1.85 - typically mainstream Hollywood and most of the rest of the World) are achieved by cropping top and bottom and magnifying more. Consequently 1.85 widescreen gives the worst grain of them all, as the image is cropped and magnified most, so it figures it's the most common too...

 

Cinemascope (2.35 - typically Luc Besson and Star Trek) is achieved by using as much of the frame as possible and magnifying twice as much horizontally as vertically using an anamorphic lens (That's where the 1.17 came from above - it's half of 2.35).

 

The analogue soundtrack is placed between the sprockets and the image on the left side as you view it in the theater (so a silent movie will be shown a bit further to the left than a movie with sound, if the cinema has optics for true silent movies - and yes, the effect is quite visible).

 

The Dolby Digital soundtrack is placed between the sprockets on the left side as well and SDDS is placed outside the sprockets on both sides. Time codes for DTS are placed in a very thin band between the analogue soundtrack and the image and can sometimes be seen on the left if the masking isn't good enough.

 

This just about covers 35mm film as it is delivered to normal modern cinemas for display - a movie camera can have even more options, as the sound can be (or is always?) recorded separately, and space doesn't have to be reserved for the soundtrack, as can be seen in Kevin's film strip.

 

In all cases, four sprocket holes are reserved for each frame, and it is exactly this that was doubled to eight for use in still cameras - and the orientation of the film strip rotated by 90 degrees. The thing to distinguish here is the format of the *film* which depends on the width of it (35mm) and the placement and dimensions of the sprocket holes (to lead it through the machinery) and the format of the *images* which depends on the orientation of the film, the masking and the optics. An X-Pan camera for instance uses the same film format but has a completely different image format from normal 35mm still or movie cameras. The film format is best a widespread standard (in principle you can take a strip of motion picture film and put in a Leica, and you can scan motion picture frames in a slide scanner - and believe me the quality sucks), but the image format need not be (at least for still images).

 

So what Barnack did was simply to take 35mm motion picture film (available in large standardized quantities) and make a still image camera using it, choosing an image format and orientation that he found suitable. He did a pretty good job I think :-)

<center><img src="http://www.wind.dk/photographs/inuse/photonet/Y98Scot281.jpg" alt="" border=0 hspace=5 vspace=10><br><i>Scotland '98 headed for Inverness, crappy camera not worth naming</i></center>

"Diffuse" flare shows more strongly in colour pictures, as the colours wash into each other. A lot of grass in the picture - everything turns green. A lot of sky in the picture - everything turns blue.

 

Obviously the flare also deteriorates the quality of black and white pictures, but that may not be nearly as noticeable - in some cases it may even be an advantage, by reducing overall contrast to within the latitude of the film.

 

So yeah, there's a difference, but... I've noticed this effect in a Lomo Smena - I doubt you'll see much of it with any good lens made within the past fifty years...

As far as I can see from your description and a brief look at the K1000 manual, the only thing you describe that you can't do with the K1000, is double exposures.

 

So if you really need a new body for that (I'm not sure what you imply by "old and tired"), I'd definitely recommend another Pentax. With it you can use all the lenses you already have, assuming you don't get one of the new low-end bodies that are incompatible with some of the early lenses, and there are lots of new and second-hand Pentax lenses to choose from if you need more.

 

Unfortunately I don't know Pentax's past and present lineup sufficiently well to pinpoint an appropriate model for you.

The last time I heard about it, the 10D was a Canon camera - any Nikon lens is going to be incompatible with it.

 

Sticking with Nikon, if you seriously consider getting a D100, F80 or similar in the near future, you should get AF lenses. On the other hand, a 50/1.8 is so cheap, you could just forget about even the near future and get whatever you like right now.

 

AF lenses generally have much less dampening of the focus ring than manual focus lenses, but it's very much a personal thing whether that makes any difference - and what difference it makes. Some AF lenses also have a very short focus throw (the angle you turn the ring to change focus) making accurate focus difficult, but none of the 50's should have that problem.