Robin Smith

If you must take film take an OM2 + 35mm f2 and 100mm f2. Digital: Olympus 17mm F1.8, Olympus 25mm F1.8, 7Artisans 35mm F1.2 With the OM to m43 adapter, you could use the 100mm f2 on your Em1, which would be nice for a 200mm equiv view on digital. Good for mountains. You might want the Spiratone I suppose. I hate the thought of deciding what is worth taking with film and what is better digital or vice versa: you could avoid the brain ache and the extra clutter by leaving either film or digital behind altogether.

I too doubt this is in any way accurate, but have no way of proving it. I have now viewed it and my retinas are damaged beyond repair.

I am not sure that in English drinking the sound is anything we really say, and I agree that a wine glass or beer glass etc would be better.

Always better to get the original matching teleconverters for image quality and AF speed in my experience. AF speed and/or accuracy will always decrease to some degree though.

How erotic does she want to be? Are you happy with erotic or even mildly titillating content? To me boudoir stuff is usually rather tacky. Are you happy with that? If you embrace people's perhaps more sexual side then go ahead, otherwise an extremely awkward session may result, which may be embarrassing for both parties. I'd stay clear unless you are confident in these matters and suggest she finds someone else. If you must proceed, you need to ask her to be more precise in what she has in mind. Maybe she has something really tame in mind, but you should find out, it is hard to guess.

I had the 70-300L for many years and it is excellent. At equivalent apertures to the 70-300L (i.e f4-16) the 70-200mm ver 1 may be a little better. With the 1.4X TC the 70-200mm is still very good. It is a little difficult to compare because the max aperture of the TC combination will be f4 whereas the 70-300L will be f5.6 at 300mm, but I would expect that the 300L may be slightly better than the 280mm (200+1.4X) at 300mm, but I suspect it would be close. I never made a direct comparison myself (I had the 70-200 f2.8 ver II). The 70-200mm f2.8 are very useful lenses, and for most general purposes may be a better fit for people who only occasionally want to go longer, because adding a 1.4X TC is a pain. I agree with JD though, you could look for the 1st version of the 100-400mm L if you need something longer. I liked the 70-300L because it easily fitted in a bag and yet had the quality and instant tele up to 300mm. I could also suggest the 70-200mm f4 IS lenses which in my opinion are as good if not better than the f2.8 versions and are much lighter. If you add a 1.4X TC then you are 280mm f5.6, about the same as the 70-300L when zoomed to 300. They are a very good price these days. I have never used a 2X TC, but all reports say that the performance is much worse than with the 1.4X.

I generally think the photos do represent "natural" landscapes, so I can see why they do not fall foul of the rules. My bete noir is milky way/landscape composites and there is a typical example in one the winners. Seeing the milky way like that is completely unnatural, but I seem to be in a minority.

Whether a Gitzo tripod would have broken the same way after an identical fall has not been tested, so your reaction to Benro’s demise is not necessarily justified. I would not spend for a Gitzo or a RRS when there are so many excellent Asian made rivals. Once this was not the case but it is now. I also happen to like Manfrotto, although some people dislike their often slightly different look compared to most other tripods.

Photonet used to be a reasonable gallery site, but it now is not. I’ve given up with it. So many silly irritating things too, which never get fixed. The forums are working OK, so it is not a dead loss.

I knew someone would say that. This has not so far happened to my slides from the last 40 years, I suspect because I have kept them in the dark and in a dry environment and most are Kodachromes which used to be thought to be more resilient, although my E6 slides are OK too. No doubt there is some subtle color shifting going on, which I am not noticing, but so far nothing drastic.

I would never have kept a slide with ugly magenta color cast, so doesn't apply to me in that case, but yes, you can improve color if it is off. The red cast under tungsten light is a case in point. If I was unable to reduce it satisfactorily I would probably just convert to black and white.

When scanning Kodachromes or any slides I find one needs to carefully compare your result with the original and try and match the best you can, being sure you have a calibrated monitor and also are viewing the slide with a good consistent daylight light source. A really good match is sometimes impossible in all details, a certain amount of subjective decision making is required. Like all color matching it is important to not allow yourself too much time immersed on one slide in any session because your brain tends to start compensating for poor color so much that you can stop noticing that the shadows are blue or that the grays are magenta. At least with a slide you do have a point of reference though, unlike negatives where you may have to rely a good deal on memory.

The thing I find the best in my mirrorless is the superb in body IS aided by the full electronic shutter (no vibration). This is quite miraculous even compared to the lens-based IS of my DSLR. The things that Ed mentions are indeed nice to have, but to my mind not essential for most photography if your experience of photography stretches back to film and you have a fairly recent DSLR. I also like the much smaller footprint, but in my case this is largely because I have opted for a smaller format.

Not anti-reflection effects (I vanishingly rarely need those), selective sky exposure reduction and changing blue channel luminosity post processing darkens skies easily.

I gave up using polarizers and neutral grad filters years ago as I can do all I need in software. I bought finally got around to buying some ND filters and then got the OM1 which has them built in via software so I don't need them anymore. Pretty well given up using a tripod too. So I need less stuff than before. When I bought the Canon 5DIV I think it was a poor return on my investment. It was better than the 6D, but not $1500 better and the camera was bigger. I have no intention of ever spending >$2500 on a camera again. What I need is good light and good subjects, which is what it is all about in the end.

Add my agreement. There is no point in trying to make color negative film look like modern digital output. People are still shooting film precisely because they like the look of these emulsions. The shot you posted looks good. Although different to C41, I want my Kodachromes to look like Kodachromes when scanned.

The quality of output (FF vs APS) is probably not really worth fussing about, despite what one reads on sites like these. I think the A6400 may be a bit snappier in use. I still would pick the A7ii as the A7 series are an ongoing series, while I suspect the A6000 series may not be. The number of expressly APS lenses is also less than the number of new and s/h FF E series lenses.

I'd pick the A7, as there are more lenses available expressly designed for it. Fancy AF is not essential for most people, but agree it might be worth asking him. If he has no idea then get him the A7II

Not my experience I have to say for up to 15 fps. I have had no issue with being able to follow the action. I did with the mkII, although I managed. I have yet to have to change a battery on a day's shooting. The 2000 shots were with the mechanical shutter too. But of course if you leave the camera on and/or use the monitor more the power drains faster. Dual IS may drain the battery more, but this has become a non-issue for me so far perhaps because I generally don't use the 12-100mm for action shots.

Gary. fyi the OM1 has no discernible lag even at 15-20 fps, and the battery life is much better than the EM1mkII. I shot 2000 frames and there was still plenty of life left in the battery. It is almost as good as my Canon 5DIV, or so it seems. WRT to subject tracking, I agree for team sports it is not great for the reason you state, but there is of course no reason to blame the camera. It is not a human .

Oh boy, you have not been attending for the last 5-10 years! As Rick says, this is the newish source of revenue for the camera makers. New cameras with a whole new set of lenses at high prices. In terms of what they can do over the DSLR: well in general they tend to have image stabilization in the body (good) and the electronic viewfinder has advantages in previsualization of exposure (good), but only expensive ones have no image lag for fast-moving subjects, other electronic do-dads have been added, (neutral density filters, in camera focus stacking/bracketing etc), but these could have been added to DSLRs too. Electronic shutters are silent and vibration free (but many still produce distortion in fast-moving subjects). Mirrorless bodies tend to be smaller than DSLRs (probably good), lenses not so different. Lenses are probably better over the last 10 years, but this is independent of mirrorless/DSLR tech. AF technology is better as mirrorless allows more accuracy with focus points all over the frame (good). Battery life is poorer than DSLRs, but newer mirrorless are better in this regard. Is it a revolution? Not in my book, but many think it is. To me the revolution was the introduction of digital over film, everything else is just a number of iterations. Most current DSLRs remain very capable tools. The main task of camera makers is to convince people like you that photography is impossible without a new mirrorless camera. Eventually all the DSLRs will wear out, but that is a long time coming.

I too will no longer be posting here as the whole gallery thing is hopeless. I'd delete the lot I have here, but probably won't because it will be too much work. I'm expecting go to Flickr. I have a free account at present. The presentation of shots is much better there anyway. I'll still be on Photonet, but no photos from me. I can't believe how poor the site is here even to login. Rather pathetic after all this time. No one wants to fix it either.

Bummer, Sanford. But you'll get over it if it doesn't affect functionality. It's like a scratch on a new car.