j.luis aranda

It is a present, right? Ask for the 20D, sell it, and get the D70 and a good prime lens with the difference. That is, unless you prefer the 20D or care about whoever is going to treat you. ;)</p>

No, seriously. The 20D seems a terrific camera, don't get me worng. I got a D70 a few months ago and am happy with it. Could it be better? Sure it could. But I did not care to pay for the difference. I already owned a FM3A as you do, and I appreciate being able to share the lenses and switch from digital to film at will; although that excludes AI and DX lenses. Do you plan to keep the FM3A? </p>

Regarding resolution, do you really need 8 megapixels? Consider the largest size you pretend to print, that should hint you. 6 is plenty for me, although I appreciate it when in need of a tight crop.</p>

As Zhi-Da says, enjoy whatever you choose.

Never tried iTTL in commander mode. But have successfully used one single SB 800, triggered wirelesly using the built-in flash in manual mode. I would expect TTL to work as well following this process. </p>

You need to set your flash unit in commander mode. Make sure you use the right channel, 2 or 3, can't remember (check the manual, I don't have it with me). Then set your camera flash custom setting to commander mode as well. Choose TTL, AA or M. In M, you can set the power level you want the remote unit to use. And make sure the sensor in the SB 800 sees the light from the built-in flash.

I'd say Michael means the marquee tool, not the crop tool.</p>

Select the rectangular marwuee tool, set it to Fixed Size, set the size desired, and place the marquee where needed. Have the image zoomed to 100% fir finer placement control. Then use the Crop comand in the Image menu.</p>

Regards,</p>

joseluis

Matthew,</p>

In theory, setting your camera to Adobe 98 RGB should maximize the gamut, the width of colours avaible for your capture. You should get more color detail, smoother color gradations. But your monitor may not be able to display all those colors, and the result may well lack push. sRGB was designed precisely to ensure that most any monitor should be able to display the colors in that particular space.</p>

So once done editing, transform your image to sRGB. As the color space is smaller, some colors will not be available and need to be mapped to colors existing in sRGB. How these colors are mapped is controlled by the <i>rendering intent</i>.Perceptual and Relative colorimetric are usually recommended for photography. Try experimenting a bit with the transformation see if you find a way to get the colors you are looking for.</p>

I have no experience with the 1Ds, I actually use Nikons, so I can only try to help with some color theory. Hope it helps anyway.</p>

Good luck.

Converting from Adobe98 RGB to a narrower spacelike sRGB some data is lost. If you convert back to Adobe98 RGB, you won't get back lost color information.</p>

Similarly, shooting in sRGB and converting to Adobe98 RBG will not add information, it will only provide a wider space to edit. Why not shooting and editing in AdobeRGB, and converting to sRGB as a last step</p>

Finally, sRGB will normally produce more saturated colors, as it better reflects the colors available in a typical monitor (not necessarilly a good one).

Lars, never been there. But thought the MIT <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~mike/fp/bhutan/index.php">Bhutan project</a>, the largest published book in the world (so far at least), may interest you. <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~mike/">Michael Hawley</a> provides some info on how the project was planned and executed as well. There should be a slideshow somewhere <a href="http://ark.media.mit.edu/">here</a></p>

Hope it helps.

I would need something I trust to compare it to. If you regularly use <i>sunny 16</i> when shooting, that is probably the way to go. The same is true for transfering exposure measures from a handheld meter or a second body. Check the histogram and fine tune exposure until you get what you expect.</p>

But unless you use <i>sunny 16</i>, I don't see why should I bother. Or should I?</p>

This is a recurring topic. See <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00A72z&unified_p=1">here</a> for latest thread just a few minutes ago.</p>

The number you see in the LCD is the number of uncompressed images you may get. As files are compressed you indeed get more on your card. Rule of thumb, twice the figure reported by the camera.</p>

Check your manual, I'd bet it is explained somewhere.</p>

Check these previous threads:</p>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009iNM">Flash Compatability with Nikon D70</a></p>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009eL3">SB-28 for my D70</a>

you may find this other <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009z9z">thread</a> interesting.</p>

I've tried ussing a Hama lead bag to store film in it while flying. Most of the times the scanning-guy started to put the bag through the scanner back and forth, probably with power set to maximum, trying to see through that black big thing inside my bag. At the end I was requested to open the bag anyway.</p>

Politely requesting for a hand check has worked for me most of the times, saving avoiding many scans.

It is additive indeed. The same effect than shooting multiple exposures. Although a few passes with low sensitivity film should be OK. I even once checked 6 rolls of film with my baggage by mistake. Not even mine but my wife's. :( Boy I was happy when I saw the shots coming back from the lab with nothing noticeable. FYI that was Fuji 400 negative film.</p>

And I have also run into a *#@ that did not listen to me when I begged that he inspected my 3200!!, which is suppossed to be way over the limit. No way, "these machines are safe for film!" was his only answer while he got the film through the scanner. Could not believe it! Fortunately I had not used the film yet, so I just threw it away. BTW, no need to be in a "Banana Republic". This happened at Charles Paris de Gaulle, Paris a year ago. That guy's boss told him some nasty things when he heard what happened. Not that I speak French, but you can tell from the tone. </p>

Hope it helps.

Michael,

You have two alternatives. Well, probably many more, but let's simplify a bit. You can shoot NEF (Nikon's compressed RAW format) and edit your images digitally (lot's of fun, tons of work). Or you can use JPEG and let the camera do the processing for you (less work, less control).</p>

Using a 1GB card you will get a little over 180 NEF shots, and I think over 300 JPEGs(Large/Fine). So 1-6 rolls, 36 frames per roll, ... you do the math. One advice though, I shoot many more frames now with digital as I am not concerned about lab costs, so be generous with storage.</p>

Regarding brands, I've seen people posting questions about incompatibility of certain brands not supported by Nikon, but I can't help here.</p>

-jl-

Don, you'll find quite a few changes from the mid 80's. Have fun and "benvingut" again,</p>

-jl-

Ray, have you checked the tutorials in their website? Here's the <a href="http://www.phaseone.com/global/tutorial/tutorials.aspx">link</a>. Not diagrams but rather some short quicktime movies, but might be an useful alternative. I hope.</p>

-jl-

Well, not really before taking the picture, but before downloading it from your camera. From my understanding, the camera uses that curve when generating the JPEG you will later download. The same result could be achieved by shooting RAW and batch processing all your files with the same curve.</p>

I'm guessing here but the curve is probably applied before data is reduced to 8 bits when shooting JPEG. That might make a difference if you are able to define the appropriate curves.</p>

-jl-

Tom, I'll try to make this simple so I guess somebody will say I am wrong and all taht stuff. ;)</p>

TIFF is a standard format that can be compressed losslessly. Main advantage, you can save your file and open it later on exactly as it was saved for further processing, printing, etc. As you may know JPEG discards some information to compress and reduce size. But it is not lossless. The more you compress, the more data you loose, mainly in edges and transitions, were artifacts are first evident. </p>

The only thing standard about RAW is that it is proprietary. Meaning that each vendor defines its own format, and as it depends on the camera sensor, each camera has a different format even for the same vendor. A RAW file includes the information from the sensor before applying any of the algorithms (demosaicing, antialising, color balance, sharpening, ...) the camera uses to produce a standard JPEG file. Plus the settings needed for these algorithms, and a thumbnail (the one you see in your camera).</p>

If you open the RAW file in a converter on your PC/Mac, the application reads those settings, uses them in those same (allegedly enhanced though) algorithms your camera would run, and produces a preview. If you change any of the settings, say to fine tune the white balance, and you save the file, you have only changed the setting, not the original image. So you can go and change them as many times as you want without deteriorating the image in every step. This would happen if you try to do the same thing with a JPEG or even a TIFF.</p>

Once you are happy with what you see, you just save it as a TIFF or JPEG depending on your needs. But you still have your RAW file in case you need it. Consider it your negative that you can use time and time again to obtain different enlargements. Well, sort of.</p>

JPEG does not prevent you from getting large pictures, but you need a large image to start from. And one were compression was not too agressive. And one were the settings were correctly chosen.</p>

Sorry about the length of the post. Hope it is clear enough. </p>

-jl-

Don,

If you run out of film <i>carrer Pelai</i> (Pelai street) is very centric, just beside <i>Plaza Catalunya</i>, and has a few shops to choose from. <i>Casanova Foto</i> is one of the most professional places in town. They have three stores: the regular photo shop, a pro/studio shop and an antiques/collectibles one. But there are a few others in the same street: <i>Fotoprix</i>, <i>Nivell 10</i>, and <i>Jordi Bas Foto</i> (2 stores in this same street).</p>

Another great place is "Foto Arpi" in the <i>Rambla 38</i>, not too far from the <i>Liceo</i>. A four storey shop, very professional, with aconcealed entrance that does not look like a shop at all. Here you get slightly lower places paying cash.</p>

BTW. Last time I checked Provia was in the 9-10 euro range. Don't know about the other one.</p>

About tripods, I suspect you would need a special permission. I tried las weekend in the <i>cathedral</i> and was told that tripods were not allowed. Flash was OK though and there were many many people taking pictures. I guess tripods look professional(?).

Welcome and enjoy!</p>

-jl-

It does not support mirror lockup. It has a functin with that same name to allow you cleaning the sensor when dust gets into it. But you cannot use it to shoot.</p>

There is an electronic remote controller. No idea about the price though. I end up using the timer set to 2 or 5 seconds which works Ok for me.</p>

I have never used a Canon 10D, so I can't help there</p>

Hope this helps,</p>

-jl-

Missed the URL. Here it goes:

<a href:="http://www.epaperpress.com/monitorcal/index.html">http://www.epaperpress.com/monitorcal/index.html</a>

Depending on your accuracy needs you may go anywhere from a manual tuning of contrast and brightness to a hardware/software assisted color calibration. Check <a href:="http://www.epaperpress.com/monitorcal/index.html">this</a> for a manual example. Gretag Macbeth and Colorvision are the most frequently mentioned color calibration tool vendors.</p>

Hope this helps,</p>

-jl-

Tamara, don't rush to get a new flash. The SB-28 and D70 are not completely incompatible, at least in theory. True you won't get the new iTTL stuff, but you may not want it after all. It all depends on your way of working with flash.</p>

Auto and Manual modes should work OK. In Manual you need to tell the flash the aperture in the camera.</p>

Well, you may already checked the thread I pointed you to, but just in case you felt lazy. :)</p>

Cheers,</p>

-jl-

Check this other <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009eL3">thread</a> posted recently. </p>

Hope it helps.</p>

-jl-

Benoit is right, the camera allows WB bracketing with custom setting 12. After that just press the BKT button while you use the rear dial to activate it (BKT should appear in the top LCD). With the BKT button down, use the front dial to define the number of shots (2 or 3) and the interval. Although I don't think the interval is thaqt easy to understand and translate in to kelvin values.</p>

If you want to play around, go ahead, experiment. If you seriously want to control WB I would recommend using one single NEF file and adjusting it afterwards in the computer. As Benoit says, WB bracketting does not work with NEF as it does not make any sense.</p>

Enjoy</p>

-jl-