matt_kime

I'm putting a point and shoot camera into a weatherproof housing to do time

lapse photography. i'd like to shoot through a variety of seasons so i'm

concerned with operating temperature range.

any experience with digital p&s's in temp extremes? do they fail just below

freezing? over 100?F? i'm hoping my camera could survive 0-120?F.

I've been using a Canon 1D mark II. For the most part, it works great. Yet every

once in a while it refuses to work in tethered mode with my powerbook and the

canon software. Various combinations of removing the battery, restarting the

powerbook and reconnecting the firewire cable always bring it back. However, I'd

like to know what combination will do it 100% of the time.

Have others been through this or do I have a dud?

I'm working on a rather large photo project. I have an Epson 2200 that

I'm using to do the initial scan corrections. These are large scans

from 4x5 negs - I want to print 20x24" prints in the end.

I know someone that will let me use their epson 7800. Does anyone know

how well the color balance will hold between the 2200 and the 7800?

Unfortunately, these generous people print mainly on matte paper.

(color...I don't get it) After reading the manual, it seems that i'd

be throwing away $100 to switch from matte black to photo black. i'd

have to switch back.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to get digital prints made in nyc?

I've come to a point were i have to review my plan and consider my

options.

I'm hoping to pick up a good deal on a 90mm lens for my Toyo 45CF. I

need a moderate amount of movement, but not a lot. (I'll often use a

bit of rise but the camera doesn't allow for extreme movements and I

don't miss them)

Obviously I'd like a sharp lens, but I don't need the latest and

greatest. I started out with a 6" lens from sometime in the 50's and i

didn't notice a huge sharpness increase when I moved up to a modern MC

Schneider 150mm.

Something light would be nice as well.

Any suggestions?

In my experience, color negative LOVES to be over exposed. most photographers i know

shoot at least a stop over. i always meter for the shadows and have rarely had a problem

with over exposure.

I do own a Toyo 45CF. It is an excellent camera. Personally, I don't have any qualms about

the build quality. I don't know how it would pass the student test - but students do a lot of

stupid things and you probably won't be subjecting your personal camera to that stress. At

first I thought the lack of movements would be a problem. It turns out that I don't use

extreme movements as much as i thought - the front standard has plenty of flexibility for

me.

I think its an excellent starter camera to get into 4x5 with. If you find it limiting you, you

can move up to something else. Otherwise, it will last a lot of people a long time.

I was wondering if anyone else out there had experience scanning or photographing

daguerreotypes. I have a project where I'd like to make digital prints from these images.

Photographing something that is partially reflective if proving to be quite a challenge.

Sounds like i'll go with 13x19" sheets and cut them down. Yes, I'm printing with an Epson

2200. It just doesn't sound like roll paper is worth the trouble.

I'm looking at buying a large amount of paper in order to print my portfolio. It seems that i

can same some money buying roll paper instead of sheet fed paper. I'm printing roughly

13x17". I'm concerned that roll paper might be difficult to cut well (off the printer) and

that my prints may curl. are these valid worries?

Someone here should speak up as to the value of Silverfast, but in my experience VueScan

is a better value. (Then again, the author ignores the fact that it doesn't work with my

Powerlook 2100 XL, so be forewarned about the tech support)

A couple of years ago it might not have been so feasible, but nowadays hard drives are

cheap. If you're producing a large amount of digital photography and you want it to last

forever, set up a RAID. A couple grand in storage costs shouldn't mean anything. (if you

need help, remember what you would have spent on film) MO is a very reliable way to back

up but its fairly expensive.

i'm printing from AdobeRGB (1998) in 1440 resolution. other settings...i'm printing from

print preview using the EnhancedMatte 1140MK profile....hm, what else applies?

I have a Epson 2200 that I'm printing to. I'm using a black and white image so i want it to

be as neutral as possible. I'm running the newest update of Mac OS X 10.3. When I print in

black only mode, I lose a significant amount of quality. The image gets grainy and the grey

tones shift. I'm using the matte ink with enhanced matte paper.

I'm baffled as to why this could be happening, any help out there?

what size files do you plan on working on? if they're 50 meg or less, its unlikely you'll

really tax any new machine you'd buy nowadays.

as far as the mac vs. pc debate is concerned, i think arguing over speed is silly for all

except the most demanding users (think video or 3d animation). being the biased mac

user that i am - i will point out that macs don't have viruses or spyware. also, a techie

friend could sway things for you - a smooth running mac will beat a broken down pc and

visa versa.

as far as the pc notebook front, keep an eye on weight and battery time. some laptops are

really luggable desktops.

I believe you'd have to be awfully unlucky to buy one that doesn't support this. Go with

anything by ATI or NVidia since they're big names. If you have more than one monitor you

may want to get more than one video card - its typically one video card = one LUT.

Look into making photoshop droplets. I'm pretty sure you should be able to make one

where you drag the images to be printed over the droplet icon and photoshop does whats

needed and prints.

Thanks for your response Heather.

You certainly have presented an elaborate and convincing case for what sRGB may be.

However, the image characteristics of monitors vary from model to model and over the

lifespan of the device. Unless this device has some method of calibrating itself, i don't see

how it could accomplish this. (I'm very certain the device does not do this.)

First, I want to make abundantly clear something that has not been throughout this

discussion -

sRGB is a colorspace AND its a monitor setting!

1) sRGB the colorspace - plenty of people work with it and are quite happy with it. Some

people prefer RGB (Adobe 1998) because they believe they'll fail to reproduce some hues

that they captured. In practice, the situations where this occurs are few and far between.

Out of hubris, I stick with RGB (Adobe 1998).

2) sRGB is a monitor setting. I have no idea what it does. Thats why I'm reading this forum.

On the NEC monitor I was working on, selecting sRGB disabled the brightness and contrast

settings. In some places I've read that sRGB = 6500K color temp setting - now, it doesn't

make sense that selecting a color temp would disable your brightness and contrast.

any help out there?

I've solved it.

For whatever reason, when I have my monitor set to the sRGB setting rather than a

color temp the display just looks really really shitty.

So why did I think it was the right thing to do? www.normankoren.com/

makingfineprints1A.html - "Set your monitor's color temperature (white point) to

6500K, D65, or sRGB, which is equivalent to 6500K"

My monitor offers 5000k, 9300k, sRGB and "set it yourself". sRGB looks like crap no

matter what I do. (And when I say "looks like crap", i mean that you could see the scan

lines where the gun wasn't supposed to be firing, on the sides of the image.) I've

chosen to go with "set it yourself" and selected something close

to 6500k.

I guess I should restart a few things...

I guess its not that the monitor is too bright, but that the black point is too high.

(Basically, the brightness level is the black point)

I'm using a mac and there are no direct controls that I know of for the video card. I

can run the Apple calibration thing but there's no place to just go to brightness and

lower it.

I have a Sony 19" Trinitron display that is a couple of years old. I'm trying to calibrate

it but I seem to be bumping into the same problem over and over - its too bright. I

have the brightness set to zero and the contrast set to 100 and if i move them any

closer to each other it just starts to grey out. I think I may need to set my brightness

lower yet.

(Evil thought, perhaps I could fix it from the inside of the monitor....)

nowdays ColorSync takes account for this in your web browser -if the option is turned

on in Internet Explorer, which it is by default - and always is in Safari. because of this,

i'd say its best to set your mac for 1.8 gamma and then let it compensate like it knows

how to.

Finally, after a few years of shooting 4x5, I think I'm ready for it -

The Big Print. I'm going to make a print 40x50 inches. Now, how

to display it? I'm trying to avoid permanently mounting the image

because I don't like the idea of storing such a big object.

any advice?