[AdamM]

I think the Beatles have that album 'Rubber Sole' (sp?)

They let me fill my suitcase with as many shoes as i could take home!  Preposterous for sure....  funny

Truly though:  Pentax SMC lenses.  Cheap like borscht (although less now, as more catch on)

I picked up a 50mm f/1.4 for $80 and it smacks the >$450 Canon equivalent !

Check here for another secret - the Contax 35-70mm - sharper or equiv to any PRIME within it's zoom range  http://www.robotbreeder.com/photography/v/LensTests/Contax35-70/

There's a lot of great old glass out there.  As long as you don't mind manual focusing, much greatness is to be had (for cheap)

Cheers,
/A

[nathanm]

Uh, it's not meant to convince anyone of anything Adam.  It was shot on film, no RAW anything involved.  I posted it because John asked.  Sure, it is boring, but I just like playing with the tones and I ended up with something I liked.  I know it isn't as good as anything you've done of course.

[AdamM]

Did you photoshop the BG blur a bit?  The edges look a little cutout.

4x5 is an interesting challenge.  Nothing like knowing that each 'click' is like $7 or something!

/A

[nathanm]

Yes, I did blur the background a bit.  I just laid a piece of plywood on the sink and shot it, so that's the faucet back there. 

[AdamM]

Niceone

Think of the hassles of 4x5, then imagine Ansel, trudging through forests with his 8x10, and developing some in the wagon right then and there.

Whenever someone says 'Ansel is boring'  i have to find restraint - zone theory, the passion, the hauling of all this giant equipment to remote locations, how can one not be impressed?

[nathanm]

A person could certainly think Ansel's images are boring but also admire all the technical contributions he made at the same time.  I'm reading through his books and to be honest a lot of the shots are "meh".  It's just like famous painters, you can learn all about their hardships and whatnot and that can inform your opinion, but at the end of the day you either get something from their images or you don't.  The process is interesting for those who might also do the art\photography themselves, but I don't think the viewer cares all that much how it came to be.

[JohnR]

I don't find Ansel boring. Imitated, perhaps...?

There's so much emphasis now on features.. you know, which lens AFs with what, and how many buttons you have on the back of your camera so you're always ready to grab that once in a lifetime shot that might just happen to flash by you if you're not ready in an instant. Anyway I digress, but the thoughtful approach in Adams' books and photographs really appeals to me.

[Imperial]

After reading a bit here on eye-fidelity, and seeing you much more camera freaks than me battle it out over things I one week ago didn't even know what was, I read up, and I have to say...

- You got your camera, that can take various lenses, and filters.
- Then you got your software, on different price levels, to handle the advantage, or not, of raw, depending on what camera you got.
- Then you got your glassware of various assortments and mostly, and I will agree to this, the lens is the camera! I can vividly remember replacing my canon lens with a sigma, and suddenly realizing the pictures got a lot better!

So shooting in the raw... well, camera is definitely not a simple as I thought it was!!!
Not only do I have to settle on a body, I've got the lens, the software and the mount capability to consider too!!!

I'm starting to see why they call it going for a camera "system" ... 
I mostly used manual focus on at least my EOS 500N cam, don't know what that is called in the states, but I found that that worked best!

So if a contax really is an option on a canon, that definitely does give me a lust for the eos system.
Now as to the software, adobe light... what it was called there is about the price of a medium priced lens, but ...

Would you guys say that it is worth a lot more for the things it can do to a raw file?
A good software is worth the price of admission?

Imperial

[Imperial]

Ok, the answer came on another thread on eye-fidelity.
Wow! I can't wait to get into this stuff! Now all I need is to
upgrade my computer... Oh oh... but that I can handle!

Imperial

[JohnR]

I've "calibrated" ACR to my camera by using the calibration settings posted here on dpreview:

ACR calibration values

Actually I used the D200 values... I'm getting closer... I've discovered the critical thing now is to set the right color temperature. (Right now, I'm just guessing.)

Here's the 1-1 crop of the flower from before. I used a color temperature of 5150, which is what the camera used (for the JPEG) when it took the pic.

Here is the fine JPEG crop for comparison, as before:

[Edit: RAW image replaced with a better one. It turns I had clipped something by "exposing to the right" a little too enthusiastically. So I went back to the shot that had the same exposure as the JPEG shot. Hm....]

[Edit: used D200 values instead of D70!]