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Post by moltogordo on Feb 9, 2015 21:15:27 GMT -5
RAW allows you to wreak some detail out of blown highlights or shadows that might not be evident in the JPEG. If your JPEG is good, you won't notice any difference. There should be no difference in actual resolution.
I work with GIMP, thus can only work with JPEGS. If I use a RAW file, it has to be converted to a JPEG before I can work with it. A good RAW converter is essential. I use Corel Aftershot Pro.
As I use Linux as an operating system, Photoshop is a no go for me.
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 9, 2015 19:50:58 GMT -5
As a course of habit, I shoot RAW+ on my K10D. I boost the JPEG to max resolution. As I'm a slow and meticulous worker, I use my cameras only on manual, and meter for the highlights with a handheld Sekonic spotmeter. As a consequence, I hardly ever use the RAW file, because my JPEGS are almost always well exposed. I might only use a RAW file two or three times a year. But it's there if I need it. The fact that each frame is considered separately on a DSLR, and you can apply different ASA values and "development" techniques in your post-processing to each shot, it is entirely possible and eminently practical to use the Zone system or a modification of it with a DSLR. I did quite a bit of large format work in years past, so all of this was second nature to me. As I'm also a rabid printer, both black and white and as a Cibachrome specialist (I put myself through 2 degrees at university working as a darkroom rat). I learned quickly that unless a transparency is exposed correctly, you're going to have a lousy time of it making a good Ciba. So you make sure that there is detail in that highlight. Blown highlights are not possible to correct. This knowledge is directly applicable to the digital domain. Taking a photo with a DSLR is really just like exposing a transparency. My painting and large format background shaped the way I look at things through a viewfinder. I use an exposure meter and manual settings not because I'm a Luddite, but because I grew up with it, and this knowledge allowed me to make a very smooth transition to digital color. I also bracket, as well. I believe today's photographer can learn a lot from purchasing a good exposure meter. But that RAW file will continue to be taken along with the JPEG. No question about that!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 9, 2015 16:09:11 GMT -5
This is one of my favorites from 2014. Old glass is still as good as anything made. I recently picked up a Kilfitt 40mm f3.5 macro, a lens with a sensational reputation. So I fitted it on a camera from the same period I had just purchased, an Exa 1 with a waist level finder. Not knowing the condition of the shutter, I figured everything would be around 1/60th of a second no matter what speed I set , so I set the shutter to 1/60th, loaded the camera with the most forgiving film I know of (Ilford XP2), took a meter reading, set the aperture to f4, and started shooting snowdrops. Came up with this shot. (Exa 1, 40mm Kilfitt f3.5 Macro lens, XP2 film, 1/60th at f4. Scanned 5x7 print on Arista Edu grade #3, my preferred paper for scanning.) Thanks for looking in!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 9, 2015 13:13:57 GMT -5
Thanks for the replies, guys! Hans, can't access your thread through that link - tried a couple of times but it won't come up. Maybe later. Truls, have you tried XP2 at 200? I've had success there on portraits. At 400, shadows block up pretty badly - some ugly grain with any overexposure. Unfortunately, I've heard Kodak BW400CN has been discontinued. The snow scene is just a scanned 4x6 machine print - I really was lucky to get a good exposure there, because the detail is in the neg. I'll print it one day, but I took a simultaneous shot with a Mamiya C330, and there's really not much comparison. I don't know what it is about 1:63 dilution of HC110, but it produces the best negatives (for my taste anyway) on HP5, and I've used this dilution for 40 years! I've tried it on foma 400 but I do prefer Xtol on this emulsion, unless I want more grain. Then I use Rodinal. These three developers soup 95% of my film. Yes, there was actually 3 Pens. The original F, which had a double stroke advance lever, no self timer and no meter, the FV which added the self-timer and single stroke advance lever, and the FT which added the meter to this. I have 2 Fs and 3 FTs. The meters are irrelevant to me - I take out the batteries to prevent corrosion in all of my collection, and use a handheld Sekonic spotmeter. I keep two cameras, a Yashica FX-7 and a Nikon FM, in batteries.
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 18:12:27 GMT -5
From humble beginnings!
Keep the thread alive with updated postings!!!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 18:10:29 GMT -5
While your work and your methods are just outstanding, this one reminded me of a line in a Clint Eastwood movie, a car theft thing with Charlie Sheen I can't remember the name of. When seeing a restored Lotus painted lime green, cop Eastwood said "I can handle most anything, but painting a car like that, that color . . . that's just a sin!"
But I could dig it in snakeskin!!
Just great work!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 18:07:37 GMT -5
What a great post!! I think every collector should buy you a beer! I've got several that I might subject my ham-fists to this procedure, starting with a very nice Yashica FX-7 I still use! Bravo!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 17:51:55 GMT -5
My project, and the one that has become almost an obsession, is printing a display photo from every camera and lens in my collection. It's got me back into my darkroom big time, and has rejuvenated my old bones. My collection consists of mechanical Japanese/East German SLRs and TLRs between 1951 (when I was born), and 1983 (when electronic shutters became de rigeur.) Collecting is really a form of mental illness, and unless you put limits on it, can be fodder for being institutionalized!! I use digital for color, but shoot film for all of my B&W, much preferring a silver print to a digital conversion. The project has also given me a knowledge of some of the new films out there, and I've added Fomapan 400 and 200, as well as Delta 3200 and Tmax 100, to my standby FP4 and HP5, which were always my films of choice. Films I miss the most? 2475 Recording, Plus-X, old Tri-X, and Verichrome Pan. Tri X is different now - Foma 400 is much more like what I shot for available light work in the 60s and 70s. So I use a lot of it. Let's start off with my favorite camera - the Olympus Pen FT. I'm a half frame freak - the best and most usable of the sub-miniature formats. I have 2 Pen Fs, and 3 Pen FTs, with Pen Zuiko lenses in 24, 38, 70, 100 and 50-90 zoom. Here's the camera and a few shots from it. All shots are scanned prints except the photos of the cameras themselves. I really don't like scanning negatives. Takes all the fun out the printing!! From time to time, I'll add other cameras and shots to this post and invite others to do the same. But ONLY B&W, please! First up, a picture of the Venerable FT itself. This is my original, bought in 1967. It was the first SLR I ever owned: And a couple of shots taken with this camera. #1, Hoarfrost at Cluculz Creek, BC. 38mm f1.8 Zuiko, XP2 film, 1/125th at f11, ASA 400, scanned 4x6 machine print. #2, Freezing Swamp, Vanderhoof BC, 100mm F3.5 Zuiko with 1.5x Cambron doubler, 1/60th at 5.6, Fomapan 400, Rodinal 1:50, scanned 5x7 print on Arista Edu Grade #3 #3, Lumber mill at Vanderhoof, BC, 38mm f1.8 Zuiko, Kodak 2475 Recording film (30 year old stock!), 1/125th at f8, ASA 200, D76. Scanned print on 5x7 Arista Edu grade #3. An attempt to re-create a 1950s "Popular Mechanics" style gritty, ultra-grainy photo. With slow film and fine-grained developer, or XP2, the half frame format is capable of excellent 8x10s and even 11x14s, but that's not why I use the format. I can do those "excellent" prints with medium format. But grain effects and such cannot be bettered by any format. If you like that grain stuff, and go into the darkroom on a regular basis, get yourself a Pen FT and some Fomapan 400 or Kentmere 400, some Rodinal, and you're in business! Thanks for looking in. I'll add other cameras and photos from this project from time to time!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 17:21:28 GMT -5
Love Minoltas! Have two SRT101s, an SRT-CLC, and an Autocord. My Autocord is my favorite TLR for trips and light use (I have a C330 which I use for day to day stuff), and is there a sexier SLR than the SRT-101? I think not!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 15:46:56 GMT -5
Thanks for the replies!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 15:42:29 GMT -5
Thanks to all!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 15:40:49 GMT -5
Thank you very much! I think the fact that I DO paint has influenced my photography a great deal. I find that certain lenses just work for certain applications.
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 6:22:33 GMT -5
I'm a Pentax shooter digitally, although I also have a Canon Rebel and a Nikon D50 converted to IR by Lifepixel. I chose Pentax when I went to the darkside because it was backwards compatible and I had a couple of MXs and an LX, and about eight Pentax lenses and a bunch of Tamrons to swap around in my SLR collection. Two standout pieces of old glass that I rank #2 and #5 on my DSLRs are quite different, and I'm going to show them off here with an image or two from each. Let's start with #5, the Tokina 400mm F5.6 ATX. It's number five because I don't use it very much. But when I need to, it always delivers. A long telephoto can be an outstanding landscape lens, in situations that are almost impossible with any other lens. Like this shot, taken about half a mile away, on a tripod. Even then, the desert wind was making havoc with the tripod and camera, and of 10 shots, only 3 were not blurred by camera shake. This is the desert area of British Columbia, near Cache Creek. Pentax K10D, Tokina 400mm, 1/1500 sec at f8, ISO 400: #2 is one that I use a lot. The Pentax-A f2.8 Macro. Its tack sharp, and produces photographs that have a very warm quality, that works very well with the coolish K10D. Here's a couple of examples of this lens: Amanita Pantherina, Pentax K10D, Pentax-A Macro f2.8, 1/100th second at f8 Wild Ladyslipper, Hush Lake BC, Pentax K10D, Pentax-A Macro f2.8, 1/60th at f4.5, ISO 400. This was a tough handhold! Thanks for looking in! I'll cover #1, #3 and #4 in a later post!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 5:54:20 GMT -5
Hello Gord! "Welcome to the center of collecting madness. It seems joining this forum has an effect of a slight increase in number of cameras . . ." Ouch! Probably "exaktly" what a don't need !! Here's about half my collection. Everything on the rack is a user. I have boxes of "parts" cameras for all of them, and I do have every model of Exa made, and also about half of the Exaktas. Let's hope the forum doesn't break me. I have, however, limited my collection to manual SLRs and TLRs made between 1951 (when I was born) to 1983 (when electronic shutters became de rigeur), and also only Japanese and East German cameras. If you don't put a limit on it, the disease will be terminal, I understand! I have about 20 other "users" that don't fit on the rack - they're in a closet in close proximity and get switched to the display on a rotational basis. Oh yeah . . . lenses, too. Got buckets and buckets of them! Guess I'll have to get another rack! Thanks for the replies, guys!!!
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Post by moltogordo on Feb 8, 2015 2:29:46 GMT -5
Really nice collection. Varied and some real rarities there! Can the Beattie be restored, or altered to take, say, a 6x9 back so that you could use it without damaging the original parts?
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