Andrew Palin on fri 23 apr 04
Hi everyone,
Lajos Kamocsay wrote:
"The tricky bit with digital photography is color calibration.....
There are too many variables: your digital camera, graphics card, operating
system, tube vs lcd and wherever you set your knobs..."
Have to disagree strongly with this. If you have a good digital camera
(either compact or SLR), you can adjust to true colour using built-in White
Balance and EV settings. Very simple. Even my 4 year old 1.5 megapixel
camera can do this,and does it well. Irrespective of whether you
photograph under daylight, flourescent, tungsten etc., you can compensate
and the resultant photograph will be flawless. And of course there is
image processing software which can "touch up" if so required.
I've just upgraded to a Nikon D70 digital SLR; fantastic camera with
complete control over focus (the advantage of a SLR body), exposure levels,
depth of field blah de blah. It is this degree of control which made me
buy a SLR.....on a curved pot you need either depth of field control for
the whole vessel focus or an ability for sharp focus on a particular aspect.=
As for comparisons, the Canon 300ED (aka Digital Rebel in the US) is
equally as good and they are best two under a thousand (either =A3 & $). It=
does not have quite as many manual tweak capabilities as the D70 though
(which most people may not use anyway). Either are a sound long term
investment, with images printable at A4 size with no noise. Nikon can take
many brand lenses, the Rebel needs EOS lens only. Prices are still high
(but worth it), so maybe wait a few months and these two will have dropped
price a couple of hundered???
Slide will eventually drop out over a few years, but not quite yet. You
might as well migrate and be able to flexibly offer galleries/exhibitions
either option: slide or CD-rom.
Good luck!
Andy Palin
www.andrewpalin.com
logan johnson on sat 24 apr 04
Having worked professionally in 35mm years ago I can say that the raw image" whether in 33mm or digital is anywhere from 5% to 95% of the printed image if that is the concern. The filter packs, exposure, and dodging used for enlarging 35mm are not much different than adjusting the color, brightness or contrast digitally. I prefer digital for work that is going to be on the website but 35mm if I intend to make prints. That is more based upon my printers limitations and file sizes for high quality digital pictures.
The point being, each has it's place and it is up to the individual to maximize the medium.
Dennis ( Logan's husband)
Logan Johnson Audeo Studios
www.audeostudios.com
"Carpe Argillam!!"
Lee Love on sat 24 apr 04
Andrew Palin wrote:
>
>Slide will eventually drop out over a few years, but not quite yet. You
>might as well migrate and be able to flexibly offer galleries/exhibitions
>either option: slide or CD-rom.
>
>
I am not sure I understand this. Are you saying slide
projection will be replaced afforably with digital projectors? Or
that large screen T.V. and CD ROM or DVD will affordably replace the
slide projector? I am guessing this will take more than "a few"
years. By the time the digital presentation equipment is
affordable and portable, then the digital cameras will have become much
less expensive. I am guessing that the intermediary step will be
film slides made from higher megapixel digital cameras.
--
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
Carl Finch on sat 24 apr 04
At 03:48 AM 4/23/2004 -0400, Andrew Palin wrote:
>Lajos Kamocsay wrote:
>"The tricky bit with digital photography is color calibration.....
>There are too many variables: your digital camera, graphics card, operating
>system, tube vs lcd and wherever you set your knobs..."
>
>Have to disagree strongly with this. If you have a good digital camera
>(either compact or SLR), you can adjust to true colour using built-in White
>Balance and EV settings. Very simple. Even my 4 year old 1.5 megapixel
>camera can do this,and does it well. Irrespective of whether you
>photograph under daylight, flourescent, tungsten etc., you can compensate
>and the resultant photograph will be flawless. And of course there is
>image processing software which can "touch up" if so required.
Andrew, I don't understand your disagreement. When Lajos says "color
calibration" I take him to mean adjusting ones monitor so that an image
seen there will look the same as what you see when you print. And that is
indeed a big problem!
Sure, your camera may have all sorts of adjustments built in for white
balance, ISO (sensitivity), EV (exposure value), contrast, color filter,
saturation, sharpness, etc., but useful as all those things are for
capturing a good image, they have nothing to do with ensuring that
what-you-see on the monitor is what-you-get on the printer!
And besides, the Real Pros (not me!) simply shoot in RAW format (the
'native' language of the camera), and accomplish all those things (except
ISO) at their leisure via Photoshop or with the proprietary software that
accompanies cameras with RAW capability.
But after making all those adjustments, either in the camera or later in
Photoshop, one is still faced with the problem of replicating on paper the
image one sees on the monitor. I've read that there are optical devices
that can be fastened to the face of a monitor to accurately measure the
light created by the phosphors, and as I recall having this calibration
performed isn't cheap.
>I've just upgraded to a Nikon D70 digital SLR; fantastic camera with
>complete control over focus (the advantage of a SLR body), exposure levels,
>depth of field blah de blah. It is this degree of control which made me
>buy a SLR.....on a curved pot you need either depth of field control for
>the whole vessel focus or an ability for sharp focus on a particular aspect.
Actually you don't need an SLR (with interchangeable lenses) to get this
level of control. There are now 'hybrid' SLRs, cameras which have those
sorts of features but come with a non-changeable zoom lens. All
view-finding and automatic exposure is done through the 'taking' lens.
Minolta introduced a series of this sort with their "DiMAGE 7" line a
couple years back. The most recent one is the DiMAGE A2. Last November I
bought its predecessor, the A1. It has more useful features than I could
begin to enumerate! What I particularly like is the wide angle (28mm as
opposed to the more common 38mm) zoom out to 200mm telephoto (7x). It's
anti-shake, too, so I can get sharp results at full zoom and low light
without a tripod. And it is less expensive than the two "real" SLRs (Canon
300ED and Nikon D70) you've described.
Good sources for camera reviews and descriptions are:
http://www.imaging-resource.com
http://www.steves-digicams.com
http://www.dpreview.com
--Carl
in Medford, Oregon
Vicki Hardin on sun 25 apr 04
I prefer using my 35 with print film and getting the negatives scanned onto
a disc. This is "almost" digital and I have the control that the 35 affords
me and I can have results in 30 minutes. My digital is a 2.5 megapixal for
which I paid a little over 1000. I have a photographer friend researching
the 35 SLR with costs coming down to 1000. I understand from him that they
are close to approximating film but not there yet. I also am waiting for
when SLRs are more affordable having learned my lesson with my present
digital.
Best Regards,
Vicki Hardin
http://ClayArtWebGuide.com
Andrew Palin on sun 25 apr 04
Hi all,
i) Hi Lee - "I am not sure I understand this. Are you saying slide
>projection will be replaced afforably with digital projectors? Or
>that large screen T.V. and CD ROM or DVD will affordably replace the
>slide projector?"
What i originally meant to say is that it's good to be flexible and offer
both conventional slide AND digital formats. I know some gallleries who
are asking for digtal formats in the first instance; others i know need
35mm slide as they are not PC-savvy yet.
Yep, i think digital formats will become the primary medium within a few
years. But it does not necessarily mean expensive. For example, it is
exceptionally easy to present your work on a CD, and allow the viewer to
use a web browser to peruse the images. In other words, a mini-web site on
a CD which you browse through IE6 or netscape etc. etc. And it need not be
any more complicated than a front page with hyperlinks to the X number of
images you wish to present to the gallery/selection board.
So there are expensive and inexpensive choices open to us here. Before the
expensive hardware becomes commonly affordable, why not use the technology
already in people's homes & offices ..their PCs??
Which leads nicely to:
ii) Hi Carl - i did not read the post earlier as monitor calibration.
(Yep... agree that you cannot account for resolution quality/calibration of
the viewer's equipment - def a problem). I interpreted it, and thus I was
talking about, ensuring the digital image being captured is a true
representation of the work. It's easy to mess that up, but with tweaking
the manual controls on the camera/software it's also possible not to.
But don't you still get variation in 35mm slide quality, as you would get
image variation on different monitors? Different labs and different
developing/fixative solutions will affect brightness and colour of your
slides. I've had some good and, what i think, some poor development; not
as vibrant and true as expected.
And as i said, my old 1.5 megapixel digi cam was great and i got good
images off it. I still upgraded to the SLR though and I have a big
improvement now, not least because of the manual focal capability I now
have. I did point out the expense of the 300 and D70! :-)
Carl is right: www.dpreview.com is indeed a great review website and has
detailed explanations/glossaries for all the terminolgy. Recommended.
Andy P.
www.andrewpalin.com
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