I'm using the 28-135mm IS lens, and let me tell you, it's one TERRIFIC lens.

Maybe I should actually TRY to sell this camera while I still can, I have 2 of them, it wasn’t even for sale until I offered it to John here. If I keep it for too long it will end up in my pile of “other old stuff” like a Tascam 4 track cassette Porta-Studio. That would be a shame because it is a great camera.

Buying digital cameras is just like buying a computer. How much can you spend and what are you going to use it for? We all know a guy that owns a PC with a P4 @ 3GHZ, 512Ram and a 120 Gig HD – What does he do with it? Checks his e-mail on AOL and types letters in Word. How much money did he leave at the store?

Jeff is right about the 6 mega pixel cameras being keepers. They have finally reached a resolution that will no longer result in dramatic improvements every 12 months. It’s just not necessary, more than that is like checking e-mail on AOL with the hot PC.

In case anyone is interested here is a little more on the D30. It will make great prints up to 8x10 (or 8 ½ x 11)– the fine/.jpg setting resuts in a 8x10 with 180 pixels/inch in Photo Shop. The rule of thumb for ink jet printing is 250 pixels/inch will render maximum quality from most prosumer ink jets. At 180 these prints look fantastic coming out of my Canon S9000. They are photo quality. If your not going to make prints bigger than that you will be happy. The real secret to ink jet printing is in the paper anyway.

It is a nice camera, the package I offered John will make a serious amateur very happy. Hey, for that matter, anyone want a Tascam Porta Studio? I could probably still find it in my shed.

Personally, I miss the days when I carried around a bag full of Nikon F3s. They were bullet proof, they worked at 30 below zero, you only put batteries in the motor drive, and your investment was good for many years.

I hope Chris gives us a place to keep this going.

Steve

Sigma D9 now 999.00...

For the last week or two, I have been researching digital still cameras for a project where I would like to blow something up very large...this forum has been most helpful...

Hey guys, what do I use if I want wall-size photos? ;-) I would be modifying them on a pc, saving as TIff and taking them to a printer....any suggestions?

Michael

hmmm I was reserching genuine fractals software...it seems to save images in a "lossless" .stn format...do outside printers take an .stn format??

M

I'm not really fond of Genuine Fractals. For me on Win2000 I found the software buggy (crashing Photoshop) and the results weren't all that better than taking some time in PS and interpolating yourself. For $160 dollars, I would rather save $145 and buy Fred Miranda's SI action. But if I was set on spending that much money, I would look at Extensis's SmartScale. Heard real good things about that and I just downloaded the demo.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steven Digges : Maybe I should actually TRY to sell this camera while I still can, I have 2 of them, it wasn’t even for sale until I offered it to John here. If I keep it for too long it will end up in my pile of “other old stuff” like a Tascam 4 track cassette Porta-Studio. That would be a shame because it is a great camera.

Buying digital cameras is just like buying a computer. How much can you spend and what are you going to use it for? We all know a guy that owns a PC with a P4 @ 3GHZ, 512Ram and a 120 Gig HD – What does he do with it? Checks his e-mail on AOL and types letters in Word. How much money did he leave at the store?

Jeff is right about the 6 mega pixel cameras being keepers. They have finally reached a resolution that will no longer result in dramatic improvements every 12 months. It’s just not necessary, more than that is like checking e-mail on AOL with the hot PC.

In case anyone is interested here is a little more on the D30. It will make great prints up to 8x10 (or 8 ½ x 11)– the fine/.jpg setting resuts in a 8x10 with 180 pixels/inch in Photo Shop. The rule of thumb for ink jet printing is 250 pixels/inch will render maximum quality from most prosumer ink jets. At 180 these prints look fantastic coming out of my Canon S9000. They are photo quality. If your not going to make prints bigger than that you will be happy. The real secret to ink jet printing is in the paper anyway.

It is a nice camera, the package I offered John will make a serious amateur very happy. Hey, for that matter, anyone want a Tascam Porta Studio? I could probably still find it in my shed.

Personally, I miss the days when I carried around a bag full of Nikon F3s. They were bullet proof, they worked at 30 below zero, you only put batteries in the motor drive, and your investment was good for many years.

I hope Chris gives us a place to keep this going.

Steve -->>>

hmm, interesting points...damn, if I dont pick up your camera, then im sure someone else would be happy to. Its a sweet setup, and yeah, I agree, you should sell it soon before it turns "ancient"....:) thanks again. I appreciate it...

Michael,

For large prints the Epson printers are available. You can upres with GFP and it does a decent job. You would save as a TIFF and burn the file to a CD and take it to the service bureau.

I was a beta tester for SmartScale (Mac) and I don't think it's in the same class as GFP, but give it a year or less. It may not be too stable on the PC yet. I heard from other testers that the PC version crashes still. Image quality is about 90% of GFP, but in some cases excedes GFP.

RE: 6 megapixel cameras are enough.

I'd not bet on it. I'd guess we will see 3-CCD cameras before too long. Or maybe 4-CCD cameras with a black channel to boot?

Regarding Genuine Fractals: I've enlarged photos from a Fuji Finepix Pro to 6 feet high at about 100 pixels/inch with excellent results... which can be quite astounding.

In fact, I had to re-print the image softer as the tiny pores and blemishes of the model's face was too apparent at close viewing distances.

Not many printers will take an ".stn" file, so you'd have to open it up at the final size and save it as a TIFF or JPEG.

Dean Sensui
Base Two Productions

I doubt we'll ever see a 3 or 4 CCD camera in the 35mm or DX (APS size) market. The prism block is too large for a conventional style body. Pro's aren't going to want to throw away all there lenses. It might work for medium format (MF) that has interchangeable backs. One of the strikes against the new Olympus 4:3 format is the switch to new lenses. I just don't see National Geographic and other large organizations giving up there multi million dollar lens inventories.

I'd bet you that they'd trash everything to get a demonstrably better image. They've all done it before. Maybe with reluctance but they'd do it.

I can just see something with a 645 body size doing this. Perhaps the Foveon chip will finally become good enough to perform in this arena.

As I write this post, I am printing out 36"x52" poster of
a very complex image taken with a Canon 10D
of an osprey nest with two fuzzy chicks and an egg that's been "pipped"

I'm also trying to get genuine fractals pro here at the U. If I succeed,
I'll post back with my observations once I reprint it.

One thing , the large format printer only does 75 DPI, so
I am not sure how much better the image will look once processed.

For printing at such a low dpi you might want to look into NIK Multimedia. They make a product specifically for sharpening inkjet prints, NIK sharpener Pro (http://www.nikmultimedia.com/usa/products/sharpenerpro/inkjet/inkjet.shtml). I've used it and it far exceeds USM (unsharp mask) in Photoshop. I believe they have a free download demo available also.

Thanks for the tip Jeff.

I got the poster in front of me, and it looks great. I had to do the usual
tweaking for the specific printer, but a bit of saturation boost and a
a hint of contrast seems to have done a good job.

The 10D ROCKS!

Years later, can anyone please tell me if and how the quality of landscape images is improved by using 17-40mm rather than 18-55mm with 40D?

FYI photo.net has a canon forum full of 40D users that probably give specific feedback on your question. Very nice site.

The 17-40 has better glass than the 18-55. It's sharper, more colourful and contrasty, focuses faster (in my experience), etc.

It's no Zeiss but it is one of the best wideangle zooms available for EOS.

Thank you Daniel.

In the meantime I've been using EF 24-105 and it's the best I've tried for both landscapes and close to mid-distant bird-flight ... sharp and fast. It's late in life to be learning to shoot and process RAW but now I have 2 good lenses, 24-105 and 100-400. The quality difference between 72dpi and 280dpi is amazing me.

Be careful with L-series glass - it's a slippery slope to f/2.8 zooms and f/1.4 primes. I started with a 50mm f/1.8 II and ended up owning (at various times) a 135/2, 70-200/2.8, 300/2.8 I, and 35/1.4.

And, much as I love my company 5D Mark II, there are few autofocus systems that can hang with a 1D Mark IIN for BIF.

Yes, buying L-glass is a one way ticket.

Once you use one L lens you will never want to use anything else for Canon unless you pay up past the L quality.

The absolute best is the camera you have with you. The one at home, the office, in your car, or back in the hotel is worthless. Buy a camera that fits your lifestyle and carry it with you at all times.

That makes my best camera the one in my cell phone. :) I do take lots of pictures with it and wish I had something better in hand. But the Rebel won't fit in my purse.

Hey Jeff, how ya doin? Been awhile. :)

Hi Lorinda, Chris still lets me in here from time to time. Actually, family and work really pulled me away. I subscribe to several of the forums and read the emails I get from the discussions several times a day. I miss the old place and the many friends I made here.

So how goes it with you? I see you've been promoted!

The "promotion" came about because Dylan got too busy running his own biz plus the DV Challenge. Other than that I'm still the one asking all the questions. ;)

You must be teaching a lot. And are you still catching birds at their best with your camera? If you've got a link to your current work I'd sure like to see.

The absolute best is the camera you have with you. The one at home, the office, in your car, or back in the hotel is worthless. Buy a camera that fits your lifestyle and carry it with you at all times.

"True dat", I believe people say. People say that, right? Yeah. I'm sure I've heard it somewhere. Anyway, as long as we're reviving years-old threads I figure I'll be a little narcissistic and link to my Flickr photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/itendswithtens/), which is a testament to the value of an always-there camera. In particular, these shots of the Highbridge Water Tower (http://www.flickr.com/photos/itendswithtens/3272398849/) as seen from the southbound Major Deegan in New York, and a supernova sunset over New York City (http://www.flickr.com/photos/itendswithtens/3276984167/), taken on the way across the Throg's Neck Bridge.

Just this morning my Cybershot T500 came back from Sony's service center, and I'm ecstatic at having my baby back. I have an SLR (one of those big four letter F word SLRs, actually), but even hanging around my neck it'd get in the way of me carrying tools and materials on job sites. I've gotten it up and running in the past few days, but it's usually too big to bring anywhere. The little point and shoots fit me perfectly. This one's the size of a deck of cards and is always in my pocket, ready to go at a moment's notice. For all the concerns about battery life and lack of manual control, with the way I use it the drawbacks all but vanish, and that's the best part of "fits your lifestyle", as Jeff describes it. To find a tool whose pros and cons match up to your personality and fit your usage like a glove is a great feeling.