Hold-Da-Phone, S drops the bomb

A new camera bomb that is. One FINE machine:
Just about every feature and/or capability you could want for under two hundred bucks.

Fuji Finepix S1800          

•  12.2-megapixel, 1/2.3-inch CCD
•  Fujinon 18x wide-angle optical zoom lens (28mm to 504mm f3.5); 
•  Dual Image Stabilization
•  3.0-inch high-contrast LCD -AND- Electronic View Finder
  
  

MessinWidYa

I finally figured out how to edit the default Blog templates.
NOW we have a photo related blog with, get this:
Bigger higher resolution Photos.

The post just before this is the first example. I'm trying to decide about re-scaling all the previous posts, but since we haven't gotten to any real 'fire for effect' photography yet, I'm not sure it's worth the bother.

Mo'Puter, Mo'Bettah Edit?

OK so here's the theory: With a 15MB RAW file size *per frame* and many projects likely to require combinations of several frames, I'm going to need a fairly well, gnarly computer to keep up. Besides it's a fun project and I already found some chump to buy the old one. So we do a little research to try and work out the best bang-for-the-buck in PC parts these days, order a few parts, and start hooking things up. Here's where it at now. Yes there will be a case to put it in, but not during the testing phase.

So far it's just your garden variety 4GHz 8MB Four processor core i5 based PC with a fairly quick video card. The real tweek to the system is those two little hard drive kinda things on the right. Usually the slowest thing in your PC, the thing you end up waiting on the most is the hard drive. PC's have been improving at a rate such that they're about 10x faster over the last 8 years. Hard drives have only improved about 2x. That's about to change.

The new Solid State Hard Drives (SSD) can, when correctly connected and set-up outperform 'regular' spinning type hard drives by a BIG margin.  Here's an example, the 'regular' drives are on the top and the new SSD's on the bottom.

This is the set of tests where at 2x to 3x difference they are CLOSEST, other tests like Random Read have the difference at more like 100x. It really does make a difference.
There must be a downside, yes?
You're right. They are of relatively small capacity and quite expensive. That seems to be changing quite quickly though.

His and Hers Camera Comparison

OK. This posting isn't supposed to be wonderful photography. This is just supposed to show you the difference between M's camera/accessories and S's camera/accessories. See if you can detect a trend.




So, the bag on the left is M's and the one on the right is S's. Hmmmm......



The tripod on the left is M's and the one on the right is S's.



The three lenses on the left are M's and the ones on the right are S's.



The camera on the left is (you guessed it) M's and the one on the right is S's. Have you figured out the trend yet?




The whole package together. Left - M's....Right - S's. You should see the printers!
Michael's collection (including his printer) runs somewhere around $2000 and Shannon's collection (including her printer) runs around $400. It should be interesting to see what the photos are going to be like!

First try at HDR

OK so HDR is High Dynamic Range imagery.
Basically it's the process of using different exposure values combined together in software so that very high contrast range scenes can be rendered on screen or print. There are some very bizarre images that can be created that way, but we're trying for something "Real as seen by the eye, rather than the camera."
The test image we shot the other day looks like a good candidate, the sun on high wispy clouds is about as 'highlight' as you can get and the brush on the far riverbank is pretty darn black.



Mary's River confluence, Canon 590IS, 37mm-eq, f8@1/400 ISO100 JPEG-Fine


Mary's River confluence, Canon 590IS, 37mm-eq, f8@1/100,1/400,1/1000 ISO100
Combined in Unified Color's HDR Photo Studio 2/64
It's arguably an improvement, the mid-tones on the beach are retained, the sky isn't as blown out and though you can't really see it at this resolution, the details of the brambles on the bank are more visible. At the same time I don't think it looks 'over-processed.'
Lens flare is accentuated somewhat, but some of the 'default over-sharpening' that the camera applies automatically is slightly reduced by the de-Halo processing step in this HDR software.
The shot still looks a little smeary due to a big nasty thumbprint that was on the front lens element. This is the first test shot(s) with the 590IS we got on eBay for 67 bucks and I hadn't checked to see if the lens was clean. How very embarrasing.
In the future we'll be Trying other HDR packages and will probably post those results.

FleaBay Rulez!

Some of the best and sharpest  lenses for Pentax were made in Japan in the 70's and 80's. Granted there's no fancy autofocus systems on them, but that's a benefit too since there's fewer things to go wrong. If you chose the right ones (KA Mount) they work fine on all later Pentaxes since they have an 'Auto' aperture mode on them.

 

First is a late 70's 50mm f1.7 which I found for $ixty some in what appears to be really good condition. These things are getting well known for being fast and sharp, though most of the attention goes to the f1.4 version of the lens (which fetches at least twice as much money) Buying a new one will set you back near $500, though it will have autofocus and somewhat better edge sharpness and flare reduction. Since we're using a smaller than 35mm (24mm APS-C) sensor the edge sharpness and vignetting problems don't concern us as much, and the f1.7 had less problems with that anyway. I got a lens hood to help with the flare problems and the 'effective' 75mm focal length with the smaller sensor should work well for indoor portrait work and outside for landscapes. This is probably the only lens I'll have that can out-resolve the 15MegaPixel sensor. On the others the lens is generally the limiting factor

The second 'find' is a Tokina 70-210mm f3.5 zoom. This is reported to be the sharpest of the aftermarket zooms in this range, which was the most popular zoom range back in the day. Would you believe 45 bucks?
I haven't got it yet so we'll see how she does.  Since this has an effective range of 110-320mm on this camera, it should complete the lens' collection we'll be carting around (18-320mm)
We'll post samples once everything gets here and tested and cleaned.

Tripod for your thoughts...

Long ago in a time far far away before the burning of my things, I had a half decent tripod. Reasonably sturdy, only about four pounds so you could carry it quite a ways, adjustable in many, if somewhat crude ways. Just tall enough so you got a nasty crick in your back looking through the viewfinder for any length of time. Well, things have changed somewhat over the last thirty years.
Now the 'good' tripods are of carbon fibre and with titanium ball-heads and cost $500+ though very light and strong. Most are still short enough to generate that crick in the neck. The cheaper ones mostly seem crude and not easily adjustable and either too light or too flimsy. A search, a search for the middle ground. There seem few in that middle not fatally flawed in some manner or another.
Then I saw a SLIK 700DX over at our own Oregon Camera, and it was good. ...except the $225...

 

It doesn't really show here, but the tripod extends to over seven feet and the head has bubble levels and adjustments that make it quite handy for panorama photography. A litle over four pounds. Found one for $125 and it on its way. Could be fun ..

Got one a'commin

Reached agreement with a guy up in Seattle. Pentax K20D, D-BG2 Battery Grip, Five batteries, Smart charger, case, photo-gear backpack/case, bunch of filters, remote electronic shutter release and misc. other stuff. $700.
As a whole it 's better than the eBay deals. Plus, after two weeks of bidding there I was getting tired of it.

Decisions decisions

So, we've settled on Pentax, now which one to get.

 

The Km  is a bit underpowered, the bottom end consumer model.

The Kx is nice, The K7 is VERY nice but too darn expensive at $1100+.

Lets look at the previous models, now all of 18 months 'old'

The were the K2000, K200 and K20D in about the same order.  The K20D is the 'Pro-sumer' model and started out life around $1400 body only.  Now they're fetching like$600-700. Hmmm, K7 features for half price.  Sign me the heck up.

Here's the K20, a bit smaller than it's competition.

LOTS of buttons and dials, S. is going to be pleased.
Cool review at http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PentaxK20D/  who are, frankly the best camera review site out there.
Now to find one. I've bid on like six of them on eBay. They either go for WAY too much (the manufacturer is selling old stock for $800) or I'm not available when the auction closes. Drat.
Found one on Craigslist with a BUNCH of accessories. We'll see how that goes.

Woot!

Found a Pentax DA SMC18-55 Autofocus Zoom on Amazon for $40 brand new. Cool.
It's not the latest 'weather resistant' model, but the lower end Pentax zooms consistently test better than the equivalent models from Canon, Nikon or Sony.

"So not you have a lens and a printer but no camera, Whassup wid dat?"
I hope I'm going to find a viable Pentax. Both the lens and printer were really good deals. Guessing I could sell either for more than I paid. Not plannin'on it though.

The little camera that COULD

Before deciding on getting a dSLR for all the image quality and control it brings to the party, we were looking at advanced point-and-shoot cameras. Ideally one with complete manual controls, a viewfinder so you can see what you're shooting in bright sunlight and RAW (unprocessed/non-JPEG) output capability. Most consumer cameras make a mess of the image during the conversion to JPEG. Everything with those capabilities and at least a half decent lens was $300 and up. Seemed kinda steep for a little pocket camera.

 

Found one of these on eBay for 67 bucks. The next later models were dumbed down to the max and have sensors with serious noise problems above ISO200 (which they compensate for by making the image blurry enough so the noise doesn't show, thus negating the fancy 10-12 megapixel resolution) or crazy zoom ranges on lenses that turn out to be not so sharp - and no manual modes.

This one has almost everything we were looking for including full manual mode *WITH* manual focus and a reasonably sharp 35-150 f2.8 lens. The only thing it's really missing is the RAW mode. Fortunately the Super-Fine JPEG mode isn't too bad. ...and for $67...

Yes the movie mode is crap. We'll get over it.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q408budgetgroup/page3.asp

That whole Printer thing

Turns out you have to eventually get the photos OUT of the camera. Dinky web photos are all well and good but you can produce something good enough for that with a $100 point-n-shoot and a free photo editor like Picasa.
Photo printers seem to divide into classes by the maximum print width. 8.5 in, 13 in. 17 in, 24 in. and gynormous. The 24in. and up classes are all above $2000 so they're way out of the budget. The little printers do a really fine job at 4x6 to 8x10 size prints, but that seems a little small, though the 'under $200' is nicely proportional. The operating expenses don't seem to stay small though. Especially when calculated on a per-sq.in. basis.
Point of comparison: The local photo lab does very nice quality prints up to a maximum of 24x96in at basically $10/sq.ft. That would eat up the budget quick.
So, I'm going to focus on the 13in. and 17in. width printers. Canon and HP have some nice ones between $600-800. Epson makes the R1800/R1900 13incher for around $500. They all have pretty small ink tanks though which seems to really impact the operating costs. Still looking.


[Edit] Found a refurb Epson 3800 (17in. 9-ink, 3-level black for nice B&W) for under $1000 and it comes with $450 worth of new ink carts. Puts it right in the same (effective) price range as the R1800/1900 13in. printers but with out the ink-swapping and small ink tanks and iffy B&W prints. Pretty compelling

 

Yeah it's kinda big, but when everything is folded down it's not so bad. Besides I have a nice space for it.

Lotsa choizes

Hmmm the high end of the advanced point-and-shoot/and/or/digital viewfinder camera market sits right around $500. Which is right where the lower-middle end of the dSLR market lives. Seems like every one I look at has something important missing. I really like the Sony dSLR's but the new low-end ones are bizarrely redisigned, uncomfortable and strange. They do have by far the best Live-View (on the display while you're shooting) mode of anybody, and their high end and older model units seem to work well.  By the time you get to a model that has everything I want it's called the A850 and costs $2000 for just the body. Drat. Gonna have to scale back the 'wants.'  The Nikon's and Canon's seem nice but aren't exactly a compelling value, especially since they build  their anti-shake and autofocus capability into their lenses, which makes them considerably more expensive.
One of the key advantages of the Pentax and Sony/Minolta units is that they do a good job of supporting their older lenses. Including anti-shake and most of the automatic modes (though obviously not autofocus, eh?) and especially Pentax has some older glass that's very well thought-of which now shows up on eBay for a tenth of what the current stuff goes for. Off to do more reading. Starting to look like Sony/Minolra or Pentax. We'll see.

Photograferz R US?

I think it was about 1983 when I got fed-up with darkrooms. An insane number of hours in a dank dark smelly room producing things that never seemed to quite match what I'd imagined. I was mostly following Fred's Zone Four Workshop approach. Pretty darn good results without going through the whole A.Adams' Zone System uber detail thingy. Still a massive timesink and with a kid on the way I bundled up the whole thing: Sinks, Trays/baths, A sweet Bessler 67XL with a nice Nikkor, scads of essential gadgets and one of  the Nikon bodies and a lens or two and sold the whole thing for a grand. It was worth more but being able to get rid of all of it at once...
Then a major house fire some years later put paid to everything else. A couple hundred rolls worth of negatives and slides. Melted, smoked, rained-on, all of the above.  Bummer.

S. had quite a Pentax setup. P3 Body and a couple lenses. She had enough brains to stay away from dark rooms though. That setup worked fine between the mid 80's and very late 90's. Then the camera died. After only a few thousand frames. How rude.

Recently a couple things happened, other than really needing a good distraction. First I came across the work of a landscape photographer who creates stitched composites of 20-30 images to generate very impressive large scale panorama images. Another gallery had very cool High Dynamic Range (no, not the cartoon-ish stuff) landscape images. Then I stumbled across http://luminous-landscape.com/ and especially http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/digital_black_and_white.html the NorthLight guy and the state of the art in digital B&W. I gotta do me somma that!

Of course this brings up many questions: Advanced point-n-shoot? One of the new Viewfinder style digital cameras?
( http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong10/ ) or go for the full on dSLR treatment?  I do like that one of the best known 'developing'/editing applications is called Lightroom.
And, how do ya print the darn things anyway?
Each question begats six others...

One thing that has been thought out is the budget. Think I'll try to limit it to what I sold my last setup for, plus inflation. Say roughly $2K