Hi Rob, > Have you tried rating your reala at ISO 80 for landscapes - it is > fantastic if you do. Process as normal 100 though - don't even tell the > lab you did it.
Thanks, I'll try it. > Don't kid yourself that digital will pay for itself. Unless you shoot > hundreds or possibly thousands of rolls of film per year, or unless you > have a massive number of wasters which you wouldn't bother printing. I probably average around 5 - 10 keepers in a 36-exposure roll. Often only 2 or 3. I try to shoot a lot of frames to capture my newborn's cutest fleeting expressions, and my wife's best smiles. I've picked up a few books on taking better pictures of babies and children, and I'm getting better but have a long way to go. > Printing from digital is more expensive than when you get your film > developed and if you print most of your family shots could actually be > more expensive on an ongoing basis - never mind recouping the initial > outlay. Hm. Reala is $2.69 per 36-exposure roll, and Costco's in-house processing is $6.99 for 4x6 prints, for a total of $9.68 not counting shipping for the film. That's 27 cents per shot, or $1.29 for my average keeper. Costco charges 19 cents to print a 4x6 print from digital, on the same paper. Even if every frame of film I ever shot was a keeper, printing digital would still be cheaper. Costco's send-out processing is cheaper, but the results are inferior. I had been trying to keep costs to a minimum by using the cheaper send-out processing and having Costco's in-house service reprint all the keepers, but I finally decided that it was too much time and hassle for too little savings to do it that way. > Also, you will take between 2 and 10 times as many shots on > digital just because you can - this could mean even more printing! I consider that a moot point. To the extent that the *ist D enables me to get more keepers, I'm very happy to pay for that many more prints. > Even > if you eventually recoup you costs anyway, by then you will either need > or be lusting after a new camera, so you will never really get there. Not likely. I prefer to buy old and used. My inclination would be to wait until the *ist D is eventually replaced with something significantly better, and wait for people to start selling off their *ist D's. But it looks like that would cost more (in film and processing) than buying the *ist D now. I would be very unlikely to be among the first to replace my *ist D with the *ist D's eventual replacement. I'm only considering buying new because I don't see a good used option. I've looked at the Minolta RD-175, which is selling for around $300 and takes Minolta AF lenses, which are selling cheaply. But that's a 1.75 MP camera that was introduced in 1995, and I would guess there's been a lot of progress in CCD image quality since then. There is also the Fuji DS505/DS515, but that's even lower resolution, and about as old, and takes Nikon lenses, which would not be as cheap. Among the older Kodak DCS models, only the 1.x MP resolution models are selling cheaply enough to seriously consider as an alternative to a new *ist D, and besides their age and relatively expensive Nikon lenses, they look so ungainly I don't want to try to use them. > Right, back to your real question: how will it compare to reala. If you > work with your files, you should be able to get equivalent pics at 6*4 > or 7*5 by by 8*10 you will see a difference. The digital images will > likely be smoother and appear less griny but this is just because there > is no 'space' in between the grains, and resoltution will be lower. > However this really depends on how you do your sharpening. If you > sharpen and add contrast to the digital image it can (at a glance) > appear to have more resoltuion, but will in reality have less fine > detail. At 12*18 the digital will look better from a distance because > of the smoothness and contrast but reala would look better close up. Thanks, this is very helpful. > The biggest win win for the *istD is not actually at low ISOs but once > you get to ISO 800 and above. It has waaay less grain/noise than any > films of that speed I have found and makes low light shooting so much > better. That's very interesting. I've been trying to get natural-light shots of my newborn, but when he's in a happy mood he moves too fast for slow shutter speeds and shallow DOF, so it's been frustrating. > Hope that helps... It does, thanks! Does anyone know if the ZX-M's focusing screen will fit in the *ist D? If not, is there any way to get a split-image focusing screen into the *ist D? Thanks, Greg
