Shel asked: > What is it that you like about the look of the prints? I like the color purity especially; I like the surface of the ink on the Epson Archival Matte paper, which I think is lovely; and I like the softer contrast range and better shadow detail. > Do you like > them more than a wet print? Than wet color prints, yes, I have to say, although that's maybe too broad a generalization. It simply makes color as controllable, or more so, than tones are in traditional b&w printing. I think it liberates creativity in color like no traditional color method can even touch. > Are you printing in color or B&W? Color. > How > large are you making the prints? I'm printing only on letter-sized (8.5 x 11) sheets. This is the tradeoff I made when I decided to try this, mainly to limit the expense. Most of my own prints so far are smaller image area prints (typically up to about 6x8, most smaller) made on vertically-oriented sheets of letter-sized paper. I think full 8x10 image size is getting a bit borderline with 3 megapixels with the moderate JPEG compression I use, although they look pretty good at that size. Of course there are utilities such as Genuine Fractals that allow you to "extropolate upwards" to make better-looking larger prints from smaller files. If you want to make full-sized 11x14 prints or somewhat larger, I'd probably recommend one of the new 4- or 5-megapixel cameras such as the just-announced Nikon CoolPix 5000. Even a 5-megapixel camera and a 12-wide printer aren't terribly expensive--the Nikon is about $1.1k, and the printer (Epson 1280) is $600. Of course you can spend more if you want to. > Have you compared a well-printed B&W > photo to a digitally made print, same size, same subject, same light? No, I haven't. They're different media...I'm not asking or expecting digital to either duplicate or replace 35mm. > For those of us living in caves, what's the "green dot" and how does > that relate to making a photograph? It's the focus confirmation indicator. It appears as a bright green LED in the viewfinder window. You can see it clearly using either viewing method. It means that focus is locked on. With focus locked, the shutter lag of this camera is about 200ms, or a fifth of a second, which is about the same as a slower SLR (for comparison, a Canon EOS-1n is 60ms, and a Leica M6 is 18ms). I find it tolerable. Without focus locked, the lag can be a whole second or longer, which I find intolerable. > So, how do you get a more selective DOF? > What if you want just a > small area in focus and lots of out of focus area in front of or > behind the subject? Use a different camera? D.o.f. is significantly increased for the same apertures compared to a 35mm SLR. >Can you set the focus between two subjects, where > there is essentially nothing to focus on? I haven't felt the need to do such a thing yet...with any AF camera I just know where I want the plane of focus to be placed, and I simply find something at that distance and lock focus on that and then recompose. If there really is nothing at that distance, there is a "manual focus" mode on my camera that allows you to manually set any focus distance from 8 inches to infinity in very closely-spaced steps (the scale has reference markers at 8, 16, 24, and 31 inches, and 2,8, 6.5, 10, and 16 feet, but the settings are much finer than that), but it's not a "native" mode for the camera and I haven't used it yet. Setting manual focus requires going into a menu and making the sitting using a toggle switch, It's relatively simple, but it's not something you'd do on every single shot no matter how dedicated you were. > Can you control the > aperture yourself and see what's in focus, or does the camera decide > aperture and focus for you? Either way. This camera has aperture priority, manual, shutter priority, or program modes. You set A, S, or M default in the menu and then can quickly switch between program and your chosen mode using the main dial. Of course you can fairly easily reprogram your mode as you shoot, too. You can see exactly what's in focus because the LCD screen on the back of the camera is WYSIWYG. If it's too small and you can't really discern sharpness or exact focus, you can check it after you take the picture by going into "review" mode and zooming in on any area of the picture you just took to see it more clearly. The zoom is about a 4X. This is mainly for checking focus to see if you got what you wanted or need to reshoot. > Here again I question the value of great DOF when shooting macros. Possibly, but my admittedly limited experience so far is that too little d.o.f. is as much a problem in macro photography as too much, and this makes it easier to get better d.o.f. while still using wide apertures. There's still a lot out of focus in macro mode, of course. > Not that it's never a good thing, but can you control it? You can control it by selecting different apertures, same as with 35mm, but you can't get greater selective focus than f/1.8 at the closest focus point, of course. > A good macro lens compared to what? How does it stack up against a > Pentax A*200/4.0 macro for example, or the A100/2.8? Compared, I'd say, to the macro mode of a decent 35mm zoom lens. Remember, my camera is essentially a point-and-shoot. > What sort of > working distance can you get between the lens and the subject? What's > the magnification ratio? Set on full telephoto (about equivalent to 95mm) and macro operation, working distance is about 7 or 8 inches from the lens to the subject and I would guess the ratio is about 1:2. >It's my understanding that there's a > noticeable drop in quality as one moves to the higher speeds. Have > you noticed that? Yes. It's about the same as the qualitative differences between ISO 100-200-400 color neg films of maybe ten years ago. (I think today's ISO 400 color neg films are better.) > What do you do if you want a slower/faster speed? You can either let the camera set it for you based on the prevailing metered light, or you can set it manually. With the flash on, for instance, its default is ISO 100, but you can override this. (Flash settings, incidentally, are on, off, forced fill flash, and red-eye reduction.) > Does the camera have exposure compensation? This one does, yes, in 1/3rd stops up to + or - 2 stops. > Can you set it to over or > under expose depending on what you want to see in the final "print"? Of course, in a variety of ways--by setting exposure manually, by using spot metering, by using AEL, etc. I suppose I shouldn't mention this to you, Shel, because it will turn you off, but you can also make short movies with sound, and you can also attach 5-second "sound bite" files to specific pictures you take. So you can record notes about location, subject, etc. right after you take the picture. The camera automatically dates and numbers every picture, so you have a built-in filing system. O91901.048.jpg would be the 48th picture I shot on September 19th, 2001. Also, a lot of information about every shot is automatically recorded: file name, format, color depth, image size, the exact date and time the picture was taken (to the second), mode setting used, flash setting used, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and lens focal length settings used. Finally, you can "save" all custom settings so that every time you turn the camera on, all settings are set to what you prefer. --Mike P.S. Shel, to your personal e-mail address, I'll send a typical uncompressed image file. Just a snapshot, of one of my son's friends. This will take a bit of time to download, but it will open "pixel for pixel" on your monitor, allowing you to judge basic image sharpness. You'll be able fairly easily to imagine the same file printed 6x8. The file I'll send is an HQ (High Quality) file. SHQ (Super High Quality) is better for printing if you're going to manipulate the image, but in unmanipulated form it looks essentially identical to the HQ files on a monitor. Once again, please understand that I'm not trying to "convince" anybody to do anything. I fully respect everyone's right to use whatever equipment and methods they choose. I'm sending this along as information only. The picture was taken at f/2, n.b. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
