You guys kill me. <g>
Glad you're happy with your first waltz with your new Minolta, Ken. Envy
all around here.
Yesterday Katie and I were up north. I had a couple free hours and stopped
into a photography store in Middletown to see what was up. No luck re
dip-and-dunk service for my stuff as the owner sends everything but C-41 to
The Laboratory in Santa Rosa (there's another guy who does wet work in town
that I might be able to hook up with, otherwise my stuff has to go to Santa
Rosa with this guy's work).
Nice fellow. We talked for awhile. He shoots mostly school pictures
(graduation shots and the like), weddings and local sports events, plus the
odd church/Lions gig I imagine. All of his studio work is digital and half
his wedding stuff is as well. Sports are still done with emulsion.
Anyway, his digital is an EOS 10D and the blowups I saw from weddings were
superb. Not sure what lens he made those pictures with as I didn't plumb
him all that deep but at the moment that 10D wore a 28-135mm IS USM EF
(same on his analog body, by the way) and this lens _almost_ captured the
micro-detail on a bride's laced wedding veil, and did capture all detail
(as far as I could tell just eyeballing it in the store) everywhere else,
including the not-so-fine lace further down on her gown. Saturation was, as
you say, a good imitation of what one would expect shooting one of the
Portra emulsions, and I imagine there are settings in-camera to pop that up
to a Fuji emulation or whatever you'd want (and if not then in PS).
For his C-41 prints he uses a KIS 8-inch printer. It seems to do fair work
for medium-sized enlargements. I was invited to bring in some files to see
how I liked it. I think I will next time we go up.
Still not ready but I might well be very almost ready . . . if only I were
richer kind of man.
Tris
At 01:25 PM 3/9/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>Talk about getting lazy in a real hurry. Digital is really
>dangerous to critical thinking while shooting. It's easy (and
>cheap) to shoot dozens of brackets, alternative compositions,
>etc., without fear. But one could easily forget how to determine
>exposures on their own.
>
>Let's see. I'm four days into "Serious" Digicam ownership and
>pushing 1000 shots already. I've got, maybe, five decent shots
>in the bunch. Ok, maybe a few more, but nearly all are "getting
>familiar" and "benchmarking" pictures. I've deleted 2/3 of them
>off the camera before they ever reach the computer.
>
>Here are a few observations:
>
>- Antishake/Image Stabalization ROCKS! I never knew what I was
>missing. I'm consistantly getting excellent handheld shots at
>1/15 at an equivelent 200mm focal length. We're talking zero
>motion blur in the images. It isn't always perfect, but it's a
>whole lot better than the alternative. I'm convinced enough that
>it is becomming a major factor in any future camera purchase.
>Awesome! I handheld a night street scene at ISO 160 (indicated
>ISO 100) at 50mm equivelent that is knife sharp and I wasn't
>even trying. I need to double-check the esif data, but I think
>it was 1/8 of a second.
>
>- Image quality is overrated. Choose the camera because it
>feels right and gives you the features and capabilities you
>need, not because of some extreme nuance in how it resolves a
>test chart. The fact is, once printed, you are hard pressed to
>identify noise (low ISO) and other artifacts in anything up to
>11x14. I checked out a lot of cameras before settling in on
>mine. As I continue to use it, the more I'm impressed with the
>design. It's the little things. I hate having to fight the
>camera, and this one requires little to no fighting.
>
>- Today's zoom lenses are extremely good at flare control. I'm
>getting shots that have few if any Newton's Rings or visible
>loss of contrast. These would have been throwaways with my
>Zuikos--even the MC one.
>
>I purchased the Minolta A1. I couldn't justify the $450 more
>(at the time) for the A2, so I gave up on the nicer EVF and 8MP
>sensor, but gained in a camera that has pretty much equal
>resolving power as the lens is the limiting factor. I agree with
>Chuck, as there are a few plastic bits that make me wonder, but
>the handling of the camera is SUPURB! It is extremely
>configurable and in reality is every bit a professional camera
>in every aspect except for sensor-size, interchangeable lens
>mount and some robustness issues.
>
>Images from the camera are good. I'm fighting sharpness
>problems in wide-angle, but at normal and telephoto settings it
>is quite good. I've printed several 8x10s that are more than
>sharp enough. An 11x14 portrait shot is as good as Portra 160
>in 35mm. That's good enough for nearly 100% of my paying jobs.
>Oh, and skintones are nearly perfect for me. I'm getting
>dead-ringer Portra 160NC skintones. The ISO ratings are a bit
>off. ISO 100 is actually 160.
>
>Best of all, with the battery pack installed, the camera looks
>like a professional camera. I don't feel like the poor
>stepchild when shooting with it.
>
>Now, what in the world does this have to do with the OM list,
>you ask?
>
>I very carefully considered everything out there. I know, that
>as a professional I needed to go digital. I've kicked and
>screamed long and hard, but finally had to succomb to it. But I
>couldn't justify the expense of dumping a minimum of $2000 into
>a camera body/lens that hadn't "arrived" yet. I like the E-1,
>but it's not ready for ME yet. Having seen the design
>philosophy of Minolta, I'm going to seriously look at their DSLR
>offering when it's ready. But regardless of what I purchase in a
>year (maybe) my "investment" in the A1 is to be considered a
>freebee. It will pay for itself in one upcoming assignment, it
>will work nice as a backup camera to a real DSLR, and it has
>allowed me to wait on spending the big bucks for at least one
>more DSLR development cycle.
>
>Most importantly, it encourages me to keep using the OMs.
>There's plenty of the world to photograph in B&W and in Velvia.
>And I have a couple of lenses still capable of extreme-quality
>pictures. My 100/2.8 is safe from retirement. Especially in
>the Bokeh department.
>
>Would I recommend this camera to other Zuikoheads desparately
>trying to wait out the DSLR purchase as long as possible? In a
>heartbeat. There are a few oddball nuances, and noise at the
>higher ISOs is disasterous, but the camera is a fine performer
>and works with you, not against you. It is a "shooting
>priority" camera. Provided you haven't foolishly used the switch
>to place the camera in "play mode" the camera is ALWAYS ready to
>take a picture. Doesn't matter what menu you are in, whether or
>not you are in the process of reviewing pictures the camera is
>ready to roll.
>
>One cool item--The exposure mode dial includes four of those
>stupid presets (sports, portrait, sunset, landscape). Don't like
>them? Fine, you can replace them (and another Memory Recall
>positon) with your own settings. FIVE custom memories a turn of
>the dial away.
>
>One question I've been asked is about the shutter delay. In
>reality I notice little if any difference from my OM-2S.
>
>The price on these puppies is falling rapidly.
>
>AG-Schnozz
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