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Contax ND

Michael,

"going from one image capture setup (the camera) to the PC which has its' own color calibration"

That is exactly, why Photoshop (and any other serious image manipulation software) uses ICC device profiles. The profile tells the PC what the camera "means" when it says "R100 G50 B255" to describe a pixel. To have the same visible color on a screen, this could mean "R87 G53 B243" and the printer's profile translates it to "R96 G59 B253" for a certain paper.

Only with these translators (color profiles) a shoot can yield controllable output. (Just imagine a TV spot for IBM in warm orangy colors and soft gradation...)

Therefore "Auto Correction" in PS is a very limited option to compensate a missing profile.
 
>Christian,

Are you saying that all the other digital cameras let you specify what ICC profile you should use. I thought that some of them will default to an Adobe color space, and this was one of the shortcomings of the ND, that it does not default to Adobe. But I don't think that any of the digital cameras let you load a specific color profile.

The whole world is not married to Adobe, and perhaps this was why Contax kept the profile "generic", allowing you to make the adjustment on the computer side. Although, I do agree it would be great to specify my ICC profile at the camera level. Do you really find it that unreasonable to take and modify the "flat" images? I timed how long it took to run through a "roll" of 36 digital shots, and it took about 15 minutes. This also allowed me the time to organize the shots, delete unacceptable shots, and crop some shots that needed that adjustment. And the majority of the final shots look very good.

michael.
 
The Nikon D1-X allows selection of Adobe RGB or sRGB, the latter presumably for photojournalists up-linking via the web. The color gamut for sRGB that the ND defaults to is a shorter color gamut. The standard recommended by most pro digital processors is Adobe RGB 1998.

The ND images are flat and require a lot more tweaking in post than any other digital camera I've used including the D1-X, Canon D-30 & 1-D, and 2 Kodak ProBacks. The ND is also far less tolerant of exposure errors than any other digital, and even with dead on exposures, can be troublesome in the darks.

That said, the ND can and does produce very smooth tonal qualities, and is unequaled in B&W conversions compared to any other 6 meg unit or below.

None of these things are anything major when compared to the 3 tiff buffer. My 16 meg Kodak back can shoot circles around this ND.
In reality, I could care about anything else, it's the buffer that's this cameras' biggest flaw.
 
> Marc,

I understand the shortcomings of an sRGB colorspace. Excuse my lack of understanding, but when you say the ND defaults to it, does that mean you can specify a different color space? I understood that the limit was for SRGB unless you are in Raw mode. Then the sky is the limit.And when you say the 3 tiff buffer is the camera's major flaw, what are you saying? Are you talking about max burst speed of 3 tiff images in one second? From a practical point of view, for MOST shooting, is this really a major, major flaw?

Thanks,

michael.
 
Michael, as far as I know, you can only capture in sRGB, so it is the default...no? Maybe bad use of the word default when it is the only choice.

When the camera is set on Tiff capture, you can bange out 3 shots and the camera stops as the buffer downloads to the card. That is not the same as a burst of three per second like a motor drive. The Nikon D1-x shoots 9 or 10 shots before stopping to down load, and can be modified for $240 to shoot 18 shots in rapid sequence. Same for the new full frame Kodak 14 meg unit. Its all about the memory in the hardware of the camera, which is the biggest flaw of the ND...it totally ruins it for weddings and other high demand situations.
 
Anybody have time for a stupid question? (OK to ping me off list at jsr993@aol.com) Here goes:

These huge megapixel cameras.. I have a 3 meg digital and the files are just too big for me to work with, so I can't imagine 14megs. Is the reason for the huge megs to get a better "quality" pictures ala a finer grain film, or is it so they will be clearer on enlargement? I just don't get it...
Colorado Jeff
 
Jeff, you don't get it? What's not to get? 3 megs will yeild a 4X6 print of good quality. Maybe a 5X7. After that, the image can't match a print from a cheap film camera. To do that you need more image information, which is why there is a megapixal race in digital capture.

The only thing you "need to get", is a more powerful computer to process the higher meg files from current digital cameras. Unless, of course, you don't need anything larger than a 5X7 and/or never crop into a picture. I have a 4 meg Canon G3 that is just fine for vacation snaps, and it doesn't take all day to process the images. It's more than enough for our family album. But I could never shoot a wedding with it.
 
Marc...
THANK YOU! That is EXACTLY the information I was looking for! I appreciate the logical explanation..
Jeff in Colorado
 
Marc,

Ok, I understand the tiff 1 second limit. But, how about JPG buffer writing. Is this limit also set for large JPG files? I know we could argue back and forth about the advantages/disadvantage of TIFF vs JPG, but in my experience with the ND, JPG files work out great. For a wedding, I would think that being able to produce an exeptional quality 11x14 would be adequate (which I know you can produce form the ND Jpg).

It seems like the Nikcon D1-x argument is lame ... considering you are comparing 3 megapixel technology to 6 megapixel. As for the Kodak, I just don't know what the burst rate for 14 megapixel files is according to Kodak. But, here again you are comparing a very recent release to the ND which was released 9 months ago.

If you need a larger print, then shooting with a medium format would be more logical.

And final question ... if you can shoot 3 tiffs in one second ... then how long do you have to wait for the buffer to write the records to a high speed compact disk card (or an ibm microdrive)? 30 seconds? 10 seconds? And is it the same wait time for a JPG?

Thanks Marc,

michael.
 
Michael...

First, some clarification of facts concerning my so called lame arguements...

the Nikon D1-X is not a 3 meg camera, it's 5.47 meg. and produces a 16.8 meg Tiff file. The 2 year old Nikons' burst rate is 9 Tiff frames before buffer has to download, 18 frames if you opt for the buffer memory upgrade ($240.) It takes 13 seconds for each image to download, but Nikon now offers firmware to decreased that to 9 seconds when using some of the new 24X CF cards.

The ND burst rate is 3 Tiff frames before buffer download. It takes 18 seconds for one frame to load to a 16X Lexar CF card.

Now, the test I just ran in my studio...

ND on Tri-pod, fitted with a Contax 645 120/4 Macro lens (maybe the best lens they make?).
Still life of bottles and type labels lit by Profoto equipment in an Elinchrom Octabox and fill bounce. Shot Tiff, then J-peg 1. Opened both in PhotoShop 7 and the results are...

Michael you are right !!!!!!

While the Tiff showed a very slight improvement in resolution it is not of any practical consequence. In fact the Tiff reds were a touch artifical compared to the J-peg....something that made me run the test two extra times. Over-all the Tiffs were a miniscule brighter and cleaner, but again, of little practical consequence. And the buffer problem disappears when shooting J-pegs.
I am going to try to shoot a wedding with the ND in concert with my Contax 645 with Kodak 645C DCS ProBack. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Thanks Michael.
 
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