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G2 Newbies Observations

"Just too big and cumbersome for what I am seeking in a digital, which is a pocket snapshot camera. I will just have to get used to carrying my G2 around. Wilson"

Wilson, have you considered a high quality film P&S e.g. T2, T3 or the new Leica CM? I am quite confident that you will not be disappointed with the image quality from any of these cameras. The T3 is the only one of the three that is truly pocketable, but used T2s are probably reasonably priced.
 
Could I also suggest looking at the Yashica T4? The new one looks great, has a 28 to ? mm zoom, and uses Zeiss T coated optics.

It is also weathertight.

-Dana Kincaid
 
>>Hi Tim, yesterday u wrote something about an Epson 1280 and a Piezo Ink system. Sounds quite interesting. But i've never heard about Piezo. Could u kindly explain to me what it is, how it works, etc etc. Thank you . Luca

Hi Luca-

go to www.inkjetmall.com. Follow the links to the Piezo B&W. Tons of stuff. If you have further questions, you can email me at tvdweert@hotmail.com.

Regards, Tim v
 
The Yashica T4 Zoom (its name in the USA) is not weathertight.

Body cons: squinty VF. Body pros: decent flash, effective AF, light weight, quite small. Lens cons: too much barrel distortion and fall-off at the wide end, too slow at the long end. Lens pros: unbelievably sharp, great color.

For the price, highly recommended.
 
Hello,

Perhaps I can shed a little light here. I'm in the pro lab business.

The prints from slides services have changed a lot in the last few years. Ilfochrome or "Cibachrome" as most of us knew it as, is indeed a great process, but expensive as previously mentioned and getting hard to find. A good Cibachrome printer (person) is worth his or her weight in gold because it's a tricky process to control. As an inherently contrasty medium, print contrast is also difficult to control therefore requiring masking negatives sandwiched with the slide to adjust contrast. This is one of the reasons for the expense due to the extra labour involved in just preparing it for printing. The other of course is the price of the materials and the cost of maintaining a good chemical activity thru rigorous process monitoring.

What a lot of people don't know is that there are some Ilfochrome labs that actually print digitally on to the same material. Quite simply, the images are scanned, adjusted then printed via lightjet, Lambda, Chromira etc. etc. then run thru the traditional Cibachrome chemical reversal type process. The reason for this approach is the ability to adjust contrast digitally instead of the handstands required for masking negatives, along with the usual abilities to alter images, drop in text etc. and still printed on this unique medium. It's worth mentioning that the glossy material is really sumptuous, really has depth. It's unfortunate that a lot of people have never actually seen one. It's also considered one of the most archival photographic mediums, though that has been disputed. I really don't know the real score on that one.

Colour Chrome Atlanta is one of the most impressive labs I've ever seen. I believe they still do Cibachrome.

http://www.colorchrome.com/index.html

The other "R" process, commonly known as R3 and R3000 etc. was a standardized process common to at least Kodak and Fuji etc. The papers and chemicals could be interchanged from one company to another. Like Ilfochrome, this process had potential but also vulnerable to contrast control issues and was also a challenge to control the chemistry. Any colour reversal process will be. Sharp, rich and downright yummy! Good prints from both these mediums could knock your socks off because the original images were coming from transparencies which are by nature a more dynamic medium than negatives or anything else. I speak in past tense because this process is unfortunately pretty much dead. My catalogue shows the stuff as being either discontinued or special order. That's really unfortunate.

There is still limited usage of internegatives. This is one of the most frustrating and abused processes. Internegative film is a specialized formula to deal with the inherent gain in contrast common to most any copy process. Some cheesy labs would switch with everyday colour film with horrible results, but try to convince the customer that "that's the way it goes with printing slides". WRONG! Indeed internegative film can work well but requires precise balancing of exposure for both intensity and colour balance. The trick is to get all 3 colours to respond similarly to avoid classic cross colouring. Long story. The frustration comes from the unpredictable nature of internegatives. Seems that some slides would come to life, others would fall flat on their face even when things were under control.

Today, the majority of good quality prints from slides are being done digitally. And what a crap shoot this topic can be. The 2 weakest links in the chain are the scanner and the operator. U can bet that a lab that is doing digital Ilfochrome is likely using first rate scanners and first rate operators. It's too expensive a process to do otherwise. I'm sure the same can be said for most reputable pro labs who print with laser, LED or CRT. We print with a CRT printer.

Then there's the digital minilabs. I've seen very mixed results from these machines. The scanners are lightning fast, but it seems the designers didn't spend a lot of time designing them to print from positives.

The most entertaining comes from cheap scanners and inkjet printers. I've seen some pretty good stuff, and some that are wishful thinking at best, but none that could touch the real thing.

So, there are some good choices out there, none of them cheap. Good never comes cheap. Slides / transparencies deserve the highest respect because it's such a stunning, beautiful medium that a lot of us have neglected in a world of over hyped gimmicks. Pop a good tranny in a good projector with a good lens taken with a good camera and you'll wonder what the hell you were thinking. There just ain't nothin like it!!! PS, I'm not talking about shooting for a living or comparing to B&W etc.

Enough babbling

Paul
 
>Paul-

Thanks for the enlightening info. It's posts like yours that make me subsribe to this service. Lots of great info, much appreciated. Cheers from Paris, Tim v

PS I've seen some pretty darned nice stuff being printed via 4000dpi scanner and pigmented inkjet printers though, but then again, I'm not very sophisticated when it comes to color.
 
Robert, In a drawer back in the UK, I have three Minoxes; LX and C subminis and a GT 35mm, of which at least the GT takes pretty good photos, albeit not having a rangefinder is a pain, but in keeping with the instant gratification desires of the modern world, for my snapshot camera, I did prefer digital. However having seen the results of the first few rolls through my G2 and having bought a Samsonite Trekker bag to carry it around, I feel it will be some time before I go back to digital and am unlikely to find a compact which would match the results. Wilson
 
Tim,

You are welcome. Good to know somebody appreciates the little efforts such as a half hour writing this stuff. But, I still love photography after all these years, perhas more than ever, so it's still a pleasure.

Paul
 
Paul,

> What a lot of people don't know is that there
> are some Ilfochrome labs that actually print
> digitally on to the same material

That is true, and that's why it's always a good idea to ask them specifically how do they make these prints.

> The other "R" process, commonly known as R3 and
> R3000 etc. was a standardized process common to
> at least Kodak and Fuji etc.

That actually confused me a little. Do you mean that it's no longer used? Then what type of R process A&I uses for instance? ( http://www.aandi.com/custom.html#2 ) I know that these "Type 35" papers that Fuji makes are processed in R3 chemistry, so I'm not sure what you meant?

> Colour Chrome Atlanta is one of the most
> impressive labs I've ever seen. I believe they
> still do Cibachrome.

Interesting. Never heard of them before, perhaps I should give them a call. Incidentally, do you know anything about Holland Photo in Austin, Texas? ( www.hollandphoto.com ) or Created For Life in Australia? ( http://www.createdforlife.com/services.htm )

> I'm sure the same can be said for most
> reputable pro labs who print with laser, LED or
> CRT. We print with a CRT printer.

Speaking of digital printers, I was always curious to hear first-person info about differences in print quality on these printers. So far I have seen only LightJet prints (seem to be most popular here in California), so I wonder what's the difference in terms of color/contrast and detail between say Chromira (LED), LightJet (laser) and whatever CRT printer you're using?

> Good never comes cheap.

Right on money!


Mike.
 
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