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post #31 of 34

10/27/04 at 4:30pm

JohnRice
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BTW, what are the quirks of the Fujis you mention?

post #32 of 34

10/27/04 at 5:22pm

ManW_TheUncool
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John,

I don't know too well about all the quirks w/ the S2 since it was simply too far out of my budget to consider seriously. But I hear that the battery thing is one of them -- it needs 2 separate batteries, but I forget why. People also seem to complain that the S2 is generally more clunky for ergonomics and handling than the competition -- it's based on same Nikon film body as the D100, but apparently, ergonomics and handling do differ significantly. And of course, there are the features/specs you mentioned that I guess many such people consider as "quirks". Usually, I'd expect all this kind of stuff to bother PJ-types, but as I mentioned, there apparently are PJ-types that use the S2 nonetheless although probably none for shooting sports.

From the sound of it, probably none of the quirks of the S2 will bother you much (if at all) or keep you from getting your shot. Around these forums, it does seem that people often lose sight of the principles of "right tool for right job" and "photog matters most" in such debates.

OTOH, I wouldn't really dismiss some of the technical stuff that gets bantered about either, especially the handling of DR in digital. People have found good ways to deal w/ the limited DR for many situations although it does take some PS skills to do. The fundamental idea of blending multiple exposures for DR is certainly nothing new to photography, but software solutions do make it much easier to do in digital than in the film darkroom -- well, at least that's what I'm told. And of course, since you have an S1, I'm sure you're well aware of these things already.

Still, there are certainly folks who are sticking w/ film so far when DR and absolute resolution (and maybe lack of digital artifacts) matters most -- and there isn't any noise/grain paranoia. I won't point to Ken Rockwell as a good example since I'm actually not quite that impressed by his work, but Ed Ley has a strong presence as a film shooter -- who scans his negs for digital uses -- over in dpreview.com even though he doesn't post much. Check out some of his inspiring film work (to me as a landscape illiterate anyway) from Southern Cal over here:

http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/

I'm familiar w/ Ed through a handful of correspondences in the Samples & Galleries forum on dpreview.com, and he is definitely different from most posters over there. And despite that, he still garners some sort of following over there.

Incidentally, I believe Ed would've probably gone w/ the S2 himself if he felt it was good enough to rival good film. I believe he shoots w/ Nikon film gear and would have existing glass for the S2 although maybe the crop factor was a bigger issue for him than the other issues. That's certainly something to remember for landscape photography. And probably, the Canon 1Ds was completely out of the question for him both for the body cost as well as glass costs (for switching systems).

BTW, although Ed is Californian and sticks to film so far, he apparently is net pals w/ Dirk Vermierre (whom I mentioned earlier) and gets mentioned by the cozy little Belgian 2.8 group website run by Dirk. In fact, Martin Crespo also gets mentioned there also -- and all 4 members of 2.8 are S2 shooters although Jacques recently passed away.

http://www.2point8.be/

_Man_

post #33 of 34

10/27/04 at 8:42pm

JohnRice
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Well,

the whole thing of whether digital or film is better, I expect you know, is rather absurd. I know you weren't actually pointing that direction in your post, but it sure seems a lot of people think that way. I still use a split. It amkes no sense to me if someone is paying for a couple hours to set up an architectural shot to shoot it on digital.

What the digital has done for me is pretty much replace 35mm. I still shoot medium and large format film and scan them. It is possible to get meaningful resolution on a good 120 film and lens up to about 3,000 dpi, which results in nearly a 200 MB file on a 6x9 shot. Plenty for any situation. You can't extract as much out of 4x5 due to thicker base and generally lower quality optics, but you have roughly 4 times the film area.

post #34 of 34

10/31/04 at 12:10pm

Rob Gillespie
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OK guys, a few snaps here from a complete hack, on a Canon G5 at full res downsamepled to 1024x768 purely for ease of browsing. Considering I haven't got a clue what I'm doing I think some look half decent.

Two out of thirty-odd shots I took as the sunset was hitting the roof of my porch last weekend, just as a rainstorm was ending. I'm going to take four or five and frame them together in an 'ikea' type of display.
http://www.robsternet.plus.com/pics/misc/roof01.jpg
http://www.robsternet.plus.com/pics/misc/roof02.jpg

Last weekend I did an acrobatic flight in a Jet Provost which was amazing. I acted as the unofficial snapper for the day and here's a few examples. I wanted to get candid shots of the other people in the group and some of them came out OK. The G5 isn't really quick enough for this kind of task though, but the people themselves were very happy with the pics. The last one is me in full Top Gun mode