Hirst's cow is amazing. I completely pooh-poohed it until I saw it myself, but it blew me away.

Mostly, I grant you, for the craft in cutting the thing in half so accurately, and then presenting it.

I agree with you, but even though I want to, I still can't put my hand on my heart and say it's not art either.

Not sure. Do you think if we ever got a definitive answer to the question "What is art", the world as we know it would disappear, and be replaced with something even more unlikely?

This is a tough one.

Is photography art or craft? I'd suggest that it can't be art without also being craft, but it can be craft without also being art.

'Photographer' can include art; it might not.

Personally, I'm happy to develop the craft of recording selected scenes without needing to create them.

So as far as my technique goes, I'd tend to think of it as craft rather than art. Not sure I can choose a meaningful poll answer, though.

I voted 'Neither, yet', since none of the others really fits, and I wanted to see the results!

Thanks!!

I think there are a few things in my favour:

- The negs are already extremely well organised. Each strip is numbered with the film number.

- My job is based at home, at the computer. So I'm here anyway.

- The workflow is a piece of cake. About 15 seconds, 20 if I'm a bit cack-handed, of effort per strip, with a bit more at the start and sometimes at the end of each film.

- Digital ICE (the dust and scratch auto-cloner-outer) is excellent. It's not always perfect, but almost all the scans would need no additional cloning, even if the pictures were good enough to bother with, which most of them aren't.

It's as simple as feed and forget. I've sorted out my backup regime to cope with large amounts of data, which I needed to do anyway. I'm going to be a bit closer to needing another terabyte or two of hard disk space than I thought, but I might be able to get round that by converting all the dross to JPG.

The only downside is that I can't really work on the whisky at the same time.

Bad news.

I've come to the end of the first book of negatives - 2100 frames.

"Phew, about half way through", I was thinking.

I've now discovered another three books. Five in all. So the total is going to be closer to 10,000 than 4,000.



Anyone got any idea how long the scanner's likely to last?

The original Sigma 10-20 (the DC F4-5.6) shows quite pronounced barrel distortion at 10mm (which is almost gone by 12 mm). So straight lines at the edges are not straight at the extreme wide end of the range.

By any measure, especially for anything architectural, inside or out, this can't be a good thing.

Presumably, Mike, the 'distortion' you like is the way when you're already close, anything even slightly closer looks so much bigger, so you get the apparent enlargement of objects at the edges when the subject plane is close to the focal plane, and extreme converging verticals when the camera isn't horizontal.

These can be interesting effects, but it's not the same as barreling. By all accounts (though I have no direct experience of it), the 12-24 is much better in this regard.

All that aside, I've had the 10-20 for quite a while now, and in value-for-money terms, it's excellent.

The barreling can be removed in software easily enough, too, and it has less CA (which can also be removed in software) from what I've heard than the Pentax 12-24.

As for vignetting, I have a thin UV filter (Hoya Pro1 digital) on mine, and even with that at 10mm on the K10D, any vignetting is pretty minor. It's often hard to get lighting that is so perfectly even that I can be sure it's vignetting rather than anything else.

I think it comes down to budget, whether you have a need for 10mm as opposed to 12, and preference for colour rendition, since all the other issues can be fixed in software. I certainly prefer the 'look' from Pentax lenses in general when I've had enough information to form a view, but it's not enough to justify the cost of the Pentax 12-24 for me.

Agreed.

I'm a lot more experienced now, so I'm probably more qualified to take on an amateur wedding shoot, than I was when I did a couple for real. Yet I'd be a lot more reluctant to take one on now.

Returning to the OP, I know very well that it's not all about gear.

But a single 6 MP dSLR, a couple of consumer zooms (with nothing wider than 28mm) and a bridge camera is really not going to be adequate.

It really depends what the alternatives are. If the friends can't afford a pro, and are willing to take a chance on the OP, it may be the best option available.

I did a couple in my film days, and although enormously stressful and the results were not at all in the pro league, they weren't disasters by any means.

Of course. But providing that asking here for hints and tips is only a very minor part of the preparation the OP's doing, it's not impossible that it could work out Ok. Provided also that he is very, very clear with the friends about what his limitations and their expectations are.

At least he's got a bit of time to work on answers to Nathan's list of questions. Having a "rough idea of what to do", coupled with a mishmash of tips from here will definitely not cut it.

If anyone ever needed proof that the people on this forum are a pleasant, mild and tolerant lot, this thread is all anyone ever needs to read.

3: Ewwwwwwww

I bought two Samsung SEF-54PZF flashguns from Amazon. They're identical to the Pentax AF 540 FGZ apart from the badge, and I picked them up for about £180 each, new.

They're not always in stock - I had to wait months for the first one, weeks for the second one. But they were fantastic value, given the price of the Pentax one, and I've been really pleased with them.