He also added a footnote to that article (I read it a couple of weeks ago), to say that he'd sold the lens because it was just too heavy to lug about. There's hope for you yet Liam...

Dan

Snap! This combo copes okay with my Tamron 300mm f/2.8 (the AD2 one, brass(?) body and all), but you still have to be careful with it to make sure the shakes don't creep in - heavy lenses like these have a lot of momentum once they get going.

Dan

"Strap it to the gun"??? Surely it's BIGGER than the gun!!

Not sure the flash bracket idea of Liams is going to help with this lens - I think you'll need something sturdier. But the general idea is sound, just needs beefing up a bit.

If your back starts playing up, just attach a couple of wheels to the end of the lens and drag it behind you like a shopping trolley.

Dan

Looking at the pics of it Peter, I think you might have to get/fashion some sort of tripod bracket to balance the lens better - it looks as though it would take a swift nose dive left to it's own devices. Or perhaps a bean bag.

How's your back?

Dan

Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick, I wasn't suggesting resampling (changing the pixel dimensions), just changing the 'print' size. Makes no difference to the image file at all, just when you hit 'print' in Photoshop, you don't get a 36mmx24mm image in the middle of your A4 paper.

When I used Pentax Lab for converting my RAWs, there was no option to change the resolution, so they all came out at 72ppi (still 3008x2008 though). When I sent those to a designer, he would moan that when he opened them in his layout, which was sized to 300ppi and used the physical dimensions of the image, they would be massive, and he'd need to shrink them down. I kept forgetting to resize the image to 300ppi (but still 3008x200 in Photoshop before I sent them to him. That's why I mentioned it, just from personal experience.

Dan

Peter,

I'm guessing (albeit educatedly ) that the input and output resolutions are as follows:

Input: The actual scanning resolution, so the higher the number the finer the resolving power and the larger the files generated - from Mongooses comments 2400ppi is enough for your average film, Velvia and the like are better suited to 3200ppi, but it's best you try and see what results you get from that.

Output: The resolution of your jpg or tif file, generally 300ppi is recommended as ideal for photo quality printing. If you had this resolution set to the same as the input, then if you printed the file at 100% it would be the same size as your slide. If the input is 2400ppi and the output 300ppi, the resultant print at 100% would be about 12"x8".

So you'd want your input resolution to be as high as you could have it (as long as you can see a benefit to the larger files), and the output to be around 300ppi, otherwise you'll end up doing more resizing in photoshop than necessary (it won't alter the amount of information in the file though, just the dimensions).

That's what I reckon, anyway.

Make sense, or have I just confused things?

As far as tif or jpg - I can't honestly see any difference in a highest quality jpg and a tif once printed. On screen, 'pixel peeping', you may find the odd difference. Save space, save jpeg. Catchy little slogan, might copyright that...

Dan

Peter,

As far as the contrast being less than the originals, I would say that's preferable to being more contrasty, as you'll lose detail that way.

Are you wanting to scan your complete back catalogue, or just selected highlights? Just asking because I'm wondering why you'd necessarily want all your slides scanned. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but do you need to? Just don't want you sat there for a month, then 6 months down the line thinking "why did I do that????"

I very rarely used multisampling on my Minolta ScanElite 5400, partly because of the extra time, but also because I couldn't see a huge amount of difference in the average slide. For ones with lots of shadows, then it's beneficial. Like Mongoose I only used 8bit because I didn't have the software to do anything with 16bit at the time.

Dan

P.S. I like the phrase "Manual Tweekage".

Peter, give us a clue, why aren't you overly happy with them?

Not that I'll be able to help much (I don't think), but it might help someone else come up with something.

Film type might be useful too.

Dan

Really like them Ken - good lighting, and soft focus done well, not a mushy sentimental look to them.

Dan

Never admit a thing like that, just say "Yes, well, some people have got it, some people haven't..."

Dan