By the way manesty...I know you're very smart and good at what you do....I can't really argue about the latest versions of windoze and the latest hardware.....I haven't touched a Microsoft product since windoze me, and a 233mhz pentium with mmx.....But it was the constant down time, software conflicts and blue screen of death that put me off forever. (my belief was that wiring a cell phone to an electric shock collar and programming it to go off whenever my 'puter crashed, wrapping that around Bill Gates' neck would be the only thing that could sway me to buy another ms product).
my macbook can run windows...if I obtain a copy of the operating system, I could choose to boot into iether system, but I can't imagine ever wanting to.
bout the best testiment I can offer for the mac is this:
I have learning disabilities. In school I never got past gr8. I failed gr 9 intro to computers 4 times. Child and Family services felt my grades were so bad they dumped me off on a street corner in Toronto (bout a thousand miles from my hometown of Kenora Ont), where I was homeless for nearly two years. I can pick up a camera, ask for $1400.00 for a wedding and get it.
I do all my work on macs.
never opened the manual.
try that with windoze.

actaully the father of one of our brides showed me his linux box.
it's a killer system built totally of off the shelf components, with redhat....he gave up on ms due to viruses and spyware maladies (that can't be good for anybodies business except MS/pc technitions) and he swears he'll never go back..he was no expert when he started, and claims the set up was no harder than any other system he's tried. He hasn't tried Mac.
I've lost no productivity due to systems problems with osx and when your All in one (emac, imac, or laptop) starts with the best components, the most stable and secure operating system in the world, all you need to do is take it out of the box, (I added more ram-off the shelf from most big chains) and plug it in to an outlet and an ethernet cable, and you can set up a network, and a .mac account, sync all your data across multiple machines, build a web page, and start editing photos in the same time it takes windoze to install(never mind loading software and drivers)...(ps..damn near everything works right out of the box)...
my only complaint? pefs!!!! crw's work fine.

did you hear the story about the ass that fell into a hole in the ground?

a donkey falls into an old well.
he's scared so he starts braying loudly.
the farmer hears him and comes to see.
the farmer realizes he can't get the donkey out and rembers he'd been ordered to fill in that well so is afraid to ask for help.
but the donkey won't stop braying.
the farmer decides to fill in the well, and bury the donkey. He grabs a shovel and gets to work.
Every time a shovefull of dirt lands on him, the donkey shakes it off and takes a step up. eventually reaching the top of the well, where he is able to step out of the hole.
The donkey then bites the farmer on the behind.

My point: I REALLY DON'T HAVE ONE
but the moral to this story is either:

If your stuck and life tries to bury you with dirt, shake it off and take a step up...you'll eventually get out.

or

If you try to cover you ass it'll come back to get you in the end.


So, what were we talkin' about?

The simple answer is this:
to get 1:1 the image on the sensor/film has to be equal in size to the real life object you are photographing.
The math in photographic terms is too hard for a person like me to explain, I'll leave that to others, but suffice it to say that 50mm + 3x ext is too general...the min focus on various 50mm lenses could vary greatly, and that would be a factor in reproducing size ratios.
the optical results of lens and converter combos can oft be disapointing.
many reasons for that including flatness of feild and loss of sharpness. (enlarger lenses are optimin for flatness of feild)
not to mention dark viewfinders.
don't let thah stop you from trying though..experimentation is fun and you never know...every tried and true tecnique I use was once somebodies experiment...
Zooms are a blast...you get three ways to focus...focus ring, zoom ring, and moving camera back and forth (bellows extension)....
the math is complicated, but the 1:1 result is not the only goal...there's image quality, and useability, to factor into the equation.

new question:
how well does the multi light p-ttl set-up work in brightlight/sunlight? is there an ev value at iso 200 where the ambient light is bright enough to render the pre-flash useless? (for example using one off camera flash for fill and another to light a veil when shooting a bride outdoors?)

superb.
sparkling highlights in the lower left catch your eye and a trail of rocks lead the viewer along the shoreline to the sweaping mountianous skyline, which takes one back through the farmlands to the riplling water.

I think the benefit is listing a feature in the specs sheet, that will sound familiar, to point and shoot owners looking to trade up to a dslr.
many of them are used to framing shots with the screen, as opposed to the somewhat useless viewfinders on most p+s models.

ok I can't resist that one.....

here's a neat twist on an anglefinder/intervalometer:


http://www.argraph.com/Zigview/page1/Zigview_page1.htm

at one time the only housings you could get were home built.

hmmnn lawyer at $250.00/hr to sue a company over a $200.00 camera housing and damages to a digital camera that depreciated 50% two days after ya bought it.....
V.S.
Excuse me mr. insurance man...I dropped my camera while boating...or...lost it at the airport.....
or
Sorry 'bout the little cost overrun...had to get an extra camerabody for that shoot...
or better yet:
Honey how much is that new 10 mp pentax?