thanks for the pm, most helpful.

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Little things i forgot from my introduction -

I'm originally from switzerland and currently living in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
What are the good camera stores around here, anyone know?

Hi Drew

Thanks for the welcome!

I like it here already - read a lot of it in the past 2 weeks going quite far back...

The one time i had to make a claim with that company 4 years ago they just sent a cheque, didn't ask for any proof what i did with it. They paid "for new" prices for everything but the clothing, but there were no technical goods then. I did report the "for new" price (from memory, but i do remember it since it was so much to me at 14!) of the original gear, down to the price of bags and all...

I heard that many insurance companies in the UK insist you replace film with film but I suspect that might be because people try to "cheat" to make insurance cover part of the cost of a switch to digital. We had a damaged back door and broken pipes outside and more than a camera stolen so I think it's pretty clear we aren't doing that.

They're going to choke enough on the laptop (two were new, bought this summer, all receipts down to the serial numbers) so maybe the camera will just slip through...

Hi everyone

I have been lurking in this forum for over a week now, and I figured it was time I came out of the shadows.

This is going to be kind of rambling, and probably not too interesting but hey, at least you'll know why I am here and why I am clueless.

I'm actually a totally new Pentax user... Looked around, thought a bit, then just decided to go for pentax with my new systems.

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There's a sad story behind this, in that our house was burglared 6 weeks ago and thieves took 3 laptops (2 nice ones one old cranky one), a digital camera (p-n-s fuji), a wedding ring (what dummy takes it off in the kitchen?), wallets (incl. travel money), passports, mobile phone, mp3 player, golf clubs and - and I didnt notice that right away - a big old black camera bag with all my gear in it...

It was a Canon A1, well travelled, well loved and well used, with some lame lenses and one very good one... Cost me a lot of money at 15! I saved for a camera for months!!! Your first camera is like your favorite teddy bear, and in my case I actually never bought another one. So every few years I would lust after a newer camera but not be able to justify the expense, especially since it would mean new lenses too... every time i got tempted I realised that it still did everything I needed. My main gripe was its weight. But then it outlived a lot of lighter cameras I would say.

So here I am camera-less, howling in frustration, and most likely not getting any money from the insurance before the new year... if they pay anything for kit bought in 1985-86?

No way I'm being that long without a camera!

So first i think - maybe this it the time to go digital SLR - but no, circumstances mean that its not reasonable to spend the money on brand new stuff and most of the older stuff is either not suitable or still going for a lot of money. And I'm not paying £400 for an adequate SLR camera, i'll go back and get a good point-and-shoot with some controls, and get a film SLR. Which incidentally is the conclusion i reached every year so far, stick to my old film camera and a point and shoot digital, until the killer price-features digital SLR comes along.

So it's back to film, and since I have no investment left in anything, I can shop around. So I look at prices, I look at lenses, I think at all the cameras I played with which i liked (the MX was in that list, and one of the early AF ones cant remember which, but also the Nikon F100 and a few others). I wasn't linked to a brand anymore so I looked at them all, Pentax, Olympus, Canon, Nikon, Minolta and a few more... trying to find a sweet price-camera point.

My criteria were simple. I wanted control, didn't really need AF cause I'm used to focus manually, although AF might be nice now and then.. some reliability... I could always get multiple bodies, but at least one MUST be lighter than my A1 (i did climb mountains with it and several lenses, I can hardly believe it myself), good lenses, reliable metering. And cheap since I have not much cash, lots of stuff to buy again and christmas aroud the corner.

And looking around, analysing the situation and remembering the cameras, let me tell you that Pentax looks awfully sweet. Especially since the lens system, within caveats, has remained the same and compatible...

Especially when you look at the new digital bodies coming up... 2007 camera of the year *and* your grandfather's lenses work on it... that is so cool it's unbelievable.

There's lots of good arguments. And then, there's the irrational, emotional, those cameras are just likeable, factor, too. But that's possibly just me. So sweet...

Anyway I have been trying to get my hands on an MX and an MZ6-n and looking at the older digitals in case one comes up "cheap" on ebay, classified or camera stores. But in the meantime I snatched an Mx-M very cheap so I have a camera again. Need a few more lenses...


* * *

Anyway, to get to the introduction part...

I'm a rather isolated camera/photo "geek" - it puzzles most of my friends who think cameras are boring, taking photos doesnt require looking or thinking. I like cameras and could own dozens - especially older-than-me-but-still-working ones. But I'm not a collector, dont care what's rare and valuable, just whats neat, still works, takes neat pictures, and was priced cheap cause not collectible...

I do have other hobbies, clearly, athough all of them (even photography) suffered in the last few years as i had a workaholic episode. Now I have been rediscovering all my lost hobbies and frankly the thief timing sucked... or not since it will make me buy and try more stuff in the end...

So I have come to this forum to find out more about my new camera system - and a nice forum it seems to be.

So anyway, if anyone is still reading this...


hello!

Ps: I'm never storing all my gear in one big bag again - had i had a small bag and most objectives in a box somewhere i would have rescued something! If only the minox!

UFO!!!!

more likely they registered a long time ago and forgot about it, then recently come ack to ebay after someon told them "you really should try" or something.

Since I have now delurked...

I try to catch that exhibition every year, it's always a nice one.

I did notice every picture but one or two were digital, and even the "young" photographers had access to extremely nice gear and exotic travel. Wildlife photography is an expensive hobby, since you typically need some very nice lenses... I was getting budget envy

Although one thing the "digital" side has opened is access to more photographers internationally, or maybe it's just perception.

There were some stunning pictures there but somehow i got a soft spot for the one with the ermine...

That's when i got reminded that of course all these tidbits got stolen as well. I replaced the camera, the lenses, found a bag on ebay, bought some filters... but i still miss some bits!

Nobody seems to sell anything good on ebay so its the proper camera store for me tomorrow

I think that canon 8600F is a lot of value considering i paid £126.00 plus shipping. And it came with an usb cable.

It comes with the usual PSE 4 / SFSE combo.

But so far i have scanned 2 strips of film (thats how much you can put at once) and on 600dpi nothing special it took about a minute per scan. At higher res and with FARE (canon's ICE) it was about 6 minutes.

I started with some random holiday snaps from 1988...

If anyone is curious here is the scan file http://iphi.net/pics/photography/Scan10001.bmp - i did let the scanner do a medium amount of scratch correction, and here’s the first scan without any correction http://iphi.net/pics/photography/Scan10001_uncorrected.bmp . Both are 22Mb so be warned!

So far I am pleasantly surprised with the canon software tool that came with it. It did a great job of detecting all 7 negatives on the 2 strips i put in, then scanned them all. With medium scratch/dust correction it took about 6 minutes per scan at 2400 dpi - I dont think i need to go that high in general. I didnt even try at higher res whats the point for those images... You can see that it didn’t quite get the negative edges correctly, although I suspect that if I paid more attention putting the strips in and if i paid more attention when using the tool, I would get a better result.

I actually got a better result with the canon tool than with Silverfast SE, but that could be wrong settings in SF. It insisted to scan only 600dpi so it was hard to compare. And it didnt have the scratch reduction tool, but again there might be a way.

I was told to give vuescan a try but vuescan didnt want to know about the 8600F just yet. oh well.

Now to figure out a good way to get rid of dust on all that film....

Well after balancing cost/value I ordered the canon 8600 - seems like a lot of scanner for the money, and once i have used it a while if i determine I need a better set up well then I can spend more money then.

Looks like a nice bit of scanner so far but i havent even plugged it in yet.

I'm drowning in cables, i happen to almost groan when a device i buy comes with an usb cable...

I remember my printers not coming with parallel cables either, though. You must have been lucky with your brand.