I have always cropped my images to suit the subject matter, be it in the darkroom, on the computer screen or even taking a pair of scissors to a trade processed print.

Just because our film format, CCD or whatever is a particular shape doesn't mean that it will suit my subject or my composition. So I look upon cropping as a basic compositional tool.

Thanks for that, Don.

I'm very pleased that you have found this forum, and do please join in as you wish!

You're right about exposing for slide film - if you can get that right then you have a discipline that will serve well for digital. In both cases, over-exposure kills the quality.

In fact, I would suggest that slides are an excellent way for beginners to take up photography. Not only do you need to pay attention to exposure, but also what you take is what you get, so you can see the real effect of your errors, of any filters or effects that you use and there is no autonmatic printing machine undoing it all for you.

I notice you are sort of quoting Ansel Adams in your post - I think the original was "The negative is the score, the print the performance" - and I wonder where Adams would stand if he started out today. The circumstances would be different and he would have to find maybe different subjects but would be be a digital convert? Would he even think of using monochrome? Would he have had any incentive to develop the Zone System?

Do please say hello and let us know your name - "Guest" is so impersonal - but please be welcome and share your thoughts.

Sounds like a recipe to me....

Good luck with the new kit!

Convenience depends on what you are trying to do. I use Photoshop primarily as a digital version of my darkroom, which is still up and running by the way. However, when I sit down at the computer I have avoided having to mix chemicals, spend a session long enough to make it worthwhile and then the dreaded cleaning up process at the end.

So in that sense digital is certainly more convenient! The rest has been pretty much thrashed out, but I do still like film images....

Such things already exist, and have done since the days of the Twin lens reflex. On of the early ones is the Zeiss Mutar which in its wide angle form converts a Rolleiflex to a moderate wide angle. It is a front of lens converter, just like the one provided for the FujiFilm Finepix cameras.

Front coverters are usually fish eye ones for 35mm SLRs, converting wide angles into fish-eye lenses.

However, the downside is the bulk (A Zeiss Mutar is huge and heavy and expensive) and the results are only moderately good.

I think it's probably easier to make a nice new 12=24mm zoom!

Preset lenses are used at open aperture to focus, and then a ring is turned to stop them down to a preset aperture for the actual taking of the picture.

Auto lenses stop down automatically when the shutter is fired, and re-open ready for focusing the next shot.

Semi-auto lenses stop down automatically, but do not re-open, so have to be reset manually.

All this is a million miles away from what is regarded as automation today!

To clarify, what I found was that there was a useful (significant) difference between the latest high quality zooms, digital designs or not, and much older and relatively mundane prime lenses.

So for example the SMC Pentax-A 50mm f2 clearly outresolved the newer 24-90mm and 18-55mm lenses at f8. At f2 it was relatively soft.

The point was to establish whether or not it really was worth using older manual focus primes on the *istDS. My conclusion was that it probably was where the very best quality was required. There is no implication or comparison in the tests I was performing as regards film or any comparison between film and digital.

To do a full comprehensive lens test would require a lot of work....

In on-going testing a couple of conclusions in a very complex area do seem likely - firstly that prime lenses can be significantly superior on digital and secondly that modern zooms can be much better than older manual focus ones. This is especially true of modern professional quality zooms.

Telecentric design is an interesting development, but as we only use the centre part of the field of view of 35mm format lenses much of the peripheral oblique light isn't used anyway.