I love number 2 - it's a fantastic photo. I like the way the subject extends across the diagonal.

J.

Mowog - good to see A Short Film About Love there - I haven't seen that film for many years, & it's usually A Short Film About Killing that gets mentioned. They're both excellent films.

Chris_JL - I love Dead Man, & think Night On Earth is exceedingly good (even if I'm biased due to my love of all things Tom Waits), though I am ambivalent when it comes to Jim Jarmusch films in general. He has made some of the best and also some of the worst films that I've seen... Thanks also for an interesting looking list - I'll have to look up some of those films as I've never heard of a lot of them...

I have never been able to get beyond a top three myself, though I'm not sure why...

No order: Mulholland Drive, Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann),& Aguirre, Wrath of God.

As an underrated films sideline, I think that The Frighteners easily surpasses Peter Jackson's later work.

Jonathan

I have some experience of camera retail, and fraud is an absolute nightmare, firstly for the effects on the retailers themselves, and secondly for how this impacts on regular, honest purchasers of camera equipment.

It's worth bearing in mind that for one digital SLR lost to fraud a retailer will have to sell anywhere between ten and fifty of the same cameras in order to recoup the loss. Hence the fact that most retailers exercise a degree of caution - most have been stung many times.

Jonathan

A few years ago I used to use Fuji NPH and NPZ (which, I think, became Pro 400H and Pro 800Z), and, more regularly, Superia 1600. As I recall, NPZ gave a lovely creaminess to skintones, but sadly 800 speed film was always in between what I really needed (either 1600 under theatre lights or 400 for general purpose photography).

In fact, my first published photo was taken on Fuji Superia 1600 (with a Z-1p) - it was used for a Youth Justice Board conference at Tate Modern. With a bit of clever wording I can make that sound a lot better on a CV than than it actually was (serendipity played a large part!)

If I was comparing film grain to digital I'd say that 400 (possibly even 200?) film is comparable to 1600 on digital in terms of grain. (And when I talk about 1600 film I mean Fuji Superia, a very good film - I once had the misfortune to use some kind of Kodak 800 film, which I'd say equates to 6400 on digital.) This makes me wants to dig out some of my film scans to do a side by side comparison...

Jonathan

I've only just seen this post. A fantastic set of images! I can see why Wong Kar-Wai would be an inspiration - this set of yours & his films are recommended for anyone interested in how mood can be evoked through the use of light and shadow.

Years back I read an interview with Christopher Doyle (Wong Kar-Wai's sometime cinematographer), & I was fascinated by what he said of their way of working together. Apparently they'd often approach shots with reference to music, with Wong Kar-Wai saying things along the lines of "Make this like Tom Waits!" or "Make this like opera!"

I get the feeling that this wouldn't work for many directors, but with Christopher Doyle and Wong Kar-Wai you can sort of see how it makes sense.

Jonathan

This is something that Greytop picked up on in the recent thread on the K-7's current price, & I thought it worthy of its own thread in the light of many people being unhappy with the K-7's high ISO performance compared to the K-x.

It seems pretty clear that the K-x's high ISO JPEGs are amongst the best from any APS-C camera, but if you look closely at the graphs in the DPR page that Greytop linked to ( http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk7/page16.asp ) you'll find that the K-7's RAW noise performance is as good as or better than the D300 and the 50D. In fact, the K20D outperforms all these cameras in terms of RAW noise! The K-7's performance is very similar to the D300, and its level of chroma noise is lower (i.e. better) than the 50D.

I missed this when I first read the review, and must admit to being a bit surprised by it after hearing so many people describe the K-7 (& K20D) as noisy. JPEGs are admittedly noisier than the competition, but they also contain more detail.

Jonathan

I wholeheartedly agree with the comments praising Pentax's older DSLRs. I own a couple of K100D cameras, and they've both paid for themselves many times over in terms of images sold. (I don't sell stock, so the MP count is rarely an issue.) This year the BBC and London 2012 have both used images of mine taken on a K100D - it's a great camera. There's absolutely nothing wrong with not using the most up-to-date equipment - even the newest camera isn't new for long.

Jonathan

Dr Mhuni - I was only in Colombo for a couple of days, but chanced upon the Biennale. I was visiting a friend who lives in Trincomalee, and we came down to Colombo from there via Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, and also spent a few days down near Galle.

Good luck with getting everything sorted after your move, and enjoy the dry season!

Jonathan

I think most of my technical photographic knowledge came from reading various library books on photography when I got my first SLR (a Pentax ME). Some of these books were better than others, but learning on an aperture priority only camera was a great help, I think. I used to try to record the settings I'd used, & would reference these against the prints to see where I'd gone wrong (or right, occasionally). Thankfully digital capture does away with the need to carry around notebook for such purposes!

Art is one of my passions, and my eye for composition isn't bad, but it took me a while to learn to look through the viewfinder in exactly the same way that I might look at a painting (and, as such, create the picture rather than simply aiming the camera at the subject). I used a standard prime most of the time, and I also think that this was useful in learning how to compose an image.

Of the skills particularly related to digital photography (including post-processing), I would say that I have improved over time largely through the use of this forum (and many thanks to all those who have taken the time to help with my queries, and who continue to post so many informative and generous comments).

Dr Mhuni - I mentioned previously my love of art, but I was lucky enough to get to see the inaugural Colombo Biennale at the start of this month. It was fun to be at such an event, though the quality was, on the whole, a bit disappointing. It was mainly painting & installations, though it included a few photographs. I don't suppose you happened to make it along?

Jonathan

Not sure if this link has been posted before, but this conversation on the merits of the 35mm macro is worth a read.

http://photo.net/columns/mjohnston/pentax-35mm-lens/optical-discussion/


Jonathan