Just for all those hopefuls out there

The *istD will have a multiplier of 1.5x. That means a 20mm lens will behave like a 30mm. Ah yes, and a 300mm is like 450mm - great for wildlife. ( http://www.dpreview.com/news/0302/03022602pentaxistd.asp and http://www.dpreview.com/news/0303/03030304istdinhand.asp)

Still anxiously awaiting further specs (ISO ratings, features, and of course - price).

Excellent points I've gleaned so far:
* HyperManual and the separate wheels for Tv & Av - I just love this on the Z1.
* AA cells - great as 2000mA NiMH are so cheap now
* Microdrive support

From what I've seen of the images, the controls look very well placed... time to start some serious saving

Matt

John,

Just an update on the colour space issue. I should have checked earlier (tchuch!). Just raked out one of my slides from a few years ago to rescan, and set up using VueScan 7.6.20... and I noticed that the sky on this shot was "Out of gamut color" in sRGB.

On VueScan, on the "Color" tab, you can tick "Pixel Colors" to show infrared defects, staturation points, and out of gamut. On the "File Color Space", Adobe RGB is much better, and Device RGB is perfect. So, I scanned in Adobe RGB for editing in PSE2.

Having done this there's a good level of detail in the slide and the histogram is PSE2 is well under control, but amazingly my old Dimage Scan Dual with Vuescan did a pretty excellent job too!

Enjoy!

Matt

Hi John,

I too have been scanning for a while... First I had a Minolta Scan Dual, now a Nikon Coolscan IV. For both items I use VueScan which provides excellent colour management and batch control (http://www.hamrick.com). It's been well worth the $40 or so. As an added bonus it runs on Macs and Linux too.

In addition, I've been using NeatImage on the scans (http://www.neatimage.com). I bought it for noise removal on my Canon S30 pocket digital, but have found it superb on Nikon scans - you can create a really, really clean scan with almost no grain at all (and Provia 100 is good to begin with ) Mind you, you need a fast machine to NeatImage a 60Mb scan, and even then it takes 5 to 10 minutes. The results have been worth it though

It is true that 35mm/scan produces excellent digital format. However, there are still big advantages for pure digital. Digital is great for checking that you have that important shot perfectly captured before you leave the scene, and for just trying out new things without wasting film.

Personally, I love both formats - for their different strengths - and can see myself shooting in both for a long while to come.

Enjoy the scanning!
Matt

(If anyone needs comparison images... I'll sort some crops out. Just email me.)

John, and all,

One thing I forgot to mention when dealing with digital is having a calibrated monitor. If you have an LCD display this can be particularly difficult to get right.

When we bought our 17" LCDs for work I had to scoot around the 'net for ages before finding this:

http://www.praxisoft.com/pages/products.wiziwyg.html

"WiziWYG" from Praxisoft. It's free to use, and has a pretty easy setup that will allow you to calibrate for a particular colour temperature and the like. And works on LCDs!

Hope it helps someone out - it's been great for me
Matt

Hello again John

Just to update you on some information regarding colour spaces etc...

Have a look here for serious instructions http://www.spectrumphoto.co.uk/downloads%20page.htm
They are an excellent lab who do large format printing here in Brighton/Hove.

Also, I purchased "The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2" by Richard Lynch (ISBN 0-7821-4178-1) which has a very good chapter on colour management. (It's available from Amazon and is brilliant for PSE1 & PSE2- adds curves, colour separations and the like, for £20.99.)

Really it boils down to this: sRGB is very good for web intent, while Adobe RGB 1998 is more suited for printing purposes.

From my own experience, I scan in Adobe RGB (and in the past sRGB), edit without colour management in PSE, and print. I have printed stuff from CD to the Fuji FDI equipment, and via the Pixology service to 8x10 with very good results. In addition, printing to my Epson Photo 870 on good Epson paper produces fantastic results every time. Very very rarely do I have a problem with colour matching (slight differences as you have to expect since printed output has a smaller gamut).

Regards,
Matt

Hi John,

I use sRGB. However, in my experience with the Minolta, I found the colour rendition was severe, and lead to posterisation when trying to adjust the histograms in Photoshop. As soon as I started using Vuescan the results were miles better - and more controllable. (If you look at my "older work" gallery, they were all done with the Minolta. All the Z1 stuff is done with the Nikon, but reduced by 50% in each direction to reduce file sizes! )

Personally, I found the Nikon software interface rather non-intuitive, so I have (so far) stuck to using Vuescan. If you want to be really sure you get the scan it can store a 'raw' image direct from the CCD which allows you to reprocess the file without re-scanning (so therefore you can place it into any colour space you need even after scanning). In addition you can do multiple pass scanning to eke out the shadows and to minimise noise - it worked really well on the Scan Dual, but so far I've not needed it with the Coolscan.

What's good about VS is you can scan slides "as-is" as an image, or go for film colour correction to get the scene as shot. There are loads of film profiles - but mostly Kodak, and the older Fuji films. I usually shoot Provia, scan as "image", then sort things out in Photoshop. It's an easy work flow that has allowed me to scan a few thousand slides without any problem, and burn them onto DVD.

You can download a copy of Vuescan to try (it just puts diagonal lines across your image, so be sure to view it at 100% otherwise you get strange effects). Any bugs or problems are fixed within days - Ed Hamrick seems to bring out a new release every few days!

I cannot say that I have put any photos in for serious publication, but I've inkjetted them, had them printed by Jessop's digital service onto 10x8, placed them on the web, and used some in the company's literature. All in all, I've been very pleased with the results.

If I can offer any more comments, please don't hesitate to ask. Hope it helps,

Matt

Mick,

I forgot to mention... you might need some adaptors for astronomical photography:

http://www.srbfilm.co.uk

They've got the most impressive range of bits I've seen & can make custom kit too!

Matt

Mick,

You may want to look at http://www.photodo.com which details the MTF (Maximum Transfer Function) for a load of lenses.

(Sorry, I don't have any experience of f2.8 at that focal length.)

Matt

Hi MAAC,

You need to do a little more than just shorting a couple of pins, but not much - have a look here:

http://www.kajko.wdb.pl/wezyk/e_wezyk.html
and
http://w3.one.net/~georgek/pentax/acc/g0008.html
(I found them with Google)

That should answer any questions you might have.
Have fun

Matt

Barry,

You could consider extending it electronically. The shutter release uses just three connections, one of them being ground. You could use something like a locking 3.5mm or 2.5mm stereo connector and make an inline connection to the lead you have now. (Somewhere like Maplin stock them.) However, ideally you should use a shielded connector (ie metal), that is lockable, probably weather-proof in your case, and that does not short the pins out when you plug and unplug (otherwise you could fire off a shot just connecting it! ). You might need the services of an electronically-wise friend to solder up and make good.
That way you could extend to your heart's content.

Hope that helps
Matt