My point was that a Negative holder will probably only be about £10 as well and will save lots of time. You can load 4 strips X 6 negatives in one holder.

Whatever you choose, an extra holder is IMHO a very useful extra - unless you like wandering off to make a cup of tea whilst you are waiting

Good luck

Hi
If you are going down the Epson 750 route, email Buyepson.co.uk and ask about another film holder. I have been using my 750 for slides and it is quick and produces good results - better than my CanonFS4000 dedicated scanner.

With an extra holder, you can be pre-loading whilst one load is scanning - saves a lot of time. A Slide holder was only £10 - well worth the expenditure

Questions you are embarassed to ask

I have been trying various RAW converters and they all have a Brightness adjustment and an Exposure adjustment. I cannot see any dfiffence. Am I missing something?

Many hours and several downloads later - it works.

Was it worth it? - Possibly, time will tell, but Raw Therapee is another freebee with possibilities and only one download

Cheers

PS I forgot to mention, the secret lies in downloading GTK+2

Normally, yes. but can I get it to communicate over the LAN? Not without a password - so I cannot run unattended backups.

Then there is the thorny subject of drivers. Anway, that is another story and not one for this forum.

To get GIMP to read DNG files, apparently I need UFRAW, but the version I downloaded (from the UFRAW site) is minus a whole string of files.

Perhaps I will try a different site, or a different version - unless someone knows better

As a fully paid up grumpy old man, I long to "salute" goodbye to Windows and associated software Unfortunately it does not seem that easy. Having tried the latest 3 versions of Ubuntu and each time found that it was just the start of "missing files" and "get app" etc aggravation I had just about given up. OK Windows has its faults, but generally speaking software comes complete and working.

So, when I read a report on GIMPSHOP for XP I thought OK lets give it a go.

First I discovered I needed UFRAW, but having installed it every time I run it I get a file "missing message" So far I have searched for, and downloaded, nine missing files and still it comes up saying yet another file is missing.

I do not think I have enough life left in me to wrestle with the "file missing" notification that seems to be the downside of open source.

So if any of you Gimp experts can point me in the direction of a UFRAW installation that is actually complete, I would be much obliged. Otherwise it a choice between reverting to PS or slitting my wrists, neither of which seems a good life style choice

First, I am only an amateur Photographer, but I do dabble in PCs to some extent.

HDD is my preferred route for any back-up, although I would not use a Terabyte HDD - too much to lose, and restore, if it goes pearshaped.

External USB caddies are available for under a fiver (EBUYER) now with 80gb IDE disks for around £25 making a useful external drive for around £30 which can be detached and put safe.

Alternately, I have recently fitted removeable drive caddies (£3.87 from Ebuyer) so I can swap drives without pulling the PC apart (once the caddy has been fitted!) - but then you need to be a bit of a computer buff.

I still use DVDs but these are only as a long stop.

Hope this helps

By gosh I've done it Thanks again for the help.

Cheers

Thanks for the info.

On the focusing ring it says "Macro" which I assumed means there is, apparently, a setting for Macro. Problem is that I cannot access it

Regards

graham

Edit
See picture at Item number: 150221217217 on ebay

I have just been given an SMC Pentax-A zoom 1:4 70-210mm macro. It is, I suspect at least 20 years old and despite a search of the internet I cannot find any detailed spec for it. Perhaps someone on the forum can help.

I presume that the aperture at full zoom is 5.6 (that much I gleaned from the web), but am I right?

Also, what is meant by "macro" in this instance? Is it 1:1, or some more dilute interpretation?

I like the one touch sliding/rotating zoom/focus and the inbuilt lens hood, but not the fact that the front of the lens rotates - no screw-on polarisers or grad filters there then.

It also makes up for the fact that I sold off all my old manual lenses a few years back - a decision I have regretted ever since.

Any help much appreciated.

Regards

Graham