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Re: To ronners: Sharpness is a sore point	ronners	::	2009-06-18 8:48
Hi Dan, First of all, thanks for taking the critique in the spirit it was intended :) What I've found over the years is that sharpness is influenced by a number of factors - light conditions, exposure settings, lens, processing (whether in-camera or not), etc. etc. Your Bristlecone pine shot is much better, and it's definitely helped by the exposure (i.e. you're not losing detail in highlights). About a year ago I actually switched from my 'ancient' Nikon D100 to a Mamiya 645 with prime lenses, and even with manual focus my images are significantly sharper with more depth. On a trip late last year to Arizona/Utah I actually took the D100 as a backup and I had the luxury to compare the D100 RAW shots with the Mamiya film scans (a mixture of Kodak TMax 100 and Portra 160VC). There's something intangible about the film results that I was never able to quite capture in 6 years with the D100. Prints are also fabulously detailed - I've tried many up to 11x14 so far but could no doubt go further. It's also worth noting that I don't do much sharpening of the Mamiya scans - a little perhaps in the scanner but not too much afterward in post-processing. In the gallery on my web page (http://www.ronaldcraig.com/galleries/black-and-white/index.html) there's a detail shot taken at Canyon de Chelly in Arizona (the second image in the B&W gallery). There is a huge amount of detail with glistening quartz etc. in the 11x14 print. All in all, my point here is that options other than digital are available to you if you are prepared to get your hands dirty with a few chemicals. Excellent quality equipment can be picked up used at bargain prices these days (the 80mm standard lens I used for the Canyon de Chelly image goes for about $150 or so). My feeling is that this is an option that should be considered seriously if you are interested in taking your work to the next level. If you are interested and want more details on the 'hybrid flow' I use let me know. In the meantime keep up the good work. If you ever find yourself on California's Pacific Coast I can probably point you to some good spots. Cheers, Ron.			United StatesUnited States Bodie: Mining Belt Wandering_Dan (3293)
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Thread	Username		Date
To ronners: Sharpness is a sore point	Wandering_Dan (3293)	::	2009-06-16 19:26
:Re: To ronners: Sharpness is a sore point	ronners (10)	::	2009-06-18 08:48
::Re: To ronners: Sharpness is a sore point	Wandering_Dan (3293)	::	2009-06-18 09:47

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