Re: Off subject (somewhat)

[Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>]

Dan,

You are right on all points.  Right now the F5 seems to be dominating 
the pro market simply because you need an NPS #  to get one.  My # has 
been used by a store to order one for someone else.  It is a beautiful 
tool.

You mention the Minolta.  I think that is a vastly underrated camera.  I 
remember not long ago looking at a book--Nature Photographer of Year--or 
somesuch, a collection.  Out of curiousity I noted the pics who 
reproduction, color, sharpness, etc. I liked best and the majority 
(admittedly few) were by Minolta.  I don't think there was a single 
Leica image in the book.  I have seen attempts to do what I did with the 
portraiture using the Canon 530 strobe. Not the same.  Even Canon reps 
will admit that.  But one shooter I know who uses Minolta, especially 
with multiple strobes using wireless TTL, says it is almost impossible 
to get a bad exposure!

Shooting a high fps takes planning.  One of my studio mates does in the 
water surfing pix and has 36 exposures, of course.  So he loads camera, 
swims out into sometimes 20 foot surf, organizes a run or two with one 
of the professional riders, shoots, and then has to swim back in to 
change film.  Occasionally he will load two cameras in waterproof 
housings and hire an assistant to go out and wait on a board with the 
extra camera.  And yes, he will burn an entire roll on a single wave, if 
it is right. 

Usually I have the pleasure to leisurely do zone metering or bracketing 
or shooting of a whole roll a fixed exposure and then snipping for 
exposure.  Shooting 45 rolls, most on program automatic with slide film, 
especially with $5,000 at stake if I blow it left me a little sleepless 
until I saw film.  But I have seen all this morning and I wasted some 
good sleep time.

Donal Philby
San Diego



Dan Cardish wrote:
> 
> Two points:  If Nikon projected that they would only sell F5s to those
> photographers who really needed its "advanced" features, the camera would
> never have been produced (the demand would be negligible).
> 
> Secondly, From the way you described your location portraiture, I can think
> of many cameras that would do the trick.  When I first bought my Minolta 9xi
> (over 4 years ago), the first thing I did was to load it up with slide film,
> mount my macro lens, and shoot flowers at the Botanical Gardens.  I used
> only Program Automation, no second guessing.  ALL of the slides came out
> perfect.  I tried backlit, silhouette, whatever.  The (non RGB colour)
> matrix metering system was bang on.  So when I hear of Nikon announcing (4
> years later) that they have revolutionized the metering industry with their
> colour sensitive 1005 cell meter system, I have to wonder.   Who really
> needs this?  And besides, if their colour sensitive meter is designed to
> properly weight the meter to all parts of the spectrum, Zone VI has been
> doing this to Pentax meters for years for a couple hundred bucks or so.  Big
> deal.
> 
> One last point, I'm not aware of a 250 exposure back for the F5.  How much
> shooting at 8 frames per second can someone do, before he/she runs out of
> film?  Wouldn't that be embarrassing, keeping your shooting finger on the
> shutter a fraction of a second too long and then, when the action reaches
> critical, oh oh!
> 
> Dan C.