aerius

What about reducing the noise at the source? From what I've heard TV damper diode tubes such as the 6CM3 aren't nearly as noisy as silicone diodes while still being able to pass a lot more current with lower voltage drop than traditional tube rectifiers.

Question, do you need good image quality at higher ISO speeds? If you're going to use ISO 800 & above a lot then the Sony NEX system is the only choice for what you're looking for, Samsung sucks when the speed is pushed that high. If you're going to be in the ISO 100-400 range for pretty much all your photos it's a closer race, the Samsung still has a bit more sensor noise but I don't think it's that big of a problem. Samsung has a wide and normal prime and they have a 60mm macro and fast 85mm prime coming out later this year. Personally I like the Samsung NX100 more than the NX10, you lose the viewfinder & flash but you get a smaller, lighter, and easier to use camera with the same sensor.

Go to a garden supply store or use the 'net to order up a couple gallons of Malathion concentrate. Dump a gallon in the pool and give everything else in the yard a thorough spraydown.

From last fall. I've found the same thing with my film cameras, give me a wide angle or normal prime and I'm out there taking photos all day. With a zoom the damn thing's too big and I don't feel like going anywhere with it so I don't get any photos.

Saw Sarah McLachlan at Massey Hall last week, in one word, wow. It's not the same as seeing her in a small venue with 10x less people, but in this case more was better. Special goodness: Greg Keelor showed up for the encore to sing "Dark Angel" with Sarah.

550D is a crop sensor camera so 35mm ends up being a normal lens. Still nice to have though. You'll need to get down to the 20mm or so range to make it a wide angle, I'm not familiar with SLR lenses though so someone else will have to make the recommendations.

Yup, I have those. They're the HD414 pads dyed black with a flat pad sized hole and slits cut in them. Softer and comfier than the standard flat pads but I can't compare the sound on them since I lost a VWAP pad and the remaining one is pretty ratty.

Build something totally different like Gary Pimm's Solid State Tabor amp. It has about the right amount of power to go with a set of Lowthers.

Got completely humiliated at hockey by a bunch of women. Mind you they were all former members of the Canadian national team and have dozens of gold medals between them so I don't feel too bad about it. On the other hand I still got my ass kicked by a bunch of women in the 40's. Then again so did the rest of the guys on my team so I'm not alone here.

Completely unexpected and a total bummer, he was a great guy and built some kick-ass gear. I had a brief PM exchange with him on diyaudio and I always looked forward to reading his posts there. RIP

I think a homemade softbox would work for you since you already have a flash. There's a ton of plans for them out on the net and they're simple enough to build. Or you could have a bit more fun building your own light tent, it's a little more involved but it gives more consistent results.

Out of those two I prefer the S95 since it's a bit smaller and I'm also more familiar Canon's control & menu system since I'm a Canon owner. However I'd rather grab the Olympus XZ-1 since its lens is a bit faster and it stays a lot faster on the telephoto end of the zoom range. That makes it a lot easier to get sharp pictures when you're zooming in on a distant subject.

Can't say I've seen that one before, I've only used Pace machines when I worked in the industry, mostly the PRC2000 and you don't want to know what that one costs. And they're called rework stations since they're used to rework and fix the dickups from the wavesolder and reflow oven machines. Which is the one I really don't get, why is it called a reflow oven?

Well, Zeiss and Schneider-Kreuznach have recently signed on with the micro 4/3 system so my guess is there's some nice prime lenses on the way. Unfortunately they ain't gonna be cheap.

A couple sticks of dynamite ought to do the trick, if that fails follow it up with a wheelbarrow full of ANFO.

I was wondering when it would come out, the Olympus booth had a mockup of the camera back in October of last year. They also said they had a new Pen series in the works that's geared towards professionals, no word of a release date on that one either. One from last year

The example below is probably about as much as you can expect from negative films without doing a bunch of Photoshop work or going to slide films. Negative films just don't have the deep solid blacks and vivid colours of slide films, if you want those eye popping sunsets on film you'll have have to shoot Velvia. Hydro towers with Ektar 100

Well, the next question would be what is it about those film photos that grabs you and makes you go "wow"? Is it the colours, is the sharpness and details, the composition or subject, or is it something else entirely? Or is it a certain "look" which you can't really place or define? In my case it's the colours, I think Fuji Velvia looks awesome and there's really no way for me to consistently duplicate those colours in digital. That's why I still shoot film. That and my slide projector, I can subject people to actual slide shows.

Reala is a fairly muted film in terms of colour, it's made for portraits more than anything else. It softens contrast and reduces saturation to give good natural skin tones in most lighting conditions. If you're aiming for vivid looking sunset pictures with bright saturated colours, you'll have to use another film such as Velvia. Generally speaking, digital has the edge in low light conditions once shutter speeds get below 1/15 to 1/30 or so depending on the subject and how steady your hands are. Then there's the joy of mixed lighting, digital automatically adjusts its white balance to fluorescent, mercury lights, incandescents and so forth, plus most things in between. Films are balanced for daylight for the most part, for other lighting conditions you'll need filters to make the colour balance look right. This, I think depends on what you're looking for in your photos and what you define as "better". Kinda like audio in a way, depending on where your priorities are you may prefer CDs or LPs, it's the same idea with film & digital cameras.

Another camera to consider is the Samsung NX100, it's about the same size as the E-P2 but has a larger APS-C sized sensor. Lens selection is unfortunately rather limited, but if they have what you need then I think the NX system is way better than either the micro 4/3 or NEX systems. The Samsung absolutely kills them when it comes to ease of use, you have direct button & control ring settings for all the important stuff like exposure, ISO, colour balance, flash mode and shutter speed, no going through menus at all. The manual mode is fucking genius, one control wheel sets the shutter speed and the other sets the aperture, the LCD displays a needle type light meter with a histogram so you can see how good the exposure is.

If all else fails there's Rocky Mountain Film Labs which handles all sorts of odd films including the Kodachrome K-14 process. It'll cost you though and it takes a while for the film to get back to you.

There's also the Fujica 690 and 670 series rangefinders which come in interchangeable and fixed lens versions. You'll need a separate light meter unless you're using the 100mm AE lens but that shouldn't be a problem if you're used to using manual controls on a camera. Long discontinued, unfortunately, so you'll have to buy them on the used market. I thought about buying one earlier this year but ran into the same problem you did; the cost of all the other stuff required to support the camera is absurd and I'm neither skilled nor committed enough to use it. The results are awesome though, one of my friends uses the G690 as his main camera and the prints he makes for exhibits and clients are simply outstanding.

The theory I've heard is that a regular HD pollutes the crap out of the power supply and that's why it's better to have a SSD. Apparently all the control circuitry and stuff that moves the heads around on a regular HD also throws a bunch of noise into the power lines and that's what's messing up the sound.

Thanks! I scanned the prints myself and did a bit of editing to make the scans look like the prints. My 10 year old scanner makes everything too green. Yup. I think I posted a couple somewhere in this thread but I can't find them right now so I'll just put'em all back up again.