Knuckledragger

Didn't Oppo used to make silver units? I swear some of their older upscaling DVD players were silver.

I had use of an 85L II for five days last year. My best advice with regard do that lens is this: Don't try it if you don't want to buy it. As the saying goes "A luxury, once sampled, become a necessity." Longtime readers of this thread might ave seen some of these images before: The 85L has a number of downsides besides cost. It's gigantic, massively heavy, and both its objective and rear elements are huge and very vulnerable. Were I to shoot with it all the time, I'd invest in a battery grip (seriously the 85L's AF motor sucks juice like no tomorrow) and an UpStrap. The weight does have one odd bonus. It makes the camera so dense, I was able to hold it for 1/13th of a second and get a surprising number of keepers, like this one: F/1.2, 1/13th (ya rly), ISO1600. It was stupidly dark inside the nightclub.

Has to be the same dude. Also:

I will say that my use of Velvia 50 with human subjects is pretty limited. At nearly $3/frame when all is said and done, I don't shoot it casually. What I suspect is that if people are using light sources besides daylight, it's quite possible that Velvia 50 renders skin tones in a reddish manner. I really like black & white film for portraiture. Kodak BW400CN works in a pinch, and can be developed anywhere. It is no substitute for Tri-X, however.

From what I've observed of rave culture, MDMA can lead to magical star fairies.

I have not used them, as there is a decent lab near me. That said, I know several photographers who use mail order service to have their slide film developed and have had great sucess. To put it delicately, these people are smoking the minty fresh crack. The Kodak Gold series has the worst color I have ever seen for a modern print film. Quite the opposite is true. Velvia 50 (and its two cousins, 100 and 100F) are quite a cool film, and tuned for daylight. Skin tones are quite pale with it. It is true, V50 is not the best for portrait photography unless one is looking for a specific artistic look or is really good with the use of warming filters. I have not shot many other slide films besides V50. I have made use of Fuji's Sensia line (particularly the ISO 200 iteration) and liked it. As for price, it's all relative. A 36 roll of Velvia 50 is $12-13 around here. Superia is even more expensive ($15+). Processing fees for slide film is more expensive than print film as well. Kodak does make some decent color print films, like the Ultra Color 100UC, but they're at least $10 for 36 exposures. The moral here is that film is expensive. 35mm is still a bargain compared to what medium and large format photographers must cough up. My friend Eddy pays $2 per frame for Tri-X in 4x5" sheets. His friend shoots 8x10" and pays $4-5 per frame for the cheapest film he can buy. He said Velvia (the now-discontinued original, not the new Velvia 50) was $18 for one 8x10" sheet, and twice that to have it developed. The advantages of film is that the bodies are cheap on the used market, don't get obsolete, and of course when it comes out right, film beats digital hands down for image quality. Lastly, one of the great joys of slide film is cross processing it. As it turns out, Fuji slide film stock is very hearty and holds up well to rigors of cross processing. This is especially true for Velvia 50.

Hi there. Here are the major points: 1. In skilled hands, film yields better results than digital in every situation except for extreme low light levels. 2. Fuji makes the best (color) film stock. In fact, they are the last company standing who are serious about film. 3. Fuji's slide film is better than their print film. 4. The best Fuji slide film is the mighty Velvia 50. 5. Velvia 50 is not an good learning tool. It's ISO 50 and very unforgiving about under- or over-exposure. It has narrow "shoulders." 6. It is essential to find a good lab to develop your slide film. Most places don't do it, and even fewer do it right. 7. For black and white, Kodak Tri-X is the way to go. 8. You will either need to learn to develop and print B&W film yourself, for find a specialist lab to do it for you. 9. Developing and printing B&W film is an art, not a science. 10. Whatever film stock you go with, you will eventually want to invest in a good film scanner. Very few places to make decent film scans, and those that do charge plenty. 11. Kodak Gold is worst film stock in the history of humanity. Never use it, no matter how cheap it is.

Science&Sons OS v1.0

Jack Abramoff served 3 years in a minimum security prison.

H/B/D, J/E/W!

Just re-upped my Flickr pro account, after letting it lapse for a week. It's not that I'm remotely enamored with Flickr at this point, but the fact that I have over 8,000 photos on the %$#@ thing.