Alan7140

That's something that bothers me as well - I hadn't thought of a Photoshop perspective modification as I'd already done much cropping to straighten things up. It's something that always rears its ugly head as almost nothing in Hobart is actually horizontal and flat. In fact the best thing about digital cameras for me was the provision of a horizontal indicator line in the viewfinder, prior to that I rarely managed to get things without a lean to them brought on by sloping ground all around (Melbourne, where I cut my photographic teeth, is salt-pan flat compared to Hobart). 😄 Fixed:

There was something about the repurposing of a 19th Century residential building and an old early 20th Century motor garage that grabbed my attention. (I'm still trying to work out exactly why I liked this shot enough to post it, though). Fuji X-T5, 10-24mm f4 lens.

If you ever do get sucked into the Fuji wormhole, be prepared for some bother with processing the X-Trans raw files - Adobe still haven't got it right, although they now have an "enhance" facility in Camera Raw now called "Raw Details" which hits the files with a ton of NR and post sharpening which does mask the Adobe "worms" artefacts that the Internet still blames on Fuji in calling it the "Fuji worms", however the depleted reds oranges and rich yellows remain, unfortunately. The Bayer sensor in the X100 Mk1 avoids this hassle entirely, of course. Should you go down the X-Trans route, there is now a free processor based on Raw Therapee which is excellent (if overly complex as is the way of nerd-driven free stuff) for X-Trans (as well as Bayer files), and which simply goes under the name of ART (version 1.20.2 at present). It takes some learning but is easily as good as the sadly no-longer being updated Photo Ninja that I used to use to process my X-Trans files up until my X-T3. Unfortunately the X-T5 is not supported, but between Fuji's own X Raw Studio (which uses the camera itself to process the files just as it does for in-camera jpegs) and ART I'm pretty happy with the output from the X-T5 without any meddling from Adobe. https://bitbucket.org/agriggio/art/downloads/ https://bitbucket.org/agriggio/art/wiki/Home

The RB67/RZ67 outfit has gone, Dallas, as contra payment for services to my car by my mechanic who actually likes that awkward-to-use camera and the bad memories it holds in battling through wedding photography in the '80's, forced to lug it and its lenses around during a 12-14 hour day and having to shoot everything with it mounted on a tripod. These days I stick to my far more user-friendly Pentacon Six cameras and lenses for medium format, although I'm still more inclined to use large the format Thornton Pickard and Pony Premo cameras since buying the Fuji X-T5 with its 30mm Macro lens, which does such an outstanding job of copying paper negatives at 160MP resolution, and which is actually able to keep that large format quality intact in digital form. That, and the fact that I'll always favour B&W materials over colour, if only for the practicality of processing on site here. That stereo camera is really tempting, though, given its versatility, but it's almost a guarantee that its pricing will be way beyond the reach of mere mortals like myself.

...this comes along: https://petapixel.com/2023/09/21/mercury-works-offers-kodak-imax-film-to-photographers-for-first-time/ Probably well beyond my price range, but given that I'd been experimenting with large format stereo photography using obsolete field cameras and B&W photographic paper for negatives, this promises to open up a whole new avenue for others who also don't think that digital 2-D photography is the pinnacle of mankind's achievement in photography. It'll be interesting to see what those well-heeled enough to tackle this come up with, and whether it progresses beyond a PetaPixel article and a YouTube video on the subject. The camera itself looks like some considerable effort has already been put into the project.

Ahhhh, "Silent Mode" -I remember being tripped up by that, I recon my complaint about this misleading setting is still somewhere in the archives! 😄

Photographed in a nearby pond just on sunset whilst bottom-feeding during brief resurfaces. Guessing where it would rise for a breath of air was 99% of the effort of getting these photos. Fuji X-T5, 100-400mm lens @ 400mm plus 1.4x tele extender (then cropped about 50%).

Wonderful photographs of truly spectacular scenery!

It's slightly shorter than both the 40mm TTArtisans and the 60mm 7Artisans 1:1 macro lenses, but surprisingly is substantially lighter. Of course the AF with its totally silent and extremely rapid linear motor-drive makes it vastly superior in the focusing department than those two manual focus lenses, and the firm f-stop clicks make my using it on the copy stand much easier than the "de-clicked" 7Artisans or very stiff with barely perceptible click-stops of the TTArtisans job which both lead to physical contortions to see what f-stop the lens is set at when stopping down after opening the aperture to focus. The only drawback I can see with this lens for really close-up work in the field at or near 1:1 is how close the front of the lens gets to the subject at that point, which could cause problems with the camera and lens casting a shadow on the subject if the light source is from behind the camera. Other than that I think it is incredible value for money. I just wish that Fuji had flagged their intentions for releasing this lens before I had blown the money on those two Chinese lenses, as well as a Minolta 50mm MD 1:2 macro and extension rings to replace the second Zeiss Touit 50mm 1:1 macro that terminally failed with the exact same fault as had wiped out the first one I had from new.

"Spring" might be misleading, plum trees can get confused I guess. It had been minus 2.2°C on the morning I took this, with the frost on the ground at crunch thickness underfoot.

Spring is about to be sprung here in Tasmania, the first blossoms are appearing, so I stepped out the back door and took this photo. On processing the raw file I was left pretty slack jawed at both the 3-D pop and the incredibly smooth bokeh, which to my eye is what perfect bokeh should look like, not the mass of soap-bubbles or distorted half-moon circles or whatever else the Internet spends so much time drooling over as people buy and adapt old lenses, reverse front elements or whatever other trickery they attempt in making their photos all about in-your-face bokeh (and never mind the subject matter). Shot at f/5.6 and 800 ISO, the combination of X-T5 and the new 30mm f2.8 1:1 macro lens has just blown me away with such quality. Considering I bought this combo mainly to copy large format B&W negs at 160MP pixel-shift resolution, this was an entirely unexpected outcome from what is a relatively inexpensive pairing of equipment.

It's really great to see that camera being put to such good use. Lovely photographs.

Nicely done indeed, Chris. For my part I recognise Flinders St Station and the spires of St Paul's Cathedral (even from that unusual angle), but little else. Melbourne sure has changed since I was last there!

This sort of proprietary hi-jacking has been an annoyance with Epson "Pro" inkjet printers for ages in the chipping of their ink cartridges which prevents re-use and refilling with off-brand inks. In earlier times there were some good and unique alternatives available (such as Jon Cone's Inkjet Mall carbon pigment monochrome inks which supplied several shades of grey inks in place of colours to give superbly tonal B&W prints by circumventing the Epson lockouts with their own RIP, as well there was an aftermarket chip resetter for ink cartridges for the Epson 7800 printer I used for many years and enabled the use of far cheaper bulk ink and refillable cartridges, but Epson seem to go to extraordinary lengths to lock users out of such shortcuts these days with their current printers. I guess that's what we have to accept these days - corporate profits & greed come way above customer satisfaction.

I was mainly referring to the bright bit in the sky at upper left which makes it look line that's where a slightly cloud-obscured sun is, so not meshing with the direction of the shadows. I'd expect AI would get the obvious correct, but subtle things are probably bound to be missed. I haven't fooled around with it yet myself, though, so I might be out of line even commenting, but that just what immediately looked wrong to me. The scale of the recliner chairs also looks a bit off, come to think of it. Personally I'm hoping this AI thing is just a passing thing in photography, but the reality will probably be different. That's yet another reason that I'm sticking with good old AI-free film!😁