Arthur Morris / Birds as Art
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BIRDS AS ART ON-LINE Bulletin #77 April 23, 2002
AN OFFER TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
GITZO CARBON FIBER TRIPOD INFO
TIM GREY'S DDQ
AN OFFER TO GOOD TO BE TRUE
My friend, Joe Mac Hudspeth (whom I
affectionately call Jon Mac Wood Duck because he has the
world's best images of woodies) has been after me for years
to have some digital prints made by his pal, Mitch Wolverton
of Photo Images of Flowood, Mississippi. I finally
relented, and all that I can say is "Wow!"
Mitch made me a 20 X 30 inch digital
print of the Roadrunner head featured in Bulletin 71. Folks
who saw the print at the Clearwater Photo Weekend were
stunned. The color and detail took your breath away. To
introduce the quality of Photo Images' work to BAA Bulletin
subscribers in the US and Canada, Mitch has kindly offered
to make a free 8 X 12 inch digital print for anyone who
would like one.
To receive a coupon for an absolutely
free 8 X 12 digital print, simply e-mail
baaphotoimaging@att.net with the words "Free Digital
Print" in the subject box. In the body of the e-mail,
simply type your name and your US or Canadian mailing
address. (Sorry-this offer is not open to foreign
subscribers at this time.)
Now here are the amazing details:
Your original transparency will be scanned on a Scitex
EverSmart Pro scanner, and printed digitally on the Lightjet
5900, the state of the art
photodigital laser printer. Your print and your original
transparency will be sent to you at Photo Images' expense.
A Photo Images price list will be included with your print.
At first, you will be amazed
by Mitch's low prices. When you read the fine print and
find out that the scans are free,
you will need to go back and re-read to make sure that you
are seeing straight... A single 16 2/3 by 20 inch print
(that is the size of our exhibit prints) costs $58.00,
and that price includes the scan!
A quality scan and an identical print made by Mitch's top
competitor costs $150! (For those of you who are not too
good at math, that is a $92 difference!) Photo Images' low
prices stretch across the board, and of course there are
incremental quantity discounts for those who market their
prints.
Do take advantage of this amazing
offer now.
Photo copyright 2002 Arthur
Morris/BIRDS AS ART
Laughing Gulls copulating/early
morning light. Fort DeSoto Park, FL
Canon 500mm f/4 L IS lens, EOS 1v
body, automatic focusing point selection.
Fuji Velvia pushed one stop.
Evaluative metering at zero. (No need to underexpose is soft
light.)
TIM GREY'S DDQ
Tim Grey is George Lepp's in-house
digital expert. He maintains an on-line digital question
and answer mailing list entitled DDQ--Daily Digital
Questions. Readers ask the questions, Tim answers them.
This man is so knowledgeable that he makes just about anyone
feel like a DD--digital dummy!
While many of the Q & As are way over
my head, here is an excerpt that I found extremely
informative:
Q-Because of the large volume of disks
we were using in our office, I recently went to a new
storage system to save space. I ordered heavy grade plastic
archival pages that hold two disks per page and go in a
three ring binder. This makes my archives easy to access and
cuts space by at least 10 times. Can you tell me if storing
the CD-Rs this way has any negative effect vs.
storing them in the hard jewel cases? I still keep a stack
of jewel cases around to transport CDs and to mail them to
clients.
A-This is actually not something I would recommend, but if
you are careful you can make it work. The reason I don't
like this solution is that you will develop micro-scratches
on the bottom of the disc. Over time, this will render the
disc unreadable. You can buff out these scratches with the
CD
cleaning tools available at retail, but this is still not an
ideal solution.
You don't mention whether these pages have anything to
protect the bottom of the discs. There are some similar
pages for holding CDs that have a soft surface on the side
that would contact the CD, helping to prevent scratches.
Still, just the process of inserting and removing the disc
will
result in at least some scratches, even if it is only at the
sharp-edged opening that the CD slides into.
My preference would be to keep the discs in jewel cases to
maximize their
protection. I understand that storage space is an issue, but
you are
compromising the safety of the discs to some degree. If you
are going to
continue using this system, be very careful, and monitor the
discs so you
can create an additional copy when they start to get
scratched.
If you are into digital photography, you
surely should check out at least a few issues. To subscribe
to the list, send an e-mail to
mailer@leppphoto.com
with SUBSCRIBE DDQ in the subject box.
GITZO CARBON FIBER TRIPOD INFO
New subscribers
may not know that I use and recommend only two tripods: the
Gitzo Carbon Fiber 1325 (for 500mm lenses) and the Gitzo
Carbon Fiber 1548 (for those 600mm monsters). For folks whose
longest lens is an intermediate telephoto, I still insist on
the 1325 as the lowest leg sections on the 1348 and 1349
series tripods are just too darned thin.
Many of you
may have heard of a mail order web site where you can buy
these and other Gitzo tripods for hundreds of dollars less
than at Hunt's or B&H or Adorama. This may be true, but many
who purchase Gitzo tripods from this source wind up with the
short end of the stick, so to speak... Bogen Photo Corp of
Ramsey, NJ imports Gitzo tripods and handles the warranty
work. If you purchase a foreign Gitzo, Bogen simply will not
honor the warranty. And I can tell you from experience
that any repairs that you need to pay for may set you back
more than the cost of a new tripod. So play it smart, and
purchase your Gitzo CF tripod from a reliable US source; it
will last a lifetime.
About a
year ago I began disassembling all my Gitzo carbon fiber
tripods, slobbering lithium grease on all the leg joints, and
re-assembling them carefully. (My understanding is that
molybdenum grease is better, but I have never been able to
find that type; I now have a lifetime supply of lithium
grease...) Every few months, I re-do the treatment. So far,
so good. I have had no problems when using the tripods in and
around salt water, and no problems with sand, grit, or dirt
entering the leg locks and causing grief. Before you try
this, realize that Bogen does not recommend such treatment,
nor do they recommend working in and around salt water (or
even sand)... As for the salt water, a guy or a gal has got
to do what a guy or a gal has got to do...
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