Bronica RF645

[DougK]

Nice shots everyone!

Doug, since I also use a Mac I'm very interested in your thoughts on GraphicConverter. Photoshop Elements is a great program, but I really do little manipulation to my photos other than the basics (crop and resize, maybe adjust brightness or contrast levels, convert to b&w occasionally, slap on a little unsharp mask and call it good), enough so that it looks decent on the web and can print a quality 8x10 if I feel like it. I'd really rather do most of the work when I shoot... I spend enough time in front of the computer as it is 🙂. Do you think it would work well enough for my purposes?

 

[Doug]

I'd think so, Doug. It's great for what you mention. I just wish it could set a selected pixel to have neutral color, to zap the color balance. Sometimes the lab scans have been poorly adjusted. GC is able to make minor shifts in color in the Brightness/Contrast control. Or maybe I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. 🙂 Frankly, the program is surprisingly capable but it needs an interface overhaul.

 

[Vince Brant]

G'day Lou,Doug
Picked up the 45mmm today....thought I had picked up another 65mm! ,they are identical,practicaly.

Thanks for the advise on the uploading Doug,I have resized.....hope this works better?
i should stick to the darkroom.

Cheers Vince

 

[Nick R.]

Another Mac user here. I'd advise you fellas to take advantage of the unix subsystem OSX is built on and install "The Gimp". Maybe as powerful as Photoshop but it's free. I 've used GraphicConverter, a nice program for format conversions but not very powerful for image processing.
BTW, a way to do format manipulations via the command line is by using another free unix app called ImageMagick. I believe both IM and The Gimp are available for Windows, also.

 

[Doug]

Lookin' good, Vince! Could even be somewhat larger than that if you wish.

Yeah, the 45mm takes the same filters as the 65, looks identical... Then it becomes surprising how much bigger the 100mm is.

Nick, I know folks who are happy with The Gimp, but I'll probably not be among 'em. I am a GUI fanatic: I bought into the Mac in 1984 despite the fact there was "no" software to run on it. It was ALL about the interface... When I found that BASIC programming was not included, I knew that was my kind of machine.

Even though I used to program in FORTRAN. I have to admit learning to read hexadecimal, and happily tweaked Mac file innards with the resource editor, but I strongly resisted HyperCard and don't now envision compiling applications in UNIX. 🙂

GraphicConverter is much more than a file conversion utility, and has some surprisingly powerful features. It does all the ordinary color file editing I mostly need. OTOH it doesn't have Curves control that I've found, has no easy color balance control, and without Layers it obviously doesn't approach the power of Photoshop. I REALLY need to learn Photoshop, as I've had it since version 2.5, CS is installed, but GraphicConverter is just good enough, combined with inertia, to keep me postponing digging into the PS books!

 

[Vince Brant]

Again thanks Doug..........I have replaced the previous thumbnails ,noticed they were starting to pixelate......so slightly larger as as you advised.

Its now the weekend here in Sydney,well Friday evening.....so will get a chance to use the new lens Sat & Sun. and hopefully will get a roll developed by the end of Sun and scanned etc.Will probably run a roll of Delta and may even add a bit of colour!,may go a roll of Provia 🙂

Just out of interest what film are you using on the B+W shots in your gallery?
Cheers
vince

 

[Doug]

Just out of interest what film are you using on the B+W shots in your gallery?

They're all Iford XP2, plus maybe some old XP1 that was left in the freezer. Have a good weekend!

 

[Lou Iaquinto]

Hi Vince, Doug,

Sorry Vince, I was only able to look at one of your shots, the beach. The rest kept telling me I had an invalid link.

No, I don't have any way to get my photos up but I am working on it. Good luck with the 45, I am sure you'll enjoy it.

Lou

 

[DougK]

Thanks for the additional info on GraphicConverter, Doug.

Nick, I have not yet tried The Gimp, but as I'm starting to be a little disappointed in the decreasing performance of OS X (just installed the 10.2.8 update a couple of weeks ago, at least I think that's what version I'm at now) on my aging but serviceable iMac, I just might try it under Yellow Dog Linux ... AFTER I get done with TurboTax this year 🙂

 

[Nick R.]

Hi Doug,
There's also Gentoo Linux for the Mac. If you have one of the older Imacs, I'd recommend selling it while you can and getting one of the new, compact macs. At work, our G3 based imacs are starting to reach the end of their service life. We have a lot of macs at our place and the early imacs had poor performance with OXS 10.2.x. 10.3.x is much better, but maybe not worth putting on that model. FWIW, I had one imac that was particularly buggy and it turns out that the battery was dead. We have a bunch of Redhat Linux boxes also, and although Linux is a rather a patchwork system, it's good for The Gimp.

Here's a page with some nice Gimp tutorials to give you an idea of what you can do:
http://gimpguru.org/Tutorials/

 

[DougK]

Thanks for the tips Nick. I'll take a look at Gentoo, didn't realize it was available for G3s. Very tempting, now I have another choice for spending my tax refund - new Mac, new MF camera, save towards a new(er) car... <sigh> what's a boy to do? 🙂

 

[Doug]

Ah, a new Mac sounds useful, Doug. This time last year I got a dual-G5 after running for years on a G3 PowerBook (1998 "Wallstreet") that had ended up with a G4 processor upgrade. I had it raised on the desk enough to allow using an Apple Extended keyboard and regular mouse... very handy for just picking up and going at short notice too! But time marches on, and more quickly for computers than most other things.