Hahnemuhle fine art glossy baryta mini review

On newyears eve I was on a last minute visit to my local photo supply store (schillers in St Louis Mo) and saw that they had 20sheet 8.5x11 boxes of Hahnemuhle glossy fine art baryta, and after looking at the sample photos they had on display I couldn't resist buying a box, (not cheap at approx 28.00).But I'm still in the evaluation process of my epson r300 pigment CIS and decided I needed to include it in my testing.It's described as "Gloss", but it's not Smooth, or Slick gloss, But definately shiny.The tooth of the paper is not pearl, or luster, it's a little more coarse than pearl, and has a random look, just like real paper.I Printed a portrait of a girl standing in front of a tree, (scroll down to see the post which includes her photo) and made sure a few small areas of the bark were close to pure black. For me how the darkest blacks look is very important since back in my B+W film printing days, I always liked to have at least a small portion of every print go all the way to pure black. I've noticed with some papers and my current printer that the Ink will "pile up" in the pure black areas. not with this paper. holding the finished photo at any angle reveals no change in the surface appearance. I know newer printers have a gloss optimizer, I'm not sure how it could improve on the surface of this paper. I don't have any way to actually measure the black on this photo, I'd say it's as close as you'll get on this type of paper. The color of the paper is bright white neutral in my opinion. I can't see any color cast. You can take that last part with a grain of salt since my system isn't profiled, And I may not be as picky as some people.Over all conclusion: When I hold this photo in my hands, and examine it as close as I can I would say that it's as good as or better than any traditional photograph I've ever seen. The original image was captured with a Pentax K10d and a manual focus 28mm 2.8 pentax "A" series lens. 10mb raw image processed and printed from photoshop CS3. One thing I noticed was that when I took a fresh sheet out of the box the surface had an almost tacky feel to it. By the next day it seemed like it had dried. Actually I took another fresh sheet out of the box to compare, and while there seemed to be difference it was only slight. So would I reccomend this paper? yes, but not for everyday printing. only for those special photos that require that extra touch. If I get around to printing a Black and White photo with it, I'll do an update. The photo at the top? that's just one of my favorites from last summers vacation

Panographs, and Security guards

I made a trip to one of my local photo equiptment stores today, to check for any used pentax lenses I might be interested in. Anyway I've decided to keep my new 28mm 2.8 lens on my camera for a while to see how well it suits me as a walk around lens. Within an easy walk of the photo store there is a complex of new comercial office buildings, and I decided it would be a great day to walk around and take some pictures of the area. I use no tripod, and I work quickly ( don't want to be a nuisance) I shot a lot of Images with the specific intent of stitching them together in photoshop. The above is an example of 5 images merged in photoshop, and then corrected for perspective. Anyway as I was headed around the far side of the buildings you see in the photo, going back towards my car, A security guard in a small car came raceing upbeside/in front of me, and stopped and jumped out and said "would you mind stepping over here?" I replied "I don't think so" and began to walk away briskly (I had no intention of surrendering my photographs) at this point he yelled " you're under arrest" Well this seemed like a rather serious escalation in the hostilities, so I did the only sensable thing I could think of under the circumstances: I RAN. Since the guard was about 3 times my size, (but not that much taller) I didn't think there was much of a chance he could catch me on foot. And the layout of the streets and parking lots didn't give him much of an option to chase me in his car.
I ran till I reached the Borders Book store about 1/2 mile away, and layed low for about 1/2 an hour before going back to retreive my car. It's possible that I had other options, but I wasn't willling to give up my photos, and prospects for a successfull confrontation didn't seem likely. And I had a had a new years eve party to host.
I hope you like the picture.
Levi

printing with continious ink systems

At some point I was going to have to cover this subject, so now seemed like as good a time as any,
To put it bluntly, what printer mfg's (all of them) charge for ink is simply Obscene.
Well that's my opinion, and since it's my blog thats what counts.
I printed black and white photos in my own lab for quite a few years, and controlling my cost consisted mostly of carefull selection, and use of photopaper. Chemicals were a modest part of the equation. And for me at least it was a very slow, and painstaking process, so supplies (which were not all that expensive went a long way.
Enter the digital age.....
Now it's an electronic printer, specialty ink, and specially coated paper (which for a while was costing more than genuine silver based photo paper)
My photography is a hobby, I have never charged for anything I do, so cost is important to me.
For the most part since I moved to digital about 6 years ago, I've had all my photos printed at sams club. there was no way I could touch their price, and the quality was acceptable. As my equitpment, and skillset have improved over the years, I've yearned for the ability to once again have the joy of being able to print my photos at home in my own electronic lab. of course good quality printers have not been cheap untill recently, and ink prices....
Of course I've had a printer all along, but it has never been a truly good photo quality printer.
I've been using a Canon pixma 3000 for all my everyday printing needs, and I refill the cartriges which is actually quite simple with this printer and once the cartridges have had the top popped do not even need to be removed to be refilled. just pull the little rubber stopper, top off the ink level replace the stopper, and you're back in business. You still need to be carefull about spending too much for the refill ink, I've found my best deals at Kmart which had kits that would refill all three colors at least 3 times for less than 20dollars. Recently at a dollar tree store I found cyan, magenta, and yellow refills for a dollar each. Keep in mind I don't print anything special with this printer. Cheap ink, cheap paper, for when I need a paper copy of something which as it turns out is often inspite of the "paperless" future we were promised some years back.
For photographs, I demand much more.
Carefull shopping, and testing has led me to a brand called Magiclee which my local photo store (Schillers) stocks a good selection of.
Ink is an entirely different matter, and Epson which is a clear leader in photo quality printing is also the most stingy with their ink. I could write an entire blog just on the ethics of ink pricing, and counterfeit products, but I won't. All of Epson's ink cartridges are "chipped" they have a little microchip mounted on them that records ink usage, and tell you when you are out of ink.
It doesn't actually measure the ink in the cartridge, It just keeps track of how much it thinks you've used of each color, and then tell you you're out. (even if there is ink left in the tank)
And don't even think about trying to refill the cartridge, because it still "knows" you're out.
Don't despair! you have options, You could do what I did the first time I discovered I couldn't refill my new epson printer cartridges.... I tossed it into the alley. and never looked back. Ahh but I was young and foolish the fact is that epson "chip resetters" are available on Ebay for about 5 bucks. or you can buy empty cartridges with "self resetting chips" and use the ink of your choice, you can also buy full cartridges of third party design for a fraction of the price of genuine epson cartridges, but I would caution against using them untill you do your own product testing. testing for things like waterproofness, resistance to fading, color tone. I should also add a caution about buying "genuine" epson cartridges on Ebay, since they command such a premium price, there are some counterfeit cartridges which look like, and are sold as genuine epson. If you choose to pay for genuine ink then that's what you should get. Anything else is dishonesty on the part of the seller.
If you're really serious about printing good quality photo's on a budget you should invest in a "CIS" which stands for Continious Ink System. There are at least 4, and probably more online companies which sell systems that use large (about 100ml) tanks which hold each color next to the printer, and feed the ink through ribbon cable of tubing to the print head where you install special cartridges to supply the ink to the print head. (these cartridges have self resetting chips, so you will never be told you are out of ink). I use a system from www.inkjetfly.com . I would recommend you do some of your own reasearch since this might not be the best system for you. When you change inksets you will also likely need a new printer profile which tailors the new inks to your printer. Inkjet fly has a number of profiles available for the printers they sell ink systems for, and I've found them to be quite good with my Epson R-300 which I bought used for 20.00 on craigslist. The fact is that many very good fully functional printers are tossed because people refuse to spend more for a new set of ink cartridges than they will spend for a new "better" printer. The CIS will cost around 100 dollars, but the ink will cost about 10% of what you would normally pay. You will also have a choice of ink types, Pigment, or Dye. I use Pigment even though my printer wasn't designed for it, and I am getting excellent results.
Each type has it's pro's and con's.
I reccomend you do some research of your own.
The "printing" forum at www.Dpreview.com is an excellent place to start, you don't need to ask a lot of question, just read the posts for a few day, and you'll get the idea.
OK, I've got to go to bed now, Big party tommorow night you know. (new years eve)
Levi

New Lens wooooo hooooo

Sunday Dec. 30th 2007

Since I have chosen Pentax as my camera brand of choice, I am now in constant search of Pentax compatable lenses. Which as it turns out is every Pentax lens ever made.

Ok, seriously I knew I would have to draw the line somewhere, so I'm choosing to limit my used lens collection to "A" series lenses. I like them for a number of reasons, of course the number one reason is image quality (though I think most all of the "prime" manual focus lenses are excellent. The second reason is rather capricious, but it is simply that I like the style/design of the A lenses better. something about the way the lens is labeled around the outside of the front of the lens, it just seems.... well Bold. and of course with the "A" setting on the aperature ring it is fully automatic except for focus.

Anyway my constant vigilance on craigslist paid off yesterday, and I was able to pick up for the paltry sum of 50 dollars a mint condition in original box 28mm 2.8 "A" lens. This lens is sharp, It could become my new "walk around" lens. Though I typically like something a little wider on a 1.5x crop camera, It's sharpness may win me over. I'm including in this post a picture of a girl from church I took this afternoon We'll call her Miss "C" I've only actually taken 3 shots with this lens, and this is one of them. Ok then lets see if we can get this thing posted.

My first blog posting

Well I finally got tired of just posting to my favorite online discussion forum, http://www.dpreview.com/ and decided I needed a place to post where I was in total control.
Well this is it.
I really need to start out with a complete history of my life in photography, but I don't have time today, so I will try to add a picture that I printed as a panorama, and leave it at that.













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