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I’ve been kind of tempted to move from flickr as well, I’m not that thrilled about their current attitude, but I haven’t found an alternative I like better. However, I did find a tool out there called migratr which can apparently move images including all the useful metadata (tags, titles etc) between several hosting providers: http://www.callingshotgun.net/about/migratr/ (doesn’t support ipernity at this point though…)

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There is a reason not many people use pinholes. I think that the quality get better as the film size gets bigger, but the aperture gets much smaller. (Smaller than f/200?!)

Yeah, I think film size is a big factor, most of the good stuff I’ve seen has been medium/large format. However, it is possible to do some really stunning stuff with pinholes. These are from one of my Flickr contacts:

http://flickr.com/photos/kentmercurio/tags/pinhole/

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A couple rejects:

Polaroid that I didn’t pull right

butterfly leaving

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I haven’t been to NY in a while, but I think B&H’s retail store is right by there, as is the empire state building.

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I did a bunch last weekend, on Polaroid & Fuji instant film, using a pinhole I made by stabbing some foil with a pin:

http://flickr.com/photos/awrose/tags/pinhole/

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I was thinking the stopped one might make it a little more interesting, but the longer I look at it the more I agree it would work better cropped.

I think if it had been in the middle of the row it would have worked better as a point of interest, but on the end, that doesn’t work as well.

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i was told there’d be no math.

Well, it’s not strictly *necessary*, but a little bit can be useful on occasion 😉

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does anyone have a secret to getting better quality?

There’s a formula for the “correct” hole size, which depends on the distance between the image plane and the pinhole, which will give the best quality. The trouble is accurately measuring a very small hole….

http://pinhole.stanford.edu/pinholemath.htm

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There is an order of magnitude of difference between even a very good flatbed scanner and a dedicated film scanner in terms of quality for high resolution images. I have both, and while the nominal resolutions are similar, the amount of actual information extracted by the film scanner is significantly greater.

On the other hand, if you don’t require really high quality high-res output a flatbed with a large film area can be a lot more convenient in terms of being able to scan batches, which is a distinct advantage if you’re talking about large amounts of film.

The cheapest option for dedicated film scanning is usually an older SCSI model, they can be had for much less than USB/Firewire models, but you generally need a free slot for a PCI card. Vuescan (http://www.hamrick.com/) can operate all kinds of older scanners on modern operating systems, and it’s a pretty decent program.

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I have noticed something similar. I have a +10 diopter macro filter that I use occasionally. It works decently on the Kit lens 18-55mm But if I put it on my 70-300 it quickly gets unusable.

You need a lower diopter on a longer lens – a +3 or so would probably work a lot better. For a given diopter power, the magnification increases with the focal length of the main lens, but this also increases the optical aberrations in the system.

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Is it possible your lens and/or filter is getting fogged up and/or catching light from the side?

A hood might help a bit, but I think that’s mostly optical aberration from using a strong closeup lens wide open – stopping down 3 or 4 stops might help quite a lot (but would also require a tripod or flash unless you’re shooting in bright light)

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Well, if you want refractive optics, there’s always the Nikkor 1200-1700/5.6-8:

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/zoomsMF/12001700mm.htm

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And if you don’t want to make your own, there are all kinds of options (depending on what you’re actually after)

from the cheap: http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=2203&pid=5126

To the expensive: http://www.zeroimage.com

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K64 is still available, and Kodak hasn’t said anything official about discontinuing it.

It’s harder to scan well than E6 I find, but it’s the most permanent form of color reproduction available, which probably has more to do with it still being around than the few photographers that still use it.

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Or you could get one of these and shoot velvia 50: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091505leica_50mm_f0_95.asp

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