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Cameras
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Pentax 645Nii
Solid 645 system
Autofocus, autoexposure and motor drive with
a 6x45 format. I never have used the autofocus or the autoexposure,
but the body is rock solid and the BIG bright viewfinder is
a joy to use. The superb Pentax lenses can yield very high
quality prints up to 24"x30" in size with the proper
technique. Pentax promises an 18MP digital 645 for $7500 in
2006. I have many fine Pentax 645 lenses waiting to try it
out.
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Canon 5D
An amazing full frame digital SLR for $3000
Having owned a original Canon 1DS and having
been impressed with its image quality, this camera had a hard
act to follow. Amazingly it blows away the 1DS. It has exceptional
clarity which IMO equals the 1DSmk2. To boot, it has even
better low noise performance the 1DSmk2. Its weakest link
is the glass you use with it. Canon telephotos & macro
lenses are great. IMO their wide angle glass is lacking. I've
using my old Zeiss 35-70mm zoom and a new Leica 21-35 zoom
for landscape work with great results.
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Canon 20D
An excellent wildlife camera & backup.
The 1.6x crop factor the 20D offers makes
it IMO an execellent wildlife camera. It doesn't have quite
focusing speed and accuracy of a 1Dmk2, but it only costs
$1300. It isn't quite as good as a Nikon D2X for super telephoto
work, but again, it doesn't cost $4500. It makes an excellent
combination with the 5D for someone who shoots mostly landscape
with an occasional widllife photo. Thes Nikon D2X will someday
be a $3500 camera, but right now IMO its way overpriced
as is the Canon 1DSmk2.
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Accessories
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Bogen 3021 tripod
Our tried and true standard tripod. Paired with
a pistol grip ball head it can be used for anything from wildlife
to portraits with 35mm SLRS, medium format or even 4"x5"
view cameras. We have lighter tripods for backpacking but
they are limited in stability and unstable with telephoto
lenses.
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Nikon LS8000 Scanner
The best scanner I've ever used by a wide margin. It can
scan anything from 35mm to 6x9 MF. With 8x multisample scanning
it can pull rich colors from heavily saturated slides and
noise free detail from the deep shadows of many sunset shots.
At times I've recovered detail in 48bit mode from forgrounds
that make it seem the shot must have used a split neutral
density filter. See Mt
Assiniboine Sunrise.
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Epson 2400 photo
printer
Incredible color and definition in prints up
to 13"x19". This printer may be possibly spell the
end of the custom Ilfochrome print trade. I've not yet talked
to anyone that wasn't blown away by the quality of its output.
Prints with glossy, semigloss or matte paper, properly framed
and protected should last 50+ years. Amazingly this baby almost
nevers clogs up!
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Epson 9880 photo
printer
Incredible color and definition in prints up
to 44" x 50 feet. I regularly make prints up to 32"x 58"
in size on my 9880. It's great and has very few nozzle clogs
even in our dry climate. The non stick coating on the heads really seems to do the job preventing clogs.
The new Ultrachrome K3 ink set with vivid magenta really works well, and the color palette it produces is quite impressive. I also find B&W prints made with photo black ink on new Baryta or Epson semimatte papers are extraordinarily rich in tone.
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