Harry Harrison

Just wondering what was it about the Illumitran that didn't work for you?

I've uploaded loads from the original X100, no problem at all, the whole series are great inconspicuous 'walk around' cameras and yours must surely be the best one yet, much more resolution than mine. Alamy must have made a mistake unless it is instead the processing as suggested, it's not the camera. Are you leaving the EXIF data in the jpegs, that way it should be automatically recognized. If you don't want to commit yourself to the subscription version of Lightroom you can still buy the 'Perpetual' Licence version though Adobe don't make it easy to do so. There a few features that it doesn't have over CC but I can't say I'm missing them. You may not even need Photoshop and anyway Affinity Photo is a good & much cheaper option, again a 'perpetual' licence, a one time purchase. The important thing to note is that it definitely does handle the RAW files from the X100F. If you are thinking of buying a brand new very recent camera in the near future then CC will be the only way to go though and Perpetual would be a false economy. Personally I like the idea that I'm free of the shackles of Adobe and their on-line validation. Adobe Compatibility chart here: https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-plug-supported-cameras.html

Thanks for that. I can see the check-boxes but they're greyed out so I'd need to apply. I can see also that these images have the public-facing warning: "This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage." It doesn't seem to encourage anyone to take much effort over the quality of the scans if they bypass QC altogether but that probably is something for a new topic if I get around to it.

Perhaps I should start another topic but do scanned slides have to be submitted in a special category, historic perhaps, or if the quality is fine (resolution, sharpness, spotting etc.) are they just uploaded as normal? I wondered about the dates when perhaps only the year is known, sometimes frankly only the decade unless they were Kodachromes.

Guilty as charged! Glad that ES1 setup is working with the Micro-Nikkor, it looks like a nice simple setup and if I hadn't already got the copystand/lightbox etc. I probably would have gone for it. I'm actually quite surprised that you're not losing any detail by downsizing to 3000 x 2000 but I guess if you don't need any more than that for Alamy then that's fair enough. Still, I'm diverting from the original post. I still think that for a 'popped' slide it might be worth trying with the 'pop' away from the camera.

....regarding Velvia, surely RAW is pretty much a must just to get the maximum dynamic range, then bring it into Lightroom and play with the highlight and shadow sliders to get an optimum treatment of highlights and shadows, you can then save this as a setup, or better still save several at different levels.

This topic got me wondering (and googling) to understand just why it might be better to copy slides with the emulsion towards the lens, I've seen the advice too many times to think that there might not be some truth in it. The good news is that a simple test with your own setup should settle the argument and I think the answer will be that in most cases it won't matter. Of course when printing with an enlarger or copying slides with a film camera there was no option, the image had to be the right way round but with digital it doesn't have to be. Sprocket's got a point, you are shooting through the base if the emulsion is away from the camera. Although the light passes through the film base whichever way around you put the negative I think the difference is that with the emulsion away from the lens it is the focussed image that could just possibly be affected by halation in a film base that is cloudy with age. With the film base away from the lens then it is just unfocussed light passing through the film base and I can't see that affecting things unduly (still not 100% sure I''m seeing this as clearly as I might be though). The second point that I've seen I think might make more of a difference. The slide or negative is unlikely to be absolutely flat. Similarly even with an expensive macro lens the plane of focus may not be completely flat either, and the cheaper the lens the more likely this is to be true. It therefore makes sense to mount the slide or negative so that the curve of the film is away from the lens and so is more likely to match the curve of the plane of focus of the lens. Again, a simple test will tell if this is a factor. If all this sounds absurdly pedantic then I think that anyone who does this method of 'scanning' will know that you are dealing with very fine tolerances and a lack of edge to edge sharpness, or a slight wooliness to the highlights is all too noticeable at 1:1 in Lightroom and if a slight adjustment to technique can fix these problems, even if it's only on the odd roque tranny, then it is worth doing. It doesn't cost anything after all.

...I'd actually be happier if, as well as providing the ability to move a lot of images together you could actually prevent ' All images' from appearing at all. Then you could just refine your own sample galleries. After all it's pretty easy to give someone a link to all your images on Alamy. Just a thought.

I think it might be behaving correctly, at least within its own rather limited parameters. I played about with it but, like others on this forum, got rather frustrated by the clunky tools available. In particular the need to find and then move images one at a time on to your first page. Admittedly I've seen examples that look good but it must take a lot of work to make those 100 images on the first page look good and represent your entire collection. Similarly, and I know you're not referring to this, I would like to find a whole lot of images by searching and then put them all into a new gallery before tidying them up as before and I don't think that's possible either. So, since it takes ages to create that first page surely it would be a real pain if when you uploaded more images to Alamy they effectively messed it up for you by bumping your carefully curated first page down, perhaps Alamy did at least think of that and this is what you are seeing? Personally I think that the 'Portfolio' feature is work in progress, for Alamy as much as it is for me.

Ah, it's a Fuji! Without checking I expect the register distance is quite similar to a Leica M and any DSLR with a mirror is going increase the minimum magnification, if you see what I mean. Thanks for the clarification, I read afterwards that in fact the BEOON was designed for the Leica M3 rather than the LTM Leicas. The D5 is almost 1Kg heavier so it could affect the balance if nothing else I suppose.

Yes, I would agree with that, particularly since the original question was about a £200 slide scanner. DSLR scanning has got quite popular so bellows, copystands etc. have got harder to find and pricier. Unless you have the bits and pieces already then it can get expensive quite quickly.

I don't know about the protocol regarding links to a well known auction site but I imagine if you search for "Macro Leica M39 LTM mount lens to Nikon F mount adapter D4 Df D810 D3300 D7200" then the adapter would look something like that. Of course all camera settings would be manual but that's fine. I've never seen the BEOON before and it is a beautifully elegant solution so thank you for introducing me to it. Haven't obviously seen one but would it really be happy with a camera as large as the Nikon D5, it was designed for a screw Leica after all? I don't recognise the camera in the photo but that seems just right and the flip screen would make it very easy to use, an excellent setup. I can also recommend enlarger lenses for this type of work, in my case Rodenstock Rodagon on a Novoflex bellows. I also tried an AIS 55mm Micro-Nikkor with the extension tube and this is very good also, but not better. A potential problem with it is that when suspended vertically you can get focus 'creep' just from gravity, I think later models had a lock to prevent this.

Thanks John, I'm new to this so it's nice to know that it can be useful.

Incidentally I suspect that you might have accidentally keyworded an image in Lightroom with the capitalised 'People' at some stage, LR will then put that in even though you try 'people'. For me I found that I had to find all images with this keyword, capitalised or not, put them in a temporary Collection created for this purpose, then delete the keyword, both 'people and 'People'. Then just add it again without the capitalisation. Take care though, I wouldn't want to be responsible for messing up your catalogue!

3 pictures spotted in the print Guardian yesterday, 3rd January: Passers by look at the new Tesla Electric Car showroom in the Grand Arcade Shopping Centre in Cambridge UK Contributor: Robert Evans / Alamy Stock Photo Image ID: J6RFRK (a different picture was used online) Close up shot of the petals of a David Austin orange rose flower named after his wife Pat Austin Contributor: John Keates / Alamy Stock Photo Image ID: E95F9E https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/01/david-austin-obituary#img-2 Lorries on deck of cross channel ferry approaching port of Dover England UK Contributor: Chris Howes/Wild Places Photography / Alamy Stock Photo Image ID: B5BC6B (again, a different picture was used online)