Bend, OR: Selling all my photography gear. All in "Like New" Condition Barely used. 10-1 Shutter count 958. What I'm selling:
Camera: Nikon D850 $2276 (New $2997)
Lens: Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR $1541 (New $2097)
Vanguard VEO 46 Discover Back Pack Case: $50 (New $150)
Rode Microphone: $100 (New $229)
120 GB XQD Sony G 440 MB/s 400 MB/s write mem card: $99 (New $189) never been opened
64GB XQD Sony G 440 MB/s 400 MB/s write mem card: $50 (New $99) only month old
Power supply conn. AC adapter (Off brand, made in china, works great): $20 (New $35)
Nikon Brand Battery Charger: $25 (New $55)
Nikon Brand Battery: $25 (New $60)
ProMaster Brand Battery: $10 (New $20)

**GRAND TOTAL: $4171 (SAVE $1760)**

This is my starting eBay price. So make me an offer. First come first served. If you need me to ship: you pay shipping and insurance and I need money in my account first (unfortunately scammers have made this more difficult to manage). No games please.

All of this was purchased in the past 3 years, right after Nikon came out with this award winning camera. Cables to connect to your computer included but not in pictures. PM with questions. Thanks

There has been a lot of interest recently, both here and on YouTube, regarding how to transfer film (slides, black-and-white negatives, and color negatives) to digital files.

I'm in a pretty good position to discuss this, since for five years, I ran a high volume film scanning operation (and all other digital imaging departments) of a major portrait lab. 20 years before that, I did plenty of film duplication as an AV producer making big corporate slide shows. So...

There are three classic ways to do film-to-digital conversions:

> Use a service bureau

> Use a scanner

> Use a digital camera with macro lens or other sort of close-up attachment (enlarger lens on bellows, reversed normal lens on extension tubes, etc.)


The advantage of a service bureau is that you don't do much of anything. Just fill up a box with media and send it off. Some time later, receive your materials back, along with a disc, flash drive, or link to download the files.

The disadvantages of a service are that it is usually a bit expensive when you have lots of files to digitize. The service takes time. Many services send files to a remote scanning sweatshop in an emerging nation, to minimize their labor costs. Confidentiality is impossible to maintain, if you need that. And the quality can range from excellent to excrement.

The advantage of scanners is that you are in control. The scanner can be a reasonable expense ($230 to $1300 for a decent flatbed or film scanner). You can take advantage of technology that removes dust and scratches, restores some semblance of color balance to faded media, and so forth.

The disadvantages of scanning include:

> A lack of speed (Scans can take a boring minute or more per original for high resolution.)

> Complexity (If you don't understand the principles of digital imaging, you can get very disappointing results.)

> A lack of resolution (Flatbeds rarely focus film as accurately as I would like. Effective resolution usually is much lower than the scanner's rated resolution.)

> Obsolescence (I wish I had a $20 bill for every scanner abandoned by its manufacturer in less than five years! I'd take my wife to a fancy restaurant.)

The advantages of using digital cameras with macro lenses include:

> A full 36 exposure roll of film can be "scanned" (copied) in about seven minutes or so.

> Digital cameras can resolve more than original 35mm film did. Use a high resolution camera (50 to 100 MP) on medium format film, and the same is true.

> You can save raw files and process them the same way you would process other digital camera files.

> Excellent software exists for converting both black-and-white and color negatives to positive digital images *without* fighting curves tools.

> You may already have much of what you need to use your digital camera to copy film. Add a light source, a film holder, and some software, and you're set. Almost...

I've spent years mulling over how to proceed to digitize my collection of film. It's of no use to me as film... I want to make videos of it, sell products from it online, preserve some of it for family, etc.

Accordingly, I settled on the copy method for film. I'll flatbed scan prints, but film will get the macro treatment.

I've written a white paper explaining how I am doing it. It is a PDF file you can download and view with your favorite browser or PDF viewer. It contains links to videos, reviews, and commentaries, and to various sources for the products I'm using. (Some of the links may need to be copied and pasted into the URL line of your browser.) I've also included some samples I "scanned" from images recorded on film 30 to 50 years ago. Enjoy:

>

We keep hearing the hubadubs that DSLR is dead. Maybe it is time to look beyond the news and advertisements.

Manufacturers want sales. That is what all this noise is about. Everyday we encounter advertisements and press release all pointed to that direction - sales.

It's always a miracle product that will bring heaven to earth and to hell and back being shoved up all our senses and body openings. All for sales.

It doesn't matter to them if we need it or not. They will lie and hustle the green out of our hands.

So why listen? Why do we believe the press releases and the ads? Why not have a look beyond?
Stand on your own and Have a different view.

Here is my own. Warning, it's not mainstream and may touch some egos and probably hate. But this is just me talking out loud, speaking my own.

DSLR is dead!!!

Well maybe that is what they wanted. All the hype and misdirection pushes the mirrorless wonder product so far ahead of the DSLR that it is obsolete- so they say.
Be truthful. Is it? When you bought that mirrorless, did your photography improved by 10 folds? 100? 1000 times better? Or were you just conned out to get the latest gear?

Manufacturers are always looking to produce with the least cost and sell at the highest price. If mirrorless is sold with the same "cost to sales" premium, it will cost about 3/4 or at extremes 1/2 the price of an equivalent DSLR. Why? Because mechanical parts, materials like magnesium bodies and actual assembly of such, cost more. Electronics, molded plastics and smaller amount(size) cost much less.

Imagine a single button on a Toyota. What if that button cost dollar? If i produce 1 million cars, that is an extra 1 million dollars of investment. Meaning if i design something without buttons, I save millions. Suddenly touch screens makes a lot of sense!

A mirrorless is basically a dumbed down video camera. They made it look like a DSLR so it can take its place. Instead of shooting video they made it shoot slower, then advertise that their camera shoots 20 frames per second!!! Faster than your DSLR!!! Yea right...

So it shoots 10 - 20 - 25 frames a second, how many are in focus? 50%? 25%? 1 image?

The technology of the mirrorless has been around since the invention of the tv and are just getting repurposed. Innovation as some would say. It is not new, that is just hype. Don't buy into it.

Am I against mirrorless? Nope, not at all. But let us see things the way they really are. Cut the bull, forget the advertisement and hype. If it fits your style and improves your photography, then by all means buy as much as you can. Help the manufacturer so they can go back to making better cameras.

But if you are buying just for the hype, you are feeding the money train instead of supporting the production of better equipment.

Ask yourself, If they can put 4 cameras in a celphone and sell it for half the price of a mirrorless, what did you miss? Have you just been robbed?

I have no plans to "switch" to the new Z cameras/S lenses. From where I currently sit with equipment, there is absolutely no incentive for me to do so. While the S lenses are superior on paper, they are not superior in any significant way that currently available equipment can realize. I have also found that for the significant majority of what do, the 21 MP provided by my D500s are completely sufficient. If a specific application requires more, my D810 offers 36 MP and my D850 offers 46MP. I know how to use my cameras...what metering pattern to use, what exposure mode to select, and how to effectively use manual exposure on those few occasions when it is the best approach.

The slight superiority of the S lenses does not justify the significantly higher cost for me, and the change of technology carries no incremental attraction. For instance, I will never use an electronic viewfinder for night sky photography, because the cost to night-adapted vision is too high.

Having said all that, if I were coming from the position of having only entry-level or consumer-level equipment (both camera and lenses), my answer might be completely different. If my technical photography skills were less, my answer might be completely different. On the other hand, if I were coming from entry-level Nikon equipment, I might also be looking for a different camera maker altogether.

The market will decide whether Nikon continues to make reflex equipment. They have already stated publicly that they plan to exit the entry-level camera market. To this point, it hasn't been obvious what that means. If they do leave that market, they will have eliminated a significant source of customers for their higher grade equipment. On the other hand, they will have eliminated a significant source of frustration for many beginning photographers. So it remains to be seen whether they will remain in the business of making equipment for photography over the long haul.

For me, the answer will be interesting, but in no way personal. I am fortunate to have two D500s, a D810, a D850, and at least as many lenses as I need. I expect that my photography equipment will outlast me at this point...at least the bulk of it. I can't imagine having any future GAS attacks. I can't imagine any photographic project that I'd be willing to undertake at this point that my current equipment would not support. So it will be like watching a great football game in which I have no personal investment. I cannot lose.