First post to this forum - blame Mozz, he sicked me on to you lot!
Anyway, I'm an amateur photographer with an interest in sports photography, particularly Ice Hockey. I'd also like to do some motor sports shoots, like rallying.
Here is a nice shot I took the other night whilst playing with my new 80-200 f/2.8 lens:
You guys might remember that my Canon u9100 konked out with missing yellow lines a few weeks ago. Since, I've replaced it with the HP designjet 30n. I've gotta say that I quite like the build of this new printer a whole lot more than the Canon. It feels much more rugged, the build quality is far more 'industrial' than the Canon and the ink tanks are much much larger than the grossly overpriced canon BCI-6 tanks. The HP has individually replaceable print heads, the ink flows in a ribbon much like the CIS system. The display panel is an LCD which continuously displays the ink levels as well as any problems with the print head. I got the network verson which was easy to set up with my router. After setting up the printer on the client computer, there is a 'colour calibration' icon which appears on the desktop. This allows automatic colour calibration with any paper - just stick a sheet of A4 paper into the printer and in about 5 mintues it calibrates itself accordingly. Print alignment is also automatic.
Print quality is excellent, equal to the i9100, if not better. Haven't tried B+W yet. HP claims the print longevity is over 70 years which seems much better than my old Canon - I have noticed some fading in prints exposed to a lot of sun. Glossy on HP is excellent. Haven't yet tried matte paper or semi-gloss.
My only real disappointment with the HP 30n is that it cannot print borderless prints at any size. There is a margin of white on every print. On the plus side, I can feed paper via a roll feeder or manually rear feed paper. One other small gripe is that the 30n is noisier and even at rest a small fan is audible all the time.
I've found that the Canon papers do not work well with this printer. My previous favourite paper - Canon Paper Pro has significant metamerism and blocking up of the dark areas. Canon Glossy Paper produces acceptable but not good results. However, I have found that Epson Glossy Paper performs superbly with the HP inks. Currently I'm cutting off bits of an Epson Premium Glossy Paper Roll (10m) and hand feeding it through the back.
HP claims that the cost per print should be lower - this is a major consideration for me as the Canon i9100 burnt a huge hole in my pocket from ink and paper costs. I think that it's around $4 or so for a 13x19" print with the HP 30n which is much better than the Canon. Canon's tiny BCI-6 inks were each about $25 and only had about 15mL or so in them. Terrible. The HP cartridges are many times the physical size of the Canon inks - in fact the Black cartridge of the HP could fit several BCI-6 cartridges inside!!! I believe the HP cartridge is around $60.
Print speed of the HP also seems good, even at 13x19", comparable with the i9100. whcih was pretty fast anyway.
I'll keep testing this printer over the coming weeks. If you guys are interested let me know and I will post my observations.
Webcase, yeah, it's really about the closest it go.. but I think if you were on the Milson's Point side, you would have got a closer shot because it flew over that side and did a fly across. I didn't bring any long lens hence the only thing I could do...
What's wrong with my website? It's nice and clean, legible, has a good photo gallery attached, what more could I do with it? I'm not at the stage yet where I'm selling photos from it (yet).
I have just cleaned my sensor myself for the first time using some very ordinary methylated spirits - 95% purity, hospital grade disinfectant. I got 500mL of it from the local chemist for just $6. I did look into getting laboratory grade 99% pure methanol, but the price was something like $90 for 5L. They don't sell less than five litres at a time and p+p is something like $30. The methylated spirits is really a mixture of ethanol and methanol, the remaining 5% is water. My friendly pharmacist advises me that unless you store ethanol/methanol is an absolutely airtight container, it will only ever really be 95% pure because it will draw substantial water from the atmosphere. I have seen CPS clean my camera bodied before with methanol and I can certainly attest that their glass jar used to store the alcohol is less than airtight. (It is really just small glass flask with a glass 'cork'). You could use pure ethanol but it is difficult to buy without licence - the govt is obviously worried you are going to make cheap wine with it!
Anyhow, I wrapped some ordinary lens cleaning tissue on a pair of forceps, dipped it in a small amount of the methylated spirits and cleaned the sensor. It looks great. No scratches and virtually no dust left. I cannot see any residue from the methylated spirits on the lens (checked at f/32).
My DIY sensor cleaning is somewhat similar to the copperhill method, but a good old friend of mine taught me to use a cut up credit card instead of sensor swabs. I just wrap the credit card (cut to size of sensor) with some ped pec lens tissue, wet it with a bit of Eclipse solution, then wipe the sensor gently... Also similar to Greg's method mentioned, I think Eclipse solutions are more or less methylated spirits right? Not sure about the level of purity though
To take a test shot of dust, i set lens to f16-22, ISO 400, shoot a white wall, but turn lens to MF, focus to infinity (so that you won't pick up as much texture on your wall).
Last time, I was at a friend's place and was chatting about sensor cleaning. I tried to blow his sensor with a Hurricane blower, didn't work, then I used a dry cotton bud, as authorised, to wipe his 20D sensor as I blew it, it worked... so I guess it can be quite flexible with sensor cleaning. Paying someone to do it is costly and time consuming
