Chuck, I did look at the E-500, and a couple of other brands. The 500 is very similar specs to the Rebel XT (some better, some worse). But after doing a lot of research I found it really came down to what Mike said about lenses. They are the key to good images, and Canon and Nikon are the big players in that field. I've always had a big respect for Nikon (my father is a pro photog and always had Nikons) but the bang for the buck seemed to be with Canon at the price level I was looking at.

I figured if I was going to get serious about it, I needed to pick between Nikon and Canon, and whichever I chose I would probably be using for a long time, since as Mike says, the lenses stick around longer than the bodies.

I ended up buying the Rebel body and then carefully picking my initial lenses. I picked a good general purpose zoom (17-85mm), a 60mm macro lens (I love closeups) and a 75-300mm telephoto (a cheap one, since I don't do much telephoto). At some point I'd like to get some good fast prime lenses, but I have this camera for a mix of personal pics and an occasional product photo, so can't justify spending too much per year on it.

My brother, on the other hand, has a Canon 1Ds MkII attached to the back of a 4x5 camera body and uses that for product photography in his graphic design business. He makes more money than me. ;-) 

He's just picking up a portion of the 4x5 image, but that crops off a lot of the fringing and distortion anyway.

I'll see if I can get a sample pic from him. BTW, his web site is http://www.jonesstudioltd.com

Mike ... thanks so much for all of the facts you put in the post back to me. It will help my research a lot.
I assume you have done a bit of murals as well ... what enlargement program do you recommend? I am utilizing Corel 9,12 & 13 (which I am starting to like a lot more now with more practice) and have PSCS-2 as well. I bought Kneson Imager Unlimited and it seems to work pretty good but I am not as impressed as I felt I should be. I know there is a lot of talk about Genuine Fractals and it seems a lot of the 'math' is contained in KIUnlimited so which is why I bought it ... plus was a bit more economical. Its confusing when I see people post on DSSI about the number of conversions they make when they are expanding an image to mural size. I have allways beleived that the more times you convert a file the image continues to degrade in quality.

Thanks in advance!

John,

I haven't done large scale murals as I'm one of those who thinks transfer technology still doesn't offer the kind of longevity I would expect for my clientelle but I have enlarged digital images for fine art paper printing on occasion beyond reasonable norms with some success. My comments here will always relate to the state of digital photography, what anyone does with that is another matter.

I generally hate the results if the amount of interpolation required goes beyond 300%. But this is a subjective conclusion. It really depends on your needs and wants and what you think is commercially viable. I tend to be a perfectionist. This is the reason you should be considering a camera that offers as large an image file as you can afford. If you're able to shoot a 10-12 MB RAW file and then convert and edit it as a 80MB 16 bit TIFF, you'd be ahead of the game.

BTW, this brings up an important side note. How robust is your computer work station? The larger files the better DSLRs produce require muscle to edit. You need at minimum 2GB RAM and a fast processor, a good video card around 128-256 MB these days.

Re DSSI claims, have you ever seen a decent photograph of one of these projects? I haven't. You can't tell anything from a 50x50ppi image taken with a point-n-shoot there. I have been slammed for suggesting that larger, more professionally taken images might tell the story better. Its almost as if no one wants you to see a close up detail for fear someone will understand the weakness of their process. Either that or the people who've posted images take constructive criticism too personally. I've offered to photograph imaged tile and put up large files online for examination but as of this date no one who's said they'd send me tile to photograph has sent any.

Sorry to hear about Kneson Imager Unlimited. That did look promising. And you are right. The more you stomp on any image, interpolate it up, save and resave as a jpg; the image quality will go down dramatically. Most of the good folk on DSSI attempting these things are not photographers or good image editors. That's not a slam btw, just a fact. You can tell in how they describe their process.

Hi Mike ... all good points you have made. I am currently looking also at updating my workstation. My wife, darn her, has got the more robust computer so I am looking into a faster, more aprapro (sp?) computer to work with. This is just like stereo, photography and so many other things that the 'weakest link' drives the overall product. Currently have a 1.8 mhz on WinPro with only 512mb ram (maxed out, just found out a month ago) and an average video card.
I agree with your summary on what I have seen on the DSSI forum in what I have observed but often times people probably have much better images available but don't offer to post those 'off site' ... could just be a 'time thing'. I understand how you feel with some of the posts slamming you on that forum and if those people would take time to read between the lines what you are offering I think those of us with a lessor experience level would tend to learn a lot more. I think there are many ways tho to approach any given scenario and I value looking at all the options and then decide on what approach I want to take to solve my own problem. I know with photography before the digital age I was looking at all the different Nikons and would have loved to buy the F-1 (have a friend that has one with all the bells and whistles) but after a serious evaluation of my needs at the time and to have to lift that monster for a day of shooting, I opted out at a more appropriate level and decided to buy a couple of good lens to compliment it.
I would not say I am an expert on enlargement software and it could be kneison unlimited is equal to or better then others ... not sure ...
Thanks for your insights. :-) 

Thanks Dave, I'd be glad to post them here, if I ever get any imaged tile to photograph that is.

I must say that I find this forum much more receptive to new ideas and suggestions than DSSI. I feel much more at home here. This site seems to lack the acrimony and personal attacks evidenced on DSSI, at least with respect to my posts.

People here are into the larger picture; engraving, signage, manufacturing as much as transfer technology. I find it refreshing that dye-sub (and lasar) is but a sub-note here.

I think that speaks well of the wider business interests here and parallels much more closely what I was accustomed to in my former sign business. Dye Sub would have been just one tool of many in my daily production schedule.

I probably should have become a 'regular' here years ago..... ;-) 

Mike, I spoke to my brother. He says he does use the combo to manipulate focus planes, but more often he is using it for perspective control. Here's a couple of samples. The 4x5 camera, BTW, is a Cambo, se he calls it the Canon Cambo Combo. :-) 

These first two were both taken with the combo, but the second had the focus manipulated:

http://www.redtengu.com/images/raw/Eric_1Ds_1.jpg

http://www.redtengu.com/images/raw/Eric_1Ds_2.jpg

In this next example they are two identical model reception desks, one dark brown, one light. They were both shot in the standard "3 point" angle, with the camera above the center line and looking down at the product.

The first one was shot with the Canon alone. The second one is that same shot with perspective correction done in Photoshop. The third one was done with the combo camera with perspective correction done by moving the lens board. The Canon only shot uses a slightly wider angle lens, which does exagerate the distortion, but it would be there with any lens because of the camera looking down on the subject.

http://www.redtengu.com/images/raw/Eric_1Ds_3.jpg

http://www.redtengu.com/images/raw/Eric_1Ds_4.jpg

http://www.redtengu.com/images/raw/Eric_1Ds_5.jpg

This perspective control is also important for architectural photos.

If Hula Mike stays, I'm outta here!!!!

;-)