"Archive01 Posts through Oct. 30, 2004

Hi NathanHawking, and welcome to Wikipedia.

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  06:54, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 Re: Thanks for restoring links 
Hi; you're quite welcome. I didn't think you removed the interlanguage links intentionally. The spam/vandalism was indeed added by 221.197.20.66—the same spammer/vandal returned today via 221.198.74.212. Since this is an obvious (and shameless) attempt to use Wikipedia to increase the page ranking of the spammer's website (see Wikipedia:Spam), I've put in a request at m:Non-development tasks for developers#Spam regex requests to have the domain shop263.com added to the project-wide spam filter. With any luck, a developer will see the request before too long. Once the domain is on the filter, a page containing the domain cannot be saved (annoyingly, there are ways to get around this, but it usually takes care of the problem).

Anyway, nice work on the rewrite. I hope you like it here and choose to stick around! Cheers,   07:32, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 On War 

neat job -) | 08:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 Zone system 

I would appreciate your leaving the mention in. First Ansel Adams, in his three volume 1980 basic photography series, presented the Zone system this way and he explicitly said, in so many words, that his aim is not to force his own system of photography on anyone, but to encourage photographers to better understand their equipment in order to control the finished photograph. He disapproved of winging it, not of any particular system. The Zone system worked for him. And the Zone system is controversial, believe it or not. I know of at least one vocational school photography teacher (years ago when I lived in Montreal) who told students not to bother with it, and it seems he was not alone. 

Also, please wait a few days before doing a major edit job. I liked the article as it used to be and I was sorely tempted to revert most of your changes, but did not. I particularly liked the wording ""dynamic range"" and miss it, and I'm sorry to say I now personally find the article less approachable to a newcomer. 

Dynamic range is very appropriate: for instance (I'm making numbers up here for the sake of argument) if we say reality has a Zone 0 to X range of 1 to 100,000 , then a finished print has a range of 1 to 10,000 , while a typical digital camera will only provide a range of 1 to 1,000 . A move from 100,000 to 10,000 to 1,000 seems pretty dynamic to me...

However, since I'm not going to reread the whole Basic Photography series or even go into a darkroom again (space is at a premium in Tokyo) I'm not willing to put too much effort into maintaining this page.  05:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi Vincent:
Which idea, specifically, did you wish to restore to the zone system article? That the zone system is/was not advocated by all? (I'd say that's probably true for most any school of thought.) That Ansel Adams was not dogmatic about this being the only way to do things? (I'd say that unless there is a large public misimpression that he was dogmatic it's not worth mentioning, no more than it's necessary to mention that every painter or sculptor or engineer held other approaches to various disciplines were equally valid.)

Here's the problem with ""dynamic range,"" Vincent: it's inaccurate jargon. (It's oft-used and familiar jargon, but sloppy and inaccurate nonetheless.) First, it's redundant. The meaning most attribute to ""dy