In the work that I do with photography, I find a tripod unnecessary. But my work always uses a flash and relatively fast shutter speeds. A tripod would be usefull for low light/slow shutter speed situations(i.e. shooting the castle at DL at night) or extremely close up where minut detail is important(floral photography, extremely close up). 99% of the time, I work hard to make sure that my shutter speed is fast enough to minimize any camera shake.

Oh, and in my opinion, the added expense of the "specialty" shops is generally worth it, especially if you shop around, and find a shop that looks like they know what they are doing, and has decent prices. Most the time these days, for me at least, when I need a job printed outside of my own abilities, the expense of the specialty shop is effectively being paid by someone else anyway(read: my client).

Thanks for your responses about the tripod, peoples.

I do have one of those tiny tripods that you attach to the bottom of the camera. I have only used it so far for taking pictures where I also want to be in them. I never thought of setting it up and taking a picture just for the steadiness.

Are you all talking about a different type of tripod?

Ah, that I had a more elaborate camera. Mine is basic, the nicest thing is that the zoom is pretty good.

Ah, alas alack, I am my own customer Name. {And, I have no other job besides snapping photos and being someone people around here can count on...hopefully...} I have no clients only friends/family whom I love to give prints to and that adds to my costs. This time, though, with the digital prints, I only made doubles of ones that I am giving my son for him personal album

That photoworks, wow. I looked more at what they have to offer. I see they can make canvas pictures. So ironic because on our trip through Big Sur we came across an artists collection of photos of Big Sur and such that they had put on canvas. They were awesome. I said to the Hubster that I had photos that I'd love to see on canvas. Oh man, this can be addicting!!!

I wish we had a specialty shop that did it's own film processing. My local shop implied that they did, but when I requested my slide fil to be processed in c-41 chemistry as if it were regular film and make prints out of it they gave me back slides...processed as slides. i was so mad, because it was a location shoot that I couldn't do again. then they tol me, "oh, we send it out, but we had instructions on it."...yeah...great...

Yeah, it sucks that small towns sometimes don't have enough demand to afford to invest in the equipment to process film in house.

The results of my personal photo test are in.

Just to review, I sent a set of vacation photos off to Snapfish, Photoworks, my local MotoPhoto, and got one from a Canon photo printer

Sitting here with all the photos in front of me, it's easy to pick Photoworks as the clear winner.

The print from photoworks shows the sky as blue, the tundra as green and the mountain as snowy white. The other prints show a bluish-gray sky and faded grass.


Photoworks now carries the prestigious if rather obscure Moonliner Seal of approval!

If you are interested you can view one of my full sized origional test photo online.

My test protocol was that of the average consumer, which is to say lazy. I just took the image file and sent it in. I did not photoshop it or do anything else to pre-enhance the image.


Note the "Moonliner seal of approval" is a registered trademark of, well, err, umm, no one actually.

Moonie, I'm so happy Photoworks worked out. Like I said, I used to use them for ALL of my film processing and loved their quality. I'm glad that to know they've kept up their standards.

That's a nice photo. (can I steal it?)

I Moonliner do hereby grant name non-exclusive rights to use my photograph titled "Wow, I saw the F'n mountain!!!" for any use public or private that floats his boat. :D

lol