You camera nerds have gotten to me..

[straffo]

Nilsen I find your photos a bit too warm/magenta (red) was it the light you had at the time you took the photos ?

[wasq]

Originally posted by RAIDER14
how bout takeing some pictures of aircraft

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by straffo
Nilsen I find your photos a bit too warm/magenta (red) was it the light you had at the time you took the photos ?

It was snowing yesterday so i just took a couple of shots from the doorway at the summerhouse.. didnt wanna get snow on it. Its 3 times that ammount of snow today. When the weather improves ill try it out some more. Havent played with it today... too busy shoveling snow.

[wasq]

By the way, if you're shooting JPG, I strongly suggest trying out shooting RAW and then using something like RawShooter to convert the pictures to JPG for publishing. This way, you can fine-tune the image quite a bit more freely than with JPG.

I never bother with setting the white balance on the camera anymore, just shoot raw and when converting the pictures set the WB by clicking something white or gray in the pictures.

[Nilsen]

i used RAW.

gives me 67 pictures on the 512mb card.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by wasq
By the way, if you're shooting JPG, I strongly suggest trying out shooting RAW and then using something like RawShooter to convert the pictures to JPG for publishing. This way, you can fine-tune the image quite a bit more freely than with JPG.

The bad thing with Nikon: Propierty RAW format.

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by Fishu
The bad thing with Nikon: Propierty RAW format.

at a glance i saw .NEF... wtf!

[BigGun]

Canon sight that has pretty good tutorials for digital slr photography. While intended for canon, lot of the lessons applicable to slr techonology in general.

for got the link

http://photoworkshop.com/canon/

[eagl]

Bug and Nilsen,

Any regrets on the d50 vs the d70?

I've given up on the d200 after the banding fiasco and nikon's response, so I figure I'll get the d50, save $1000, and buy an extra lense.  The deal I'm looking at is:

D50
nikon 17-80 lense (kit lense from D70)
nikon 55-200 lense (only adds $170 to combo cost)

With a camera bag and a few other goodies, it comes out to almost exactly $1000, far less than the cost of the D200 body alone and right around the cost of just the d70 and 17-80mm lense.

I usually wait and wait and wait and then buy the best after I've saved up some money, but right now money isn't really the issue so I'm thinking D50 as a high quality "learner" camera.  I can always buy something better later if I really need too, but it seems like at this point I may be better off saving a few bucks and getting a second lense to play with.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by eagl
D50
nikon 17-80 lense (kit lense from D70)
nikon 55-200 lense (only adds $170 to combo cost)

With a camera bag and a few other goodies, it comes out to almost exactly $1000, far less than the cost of the D200 body alone and right around the cost of just the d70 and 17-80mm lense.

You should consider D50 + the new Nikkor AF-S DX VR 18-200mm F3.5-5.6G IF-ED, which runs for about $700.

Only problems I really see with the lens:

11.1x zoom range - results in more distortion than with normal zooms, albeit possible to fix for most parts with photoshop etc.

Slow lens - F3.5-5.6 will require more light / longer exposure time, although your kit choices aren't much faster. However, the VR II system can result in two steps lower F, comparable to F1.5-3.6, but only for photos of static objects. Useless with moving objects.


I've been considering to buy it when I'll have money for it.
Although I've been also considering an alternative...

Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 ($400) and Sigma 135-400mm F4-5.6 ($500), a bit more costly combo than the 18-200mm alone.
I hear the Tamron lens is quite good, albeit lacks quality control (might need to be returned for a better copy), but it's a fast lens which is really helpful in low light. Lacks a vibration reducing system though, but that only helps with static objects anyway.
The 135-400mm lens isn't quite so fantastic, although it would give me the range between 200-300mm that I would lack with the Nikkor lens.

Of course I could wait for over the summer  (or could I? Mr. Impatient) and get along with my kit lens, Nikkor 70-300mm, and then invest into either of the two choices: Sigma 80-400mm F4.5-5.6 ($1000-1100) with vibration reducing system or faster Sigma 100-300mm F4 ($800). Both of the lens are getting whole lot better opinions from the owners than the 135-400mm.

If you don't like Nikkor 18-200mm lens, then I would recommend Tamron 28-75mm lens over Nikkor 18-70mm (which you probably meant with 17-80mm). For the range you could get either 70-300mm or 55-200mm, which are both about $200 - although both of those are really just temporary solutions. You really can't get a good "long" zoom for cheap.

[eagl]

Fishu,

Yea those are nice lenses.  I'm hesitating on the 18-200 VR one primarily due to cost and wanting to be sure I "need" it before putting down money on a lense like that.  With the 2 lenses I'm looking at, I save $300 and give up VR and will have to carry 2 lenses.  Also the 18-200 is a bit overpriced right now due to extremely high demand.  Reading reviews of the 17-80 and 55-200, the quality across their combined range is slightly better than the 18-200 alone except of course where the VR feature helps (hand-held shots in low light).

If/when I decide that I "need" that 18-200 VR lense, hopefully the price will have dropped to a more reasonable amount.  It's supposed to retail for around $700 but most places that have them in stock are pricing them above $850.  Maybe when the price drops, I might sell the other two lenses to help lower the "upgrade" price, but again it depends on how happy I am with those to begin with.

Most of those other lenses are beyond my skill level right now  But I'll keep them in mind if I get a bit more serious.  I don't plan on carrying around a tripod unless I get into it a lot more seriously, so the larger telephoto lenses are out for now.  Anything over 200mm is more than I can make use of.

I did see a neat 80-300 (or something like that) nikon lense with VR...  It's huge and costs $1700   Maybe if I get seriously into aviation photography...

[Fishu]

Problem with the kit lens is that the resell value is quite low unlike with the other lens. Tamron 28-75mm could be a good choice... at least it's really making me itchy for it - 300 euros (~$360) from Germany, the shopping country for finnish camera addicts. I could get it right now unlike the 18-200mm which is low on stock and over my budget until summer... choices choices...

[eagl]

True on the kit lense, which is why I'm not getting the d50 kit lense  The D70 kit lense is actually quite good apparently so that's what I'm going to get with the D50.  It's the 18-70 lense, not the 18-55.

The 18-70 retails for anywhere between $250 and $380, while the 18-55 goes for under $100.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by eagl
The 18-70 retails for anywhere between $250 and $380

Have you looked at the Tamron 28-75mm yet? Fixed F2.8 could become useful

[eagl]

I thought to start I'd stick with nikon lenses.  Maybe it's being too picky or something, but I like to establish a baseline of performance before expanding my horizons.  I just don't want to spend money on 2nd party lenses until i have some experience.

Plus the last tamron lense I had for my 35mm camera was a huge disappointment...  I probably expected too much but almost every pic I took with it seemed somehow fogged with a slight brownish tinge, even with a UV or skylight filter.  After using that lense and seeing how much worse pics it took compared to the wonderful kit zoom lense that came with that old 35mm camera (28-65 if I recall correctly), I'm irrationally turned off from 2nd party lenses.  As I get some experience I'm sure my irrational fear/dislike of tamron lenses will fade and I'll experiment some

How big is that tamron 28-75?  f2.8 would be nice...