Recs for Party-Pictures, renting a D100?

Hi folks,

I`m asked to do pictures from a party (company about 150 people) next

week, and was thinking to rent a D100 to use it instead of using my

good old F100, for the obvious advantages. Most pictures will be

flash, all colour.

For I don`t have a lot of experience in digital photography, please

give advise based on your experience:

-Will I run into any (unexpected from a experienced analogue nikon

user) handling problems (white-calibration a.s.o.)?

-Would you recommend the picture quality of the D100 for the typical

applications: max 5x7 prints, press, internet, etc.

Thanx,

Martin

The D100 will be fine, you may not. Get the camera early enough that you have a day to get comfortable using it and getting the results you want. Make sure there are extra batteries, and that they hold a charge. If you don't have a DX series flash, then you will have to use Auto mode instead of TTL. This will work fine, but you will have to get a feel for it. If you are under the pressure of doing a shoot and working with strange gear, you run the risk of having a melt-down. Take the F100 just in case. Have fun.

Hi Bruce,

a SB28 wouldn`t do TTL-metering? Pulling my leg, or are the really gone nuts in Japan? (I`d rather do manual flash-control then using Auto again ;-)

Thanks, anyway,

Martin

Here is California, my local pro store has the D100 (and Fuji S2) for rent for $100 a day. For that kind of money, you can buy a new one after 15 rentals. So rental cost is one issue.

 

Otherwise, as Bruce said, get the D100 early and get familiar with it. The good thing is that you can see the result immediately. Make sure that you have sufficient CF card memory space to store all images for the entire event. Finally, make sure you have lenses wide enough for your needs. For example, 24mm is pretty wide on your F100 but not that wide on a D100. If you need to make a lot of group shots, a 17-35 can be handy.

Thanks folks,

I think, I`ll go to the store, to have a try (about operation with my "old" SB28 and MF 17-35. They charge me 60 Euros a day, wich means for one or two days it would be appr. the money I`d spend for film, dev. firstprints and PhotoCDs. Whereas I don`t do jobs like that more then once a year, buying isn`t an alternative.

<i>a SB28 wouldn`t do TTL-metering?</i><p><a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon/d100/preview.html"> A 2002 preview of the D100 states:</a> <i>"The D100 supports the latest in Nikon flash technology, but only with a new DX-type flash, such as the SB-28<b>DX</b> or SB-80<b>DX</b>. With older flashes, only non-TTL (i.e., primitive) flash is possible."</i>

The Fuji S2 works with non-DX flashes so it may be a better choice. The F100 is hard to beat with flash though. I have an F100 and SB28, and just bought an S2 but haven't done much with flash on it yet. All I can say so far is it's not as easy and reliable as on the F100.

 

Personally I'd be a little worried about taking something I didn't know very well into a situation like that. I would end up spending too much time worrying about the camera and not what I was supposed to be shooting. Another issue - memory cards. Does the rental include any compact flash cards?