Isn't it time for a "Nikon digital" forum?

[jim_helleck1]

Why is there no "Nikon Digital" forum yet. I find myself spending

more time wading through all the D this and D that posts than I

spend reading about what I'm interested in. Or perhaps we need

a "Nikon Film Camera" forum. To me it's like mixing apples and

oranges.

[vivek iyer]

What about

 

a LF "Nikon forum"?

 

a RF "Nikon forum"?

 

a "CoolPix ....

 

a "Microscopy....

[jeff_lu]

the "D this and D that posts" are usually evidently "digital" from their titles, and since you

probably wouldn't visit the proposed "nikon digital" forum, why don't you just skip the

threads? takes my eye, hm, a millisecond?

[markwilkins]

Maybe it's time to spring for a D70 and find out what the fuss is about!! :) :)

 

Seriously, most of the questions here are either (a) body specific, in which case film vs. digital doesn't matter because you're only likely to be interested in questions about your model of body, or (b) are about things like exposure, flash, lenses, etc. that are the same between film and digital.

 

-- Mark

[mendonphoto]

I hate those d@mned digital shooters. I wish they would all just dry up and leave the internet to those for whom it was intended - film photographers.

[sarp_ozdemiroglu]

Internet is a digital solution so go to cafes or bars and talk with your buddies about film bodies analogly

[simon_madgin1]

i agree that we should have a digital forum also, and I think that people shooting down digital because they have never tried anything else are just ruining the whole forum idea for everyone and specially the new ones trying to learn a bit. If you dont have good advice or good comments to give KEEP OFF THIS FORUM!!!

[uli_theune]

These questions/suggestions are becoming almost as frequent as these D70+kit lens questions ...

 

Anyhow, as it is apparently to difficult to search the entire list of threads for a similar question, maybe a structure as they have it for the <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/forum?topic_id=1548">Leica forum</a> would be helpful. One section for W/NW threads, one for digital, one for film, ... I don't know how much work this would be but MAYBE it would help these D70+kit lense or what posters to search some recent threads first?

[hapien]

Nope. One nikon forum is imho the best solution. Currently most threads are hardware related. And a split between film and digital forums would only double the number of "what should I purchase next" threads and make photo.net less readable.

[dan_long]

I too get sort of weary of the "D70 + kit lens" questions and at one point was ready for a Nikon digital forum. The more I observed these inquiries, the more I began to see that they are really not digitally based, but rather digitally caused. Had these folks ever invested $1200 in a film camera as sophisticated as the D70, these questions would have been film related. But...digital and computer familiarity seem to go hand in hand with many folks. They spring the big bucks for a digital camera, but never would have done so with film. It only seems natural that this group of novice photographers would show up on internet forums where novice film users never would. They are here to stay, and will probably outnumber the rest of us soon enough. They have a different set of questions than we did when we started. Our biggest dilemma was whether to buy the 28mm lens or the 135mm lens first. Their questions are all about zooms. That, and when we started their was no internet to go to for help. We had to read the manual or buy a book, or God forbid, rely on the guy at the camera shop for help. This is foreign to them, as they probably bought the damn camera online too. We might as well learn how to be tolerant now before they outnumber us.

 

regards,

Dan

[Michael R Freeman]

We were just down this road a week ago.<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AwUC">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AwUC</a>

[jim_gifford]

Sarp suggested...

 

<<Internet is a digital solution so go to cafes or bars and talk ith your buddies about film bodies analogly>>

 

... and I think we should take it one step further. Those of us who use film should discuss our issues by MAIL.

 

On a more serious note, I don't think we should subdivide the forum according to technology.

 

Be well,

[gaius1]

How about "D70" and "real photographers"?

[laurie_m]

Now Guy, Where would that leave those of us who shoot both film and digital (I consider myself a "real photographer" with a D70 among other Nikon film bodies)? Since I use most of my gear with both bodies, I would have to go to two different forums. Please don't make me do that :).

[vivek iyer]

"Those of us who use film should discuss our issues by MAIL."

 

Jim, By the same count would it be fair if I say sheet film users should use homing pigeons?

[ShunCheung]

Vivek, don't laugh. In the "old days" before we have web browsers and nice JPEG images, in netnews rec.photo, people used to mail a physical portfolio of a number of prints from one person to another for critique, and they would discuss those images in the news group. Of course, the majority of us who don't get to view those images have no idea what they are talking about.

 

Those "old days" are not that long ago. I am talking about the late 1980's to early 1990's, maybe 12, 15 years ago, around the same time frame as the F4, N8008/F801, N90/F90 bodies. Internet was text only at the time because of bandwidth limitations.

[david_debalko1]

I shoot digital, but I like to hear the film questions, its nostalgic.

But we should segregate the the D70kit questions.

[vivek iyer]

Shun, I was on "bitnet" on those times at Universities. Was not in to photo discussions though. Yes, I can fully understand what you are talking about. Still, Jim scores yet another one! Wouldn't you agree? :-)

[aardvarko]

> But we should segregate the the D70kit questions.

 

 

or delete them.

[gaius1]

The last straw was when a D70 owner blew out the highlights in a picture, saw the flashing warning on the screen and posted here saying his D70 was broken.

 

I don't want to tar all D70 owners with the same brush, Lars Raun is doing great work with one for example, but really, something must be done before we all drown in inane questions.

[loreneidahl]

There are two forums for Canon specific users. (EOS and FD)

 

 

 

I'll let that say what it says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:

The above commnent(s) is/are my own personal opinion(s) and therfore is/are subjective. As a result of this subjectivity I am neither right nor wrong. Please refrain from taking this personally and attacking publically or privately. I am not attacking you. You are entitled to be neither right nor wrong as well.

 

:)

(Sorry Shun couldnt resist - I will now go away again. :) )

[bob_hollifield]

I bought a D70 3 months ago and haven't asked a question yet....however I do read other questions and responses...also Magic Lantern and the manual. My F100 was stolen, hence the D70, but I still have my 25 year old F3 and FM2. It's all fun...the nice thing is I now shoot 10 times as much with my digital because it doesn't cost anything...experimentation is now easier.

[ShunCheung]

Loren, since the "old days" from the late 1980's, I have been hearing rumors that Nikon would "soon" change the F lens mount. There were more of those rumors then, like 10 times a year. A little more than a year ago, somebody from Europe posted in this very forum that some leading European magazine had the news on a new Nikon mount on its front cover. Todd Peach and I immediately deleted two attempts to start that thread.

 

If Nikon ever introduces an incompetible new lens mount as Canon did from FD to EF (EOS), I will completely support an entirely different forum. So far, I have been waiting for some 15 years or so for that to happen.

 

For a while I was pretty tired of those "should I get the 50mm/f1.4 or f1.8" questions that come up 2, 3 times a week. There are always beginners in these forums. Once upon a time I was a beginner trying to understand what f1.4 and f2 were all about. Most likely, so were you.

[dan_daly1]

The solution really is simple. I particpate (alot) on a mountain biking board (mtbr.com)that has it set up better than photo.net. First of all, include a FAQ for Nikon owners that's at the top of the page, then when some newbie (of which I count myself one) asks a question that someone has asked 100 (or 1,000) times before you post, "Go look in the FAQ." OR You can put in a better search engine that when you put up the words "D70 SB800 or 600" all of the posts that include all of those words come up and somebody can pick and choose which post threads to read based on their title. OR you can go the split route and include sub categories in general- "Flash" "Bodies" and include all makes and models. They have all three "upgrades" at mtbr.com. That's how they do it over there, and trust me, it works better than here. Another thing they have- That I wish they had here- was user ratings. You can grade ANYTHING on a scale from 1-5, then look at the numbers of reviews and see how people like their stuff. VERY helpful, as I have made quite a few purchases based on other people's reccomendation and rants. It took me weeks to find a good board like this one, and it's STILL no where as organized as mtbr.com. Anyone recommend any other good photo sites?

 

Dan

[fourfa]

photo.net has by far the highest signal to noise of any big photo site. all the others I've seen have microspecific forums and a very conversational tone. this seems to universally lead to the forum becoming a big circle jerk of a bunch of beginners complimenting each other's mediocre photos, and a serious wheat/chaff problem that makes them frustrating to read. the glory of this site is the presence of lots of very respected and knowledgeable moderators and contributors, and their presence holds down the really bonehead stuff. I think we'd find that breaking down into more specific forums would create more problems than it would solve.

 

this site's main problem is definitely the code and structure, which may once have been pretty high tech in 1996, but is now simply awkward. a lot of the complaints voiced in this thread could be dealt with through site updates. Sticky FAQs, a working search function, hot threads staying at the top of the stack, cold threads sinking, etc. I have the feeling that whoever wrote the code for these forums still feels that it's good enough, ten years later, but that's just a guess.