allan_jamieson2

<p>This should work well I used to use the older AFS 24-85mm version as a walk around lens when I had my D90 and it worked extremely well, just not quite so good with my D800 but reasonable all the same. Granted the D5300 is going to demand a bit more from the lens but you are only using the centre part of the lens, so it isn't going to be too stretched overall. </p>

<p>Just noticed this, I've actually got one of their tripods,a Frank model, which is a pretty good one for outdoor stuff with my D800, nice and stable and still fairly light weight too. As far as I know their tripods are British, whether that means designed here and made in the far east I'm not sure but they are not knock offs by any means, that is rather unkind to say the least!</p> <p>I saw someone with a 3 Legged Thing tripod about 1.5 years ago whilst taking a few pictures along the Caledonian Canal at Fort William. I liked the look of the tripod and the user was more than happy with it, very positive. I did some research online, looked into prices etc and then found one near mint example being sold on eBay, I won the auction and really liked the tripod, quite different in some respects to my previous Gitzo but so much lighter to carry around.</p> <p>Not all good though, took it out about 3 weeks ago to do some landscape photography in Glen Coe and towards the end of a bitterly cold day, one of the legs dropped straight out of its socket! I contacted them, posted it back, expecting to be getting a hefty repair bill! But surprise, surprise, they actually gave me a brand new tripod, which is I think the later mark 2 version. Customer service like that is pretty rare these days, I'm very happy and they actually have a sale on just now on their new tripods which I think come with a 5 year guarantee, so prices are not at all unreasonable for what is a pretty high quality product range. You can of course look on eBay and maybe pick up a bargain second hand example there but I'm happy to recommend this company without any reservations at any rate.</p>

<p>I've got about 4 different tripods just now, an old Benbo Trekker which is great for macro stuff plus three carbon fibre tripods from a tiny Velbon for a walk where I might just take a photograph and I can fit into my camera backpack, a medium sized Velbon Sherpa again easily carried under my arm for longer walks which is actually pretty good and my biggest tripod is a 3 Legged Thing "Frank" which really works well with my D800 and isn't all that heavy to carry around either, much lighter than my previous Gitzo carbon fibre. With careful technique and a decent ballhead I could put my D800 on any of these tripods with wide angle to around 100mm lenses and get pin sharp images, anything longer than that, you really need to make sure that your tripod is rock solid as the issues with image quality usually relate to longer lenses.</p> <p>You can brace lighter tripods with a bag on the centre column hook, just make sure the bag is touching the ground though. With my medium format Pentax 67II years ago I actually used to hang a small camera bag with a lens inside it from my 200mm lens barrel, that made the difference between utter mush and pin sharp images and that was with a very heavy tripod and substantial ball head too!</p> <p>As I mentioned recently in another post about Ultrawide lenses, 3 Legged Thing have really good customer service, replacing a faulty second hand tripod with a brand new one just last week for me. Plenty of other good options out there too but for a 70-200mm f2.8 lens I wouldn't be putting it on a tripod/ ballhead combination which is just rated enough to support it. Like others I have had loads of different tripods in the past and usually got rid of them after a year or so, some were just far too heavy like a big Unliloc (Benbo clone) and that carbon fibre Gitzo. A better ballhead and a bit of strategic ballast added to your hook might make that tripod work better for you.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies. I've thought about this long and hard and whilst I would have preferred something like a 16mm prime lens to add to what I already have, that isn't really an available option at this point in time. I would have loved the Zeiss 15mm but currently I am really doing this as a hobby, so that would be kind of extravagant!<br> So, I checked a few online dealers in the UK and checked out what stock they had new and used and found one company with a near mint Nikon 16-35mm lens in stock. I was a bit wary about this lens mainly due to the mixed online reviews, so I asked them to take a few pictures with the lens on a D800 (same as I have) at f8 and 16mm. Got the pictures this morning and I have to say for what were just a few images in their rear car park, it did look pretty good when I looked at it in Lightroom, good sharpness into the corners and into the middle of the frame. Way, way better than the faulty Samyang at any rate, so I agreed to buy that lens and I should have it by tomorrow.<br> It gives me a few more options as to what I can do with my photography but I am not intending to get rid of my Zeiss 21mm any time yet, the images from it are pretty special and I like my Nikon 28mm f1.8g too, definitely a keeper that one. Hopefully, I can get a chance to get out up to the Highlands again sometime in the next few weeks and get a chance to put it through its paces. <br> I got one other piece of good news today which I might post elsewhere on the site and that is that my 3 Legged Thing Frank Tripod is being replaced with a brand new mark 2 version which should also be with me tomorrow! I bought a mint mark I version of this tripod about a year ago via eBay from someone who worked for the makers and last time up in Glen Coe, 2 weeks ago, one of the legs fell off the tripod! Temperatures were minus ten that day and things were freezing up a bit, must have been a lot of moisture in the air, even my Arca Swiss ballhead was sticking. Anyway, full marks to 3 Legged Thing for standing by their products, even with secondhand items, not many companies would do that. They are based in the UK and produce a very interesting range of tripods which are mainly named after famous rock guitarists. For its size it is a very strong and stable tripod, they describe it as a studio tripod but it is very capable outdoors when it has all three legs that is!</p>

Strangely enough Amazon UK didn't even offer me another lens as they say they have suspended all sales of that lens by themselves due to another customer complaining that the lens sent to them was not as described, maybe they got lucky and bought a whole batch of decentred Samyang 14mm lenses! If I really wanted to, I would just save up for a Zeiss 15mm but kind of hope that Nikon or Sigma might bring out something in that kind of focal range. The Nikon 16-35mm would be ideal if it were definitely sharp, the Nikon 18-35mm would give me a good 18mm lens for a bit more than the cost of the Samyang 14mm and be a good lightweight lens for any walks, replacing my Zeiss 21mm and Nikon 28mm f1.8g. Nikon 14-24mm and Tamron 15-30mm have filter and weight issues but then again so does the Zeiss 15mm, no easy options with this kind of lens!

<p>I usually prefer to use prime lenses where I can and currently my widest lens is a Zeiss 21mm on my D800, which is a very good lens but sometimes a little bit wider would be good.</p> <p>I've read the reviews of the Samyang/ Rokinon 14mm lens which is usually reckoned to be a decent budget option even with the D800. I ordered this from Amazon brand new, finally got it early this morning and just had time just for a quick test with it this morning, down by the rather chilly River Clyde at dawn.</p> <p>I used my D800 on an Arca Swiss Z1 head, good carbon fibre tripod, camera on mirror lockup, remote electronic release, my usual setup really. Took a few pics with the Zeiss 21mm first and then the Samyang 14mm by way of a comparison, both lenses at F8. Both set at infinity pointing towards a bend in the river, with a group of trees away on the far side of the river, some trees roughly in the middle of the image behind the bend and a few to the righthandside. The Zeiss images were as usual pin sharp everywhere that matters, I didn't expect Zeiss quality from the Samyang lens but did expect reasonable sharpness in a fairly undemanding test. The Samyang 14mm images were pin sharp only in the very centre of the image area,, none of the corners (and beyond that) had any sharpness at all, even with minimal magnification everything was mush apart from the very centre of each image! This particular lens would barely work with a DX camera, have to assume that it has a major technical fault and I have already arranged to send it straight back to Amazon. I've heard of lens elements being decentred but never experienced anything like this before!</p> <p>Just wondering whether there are any other decent prime alternatives to this lens as I am a bit wary about getting another one after this experience. The ideal lens would be the Zeiss 15mm but that is kind of expensive for occasional usage! Older Nikon, Tamron and Sigma 14mm lenses don't seem to rate too highly on D800 type sensors either. That only seems to leave zoom options like the Nikon 14-24mm which is kind of large and heavy, or the new Tamron 15-30mm lens, again large and heavy and not available until mid February in the UK either, RRP here is £950. The Nikon 16-35mm always attracted mixed reviews and the Nikon 18-35mm is quite inexpensive but not that wide, just a pity that Nikon didn't have a new 15mm or 16mm g lens.</p>

<p>The other thing to bear in mind with Apple computers is that they will usually retain a lot more of their value even after 3 to 4 years of use, when compared to what seems like initially cheaper Windows based competitors. Horses for courses, if it works for you good enough. I've used Windows before and always hated it, OS X just works for me and simply, even work stuff is kind of fun, problems are rare and usually easily sorted.</p> <p>My newest iMac is just over 4 years old still running Snow Leopard and works flawlessly at my business. At home I've got a few older iMac's, one 27inch running Snow Leopard and an original iMac G4 still on OS X 10.1 working happily any time that I turn it on, which isn't that often. The newer OS X releases to date haven't added anything that I particularly need or want, only caveat to that is I see that for Lightroom 6 when it turns up will need I think OS X 10.8 (or maybe 10.7?) , that was mentioned on some Adobe blog about Lightroom for mobile phones. </p> <p>As others have said you should be able to transfer catologues and editing from your backup into Lightroom on a Mac.</p>

I don't think it is unusual to get some dust/ spots from any new Nikon full frame camera but these usually appear quite soon after you start to use it and may require a professional wet cleaning to get rid of them. My d800 got a very dirty sensor early on with oil spots, which I couldn't clean at all but after a clean by a nikon approved repairer, the camera stayed clean for a long, long time and has only had one other wet cleaning since then, usually a jet of air from a rocket blower does the trick these days. If what you are getting is just dust, most of it should come off even just using a blower but if you're getting oily spots on the sensor it will need wet cleaning, maybe worth taking it in to get it properly cleaned and checked if you can't get the sensor clean yourself.

<p>Nothing wrong with Andrew's plan either! If Aperture supports the camera/s that you are currently using, just keep on using it and you can then see if what Apple bring out next is of any use to you.</p>

<p>I used to use Aperture a lot, bought the first version which was a bit clunky and expensive but the last version was a lot better and the upgrade price was very little at the time. I bought Lightroom 4 a few years ago and it was a bit of a steep learning curve but once you get used to Lightroom it really is very good, it really can do virtually everything that you could wish to do to an image short of layers and suchlike and you can assign keywords to every image as you go along. I would assume that Lightroom 6 is due fairly soon, which is I hope going to be available as a stand alone and not monthly subscription. </p>

<p>I had a look at one of them earlier this year at an open day event in Calumet, Glasgow; it does seem to work very well, at least from the few minutes that I had playing it with it in store. It was being used with a Canon DSLR and everything worked really easily. For some kinds of photography I think this would be an asset.<br> Only thing is speaking personally, I don't do enough serious photography these days to justify carrying more around than I really need, just in case I could find a compelling use for it, as you would then have to carry something like an iPad with the Camranger and all your other camera gear too. Saying that, I think it would be very useful if you wanted to use your camera at low or awkward angles, which meant that you couldn't easily see through the viewfinder or with Live View. However, the flip down screen models like the D5300 and D750 would more than compensate for most of these awkward shooting situations. It would be nice if Nikon eventually put a D810 sensor into a D750 type body, high resolution sensor, good autofocus plus lower weight and a viewing screen that you could move around for macro shots. Maybe one day, until then I'll hang onto my D800!</p>

<p>Think it depends what you're doing with your computer whether you need to rush to change to each new version of OS X. I've still got one of the first iMac G4's in the house still with its original 10.1 software, still works any time I turn it on, which isn't that often these days but it does look good!<br> I've got three main much newer iMac computers two at home and one at work, all still running Snow Leopard, reason being that I did intend to buy an upgrade disc after a few OS X generations but then Apple switched to download only, which is impossible to use at work as my broadband is very slow there ( think kb often, not mb, thanks BT!) and no matter how often I tried, I could not get Maverick to download properly. And guess what, the computers continue to work well with Pages, Numbers and Lightroom. I know I could download it at home but as long as things work well, for me at least there is no compelling reason to update right now.<br> By all means update to Yosemite if it gives something that you really need, otherwise use what you have and enjoy it. Whatever you do, there is always going to be a newer and better version. Apple dropped the DVD/CD drive on their newer computers, allegedly to cut weight and slim the design down but it also gave them full control of all of their software sales as physical copies were no longer available from third party vendors. Personally speaking, I like having the built in DVD/CD drive, as I can easily add music to iTunes any time that I want from my old CD collection and not have to buy the same music from iTunes or have to plug in a separate disc drive to one of the new slimmer iMac's. Maybe a case to drop this on a laptop but not on desktop designs.</p>

From what i can see if you are looking at dedicated prime macro lenses, the current crop all seem pretty good, whether from Nikon, Sigma, Tamron or Tokina. A 24-70mm zoom lens of a different generation of lenses is somewhat more complex than any of these designs and not really a fair comparison. I've used Tamron and Sigma macro lenses of various focal lengths and found nothing to criticise either way. In fact currently I have 5 macro lenses, which is kind of overkill and all of them perform extremely well on my D800. The oldest one is a Tamron SP 90mm adaptall lens which was outstanding with my old Olympus OM 4ti and is still pin sharp on digital but only criticism is the out of focus highlights don't look great which is probably down to older lens coatings, I'm sure the newer version would be better in that regard. As for Sigma they seem to be on a roll just now, with excellent 35mm and 50mm lenses that Nikon would be happy to have made and more new lenses in the pipeline, not exactly a poorer option than buying Nikon!

<p>I have the Sigma 150mm OS lens and the older Sigma non OS 105mm lens. Personally, I prefer using the 150mm lens with my D800 because you can throw the background out of focus that bit more easily and get a bit more distance from your subject but it is a very large, heavy lens. Sharpness wise there isn't much to criticise with either lens and the Sigma 105mm is remarkably good on the D800, pin sharp up close and at infinity.</p> <p>If you like Sigma, the older non OS 105mm lens is plenty good enough if you don't need the VR technology or even the Sigma 70mm which is equivalent to 105mm full frame when used on DX and equally at home on DX and FX and of course I would be very surprised if the Nikon 105mm VR was any worse than the Sigma 105mm in either version.</p>

<p>I did have the MC-36A but it fell off, never to be seen again when I was carrying my camera a short distance on a tripod, avoiding a herd of frisky cows heading rapidly in my direction! it is fiddly to attach to a D800 at any rate, it connects but doesn't lock in place very well.<br> There are virtual clones of this available on eBay and Amazon for a fraction of the price, I bought one and for what I'm doing with it, it looks, works and feels exactly like the Nikon version.</p>

<p>The 105mm lens is very good, always had one of those when I had my Pentax 67II. I did try a Takumar 75mm lens and didn't really rate it too highly compared to the 45mm and 55mm lenses. The newer 75mm f2.8 lens seems to be much better optically than the older version.</p>

<p>Well I was talking about Nikon's own make of lenses used on full frame, don't know why anyone would think I would recommend anyone to use a DX lens on a D610! Yes, meant the relatively new Nikon 18-35mm full frame lens, I think it would be a good match for the D610 for a lightweight go anywhere outfit, it does seem to get good reviews. For landscapes I prefer prime lenses but for other uses zoom lenses could be a lot more flexible for street photography and other people type photography.</p>

Funny, looking at the other replies, the other prime lens I bought pre full frame was the 35mm f2, absolutely hated it too, maybe I was unlucky and bought 2 lemons but there is obviously a certain amount of sample variation and big issue with a D90 is that you can't fine tune a lens if you need to but that 24-85mm AFS lens was very good on that camera, images just seemed crisper, even more vibrant than the 2 older AF lenses and always sharp. The 28mm f2.8 and 35mm f2 were on the soft side which surprised me as I had expected them to be better than the zoom lens, many possible factors I guess, buy whatever works for you, don't worry about the new 28mm f1.8 lens being bigger than the f2.8 version, it is still a very light lens, just bulkier. Also I know it isn't a prime lens but have read quite a few good reviews on the new 18-35mm AFS lens, seems to be sharp and lightweight, strikes me that it would be a good walk around lens on a D610.

<p>Had the 28mm f2.8 AFD a few years ago when I bought it ahead of upgrading to full frame from a D90 but the lens was pretty bad even on the D90, picked up a 24-85mm AFS lens and it was streets ahead of the 28mm f2.8 and again on the D90 and it is pretty good on the D800 too. I've got the 28mm f1.8g now with a D800 and it is really very good, if you want prime lenses you would do better to spend a bit extra and get this lens first time around.</p>