larry n.

<p>Peter: you are absolutely right on with the comment about Lightoom and workflow. Having two slots will make it easier: use one card for photos and import with lightroom; a second card for video and import with Nikon Transfer. I am too cheap to buy a second card though!</p>

<p>Does anyone find these Interfit Strobies useful for social photography?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/621564-REG/Interfit_STR101_STR101_Strobies_EFX_Kit.html">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/621564-REG/Interfit_STR101_STR101_Strobies_EFX_Kit.html</a></p>

<p>Thanks Richard. <br>

What I am looking for (like many others) is a reasonably priced handholdable wild life lens. So I like it to be rugged and well-built, light, fast focussing and image stabilized. What I would love is a 400/4.5 or 500/6.3 with good (doesn't have to be stellar) optics for a reasonable price that's image stabilized and has AFS/HSM. Such a thing doesn't exist yet. So the Sigmas are tempting but I am more focused on their performance at the long end rather than the short end (and frankly I would have preferred fixed focal lengths).<br>

My main problem with the Nikon 80-400 VR is price, and secondarily lack of AFS. My main problem with the 300/4 is price and secondarily lack of VR. My main concerns with the Sigmas are their weight and uncertain performance (lots of sample variability, perhaps?). I already have a manual focus Nikon 400/3.5, which I might end up sticking with. <br>

Btw, I should have mentioned the camera I shoot with: D300.</p>

<p>What do people think of the Sigma 120-400mmf/4.5-5.6 AF APO DG OS as an alternative to the Nikon 80-400 and Nikon 300/4?</p>

<p>It was difficult for me to go back to the camera without the grip, because the grip really feels nice both in horizontal and vertical orientations. The camera felt ridiculously small without it. But being able to reach the multiselector was more important to me. I'm always changing focus points when I shoot people.</p>

<p>For those who use the MB-D80 grip with the D80/D90, do you use the secondary shutter release when taking vertical pictures, and if so how do you operate the Multi-Selector (assuming your right thumb, like mine, does not naturally reach that far).</p>

<p>One important consideration that I don't think anyone has covered above: if you have any manual focus lenses you will want the Sb800 over the Sb600. The sb600 lacks an auto setting, which is (almost) a life-saver when you are using manual focus lenses (in case you did not know, TTL is not available with those lenses on a D80).</p>

<p>Where do you travel? Museums, cities, monuments, outdoors, sports, rodeos, nightclubs clubs? <br>

Museums: useful, but the museums I'd want to use it in (Italy) don't allow photography.<br>

City streets: I don't find it useful here. wideangle and normal lenses preferable.<br>

Monuments: Useful.<br>

Outdoors/light-duty wildlife: Useful here.<br>

and so on.</p>

<p>Is the print quality far below the Epson R2880? I am not concerned about longevity of the prints, just colors.</p>

<p>Whoever said that Lightroom 2 is merely a global editing tool is not entirely correct. The new adjustments brush in LR2 is a local editing tool. Personally, I use LR2 99% of the time although I have both LR2 and photoshop. Photoshop's picture package printing tool can do some things that LR2 cannot do (eg, print different photos in different sizes on the same page). If I were on a budget, I would buy LR2 first, and then Photoshop (doesn't have to be the current version, if you can find CS2 cheap, go for it. CS2 was a major upgrade from CS; CS3 and CS4 were not).</p>

What do you think of ShadowProtect Desktop? It got a good review from PCMag.com. It seems to have all the features you'd want, but is pricey.

 

I admit, my stragety thus far has been simply to reinstall Windows XP on a fresh hard disk every year or so.

This is the link you want. The other link just referred to this one:

 

http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/2006/12/64_bitswhen.html

Memory bandwith may be more of a bottleneck that raw CPU speed (no matter the number of cores). Read this blog from a Photoshop engineer:

 

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/12/is_photoshop_cs.html

 

This may give an edge to Nehalem when paired with triple channel DDR3 RAM.

 

Btw, I think Vista 64 is the way to go. I have it installed on a 2.66 Ghz quad core with 8GB and it runs like a dream. For legacy programs, you can easily install a Windows XP virtual machine.

Sounds like not a lot of fun. There must be a free program that can clone a drive.

I am not sure I understand. Why keep the machine off the net? Fear of viruses and spyware?

Garrison,

 

Garrison,

 

Your idea about using a KVM switch in order to prolong the life of the old XP machine is a great one! But being "thrifty" I used a home-grown approach. My LCD monitor has multiple inputs, including DVI and VGA. So I hooked up one computer to the DVI input and the other computer to the VGA input. Now all I have to do is press a button on the screen to move from one to the other (too bad PIP doesn't work for this). As for the mouse and keyboard, said monitor also has 4 USB ports. So I hooked up the keyboard and monitor (as well as a printer and scanner) to the monitor. So switching those devices only involves unplugging one cable. Works for me!

Walter, let's hope they are actually working hard on updating the software but not communicating it to their

marketing department. If not, that is a travesty. I don't know who would want to use Vista 64 in order to have

access to more than 3GB, if not professional photographers.

 

Btw, the NEF codec also does not work under Vista 64. (Well, it sort of works if you open 32bit version of Photo

Gallery, but other parts of the system don't see the thumbnail previews unless you use that version of Photo Gallery

to import the files...not something I'm keen on doing.)

 

Nikon Transfer does work, but I feel a little queasy using an "unsupported" program for arguably the most sensitive

and error-prone part of the workflow, so I've switched to importing photos with Light Room 2. LR2 does not import

video files, however.

 

In order to use the Vuescan driver, do you actually have to buy the program? I am buy it anyway in order to have a

single platform for all my scanners, but was wondering nonetheless.

I wonder how they manage to cram the optional ATI Radeon 4850 in there, given that ATI says that card requires a 450 Watt power supply. The Dell Studio XP only has 360 watt.

 

Btw, you mentioned that The fastest 7200 rpm drives on the market at the moment are the new Western Digital 640’s. What makes them faster than the other WD (say the 500 or the 750)?

Thanks Garrison. That's an interesting development. I'll look into it.

Thank you Garrison. You've provided a wealth of information and resources. As it turns, I'd already ordered the Dell. I'm not really a speed a demon; my old 5-year Pentium 4 machine with 1.25 GB was only a tad slow, surprisingly, so I would think the Q9400 should be at least a little faster :) With the money saved vs. higher end stuff, I can buy more Nikon gear and Adobe software.

 

I would like to add a video card and more hard drives, so the information you provided above will be a great help. I am still leaning towards the Radeon 4550 for its IQ vs. nVidia (from what I've read), its fanless design (from some board makers), and its ability to work with small power supply (350 watt). It does have OpenGL 2 and DirectX 10, I believe. But it's not a rush at this point. If I find out it's not adequate for Premiere (Pro or Elements), I will look elsewhere.

Garrison--how much money are we talking about here for a complete system (including power supply, case, operating system, a modicum of support)? The above-mentioned Dell is 750 + 50 for the extra RAM from Crucial. Could have saved 150 by going with the older Q6600. I can't afford to wait for Nehalem because I have work to be done now. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to research and put together a system from scratch, and I'm sure there's something I won't be happy with. For example, some of the machines my friends put together crash all of the time and sound like airport runways. I hate the fact that the Dell maxes out at 8GB, but will that be a real hindrance in the next four years? I don't know, but I'd rather save $600 (or more) now and worry about that later.

Thanks. Here are my thoughts/questions:

 

(1) on RAM, my main concern is the 8GB limit. Will that be sufficient 4 years from now? Given how ridiculously cheap DDR2 is, it's too bad motherboards that support more than 8GB have not become mainstream.

 

(2) on Nehalem, I'm sure it'll be fantastic, but the motherboards are expensive and it will be a while before it makes into the mainstream (longer than I can wait).

 

(3) I will upgrade the video card once I do more research. Right now I'm looking at the Radeon HD 4550. It's inexpensive, available in fanless low-power versions, and great at playing video. (The power supply is 350 watt, so no crazy video cards are possible.) The 3D capabilities are not great on the Radeon 4550 for gaming. Will that be a hindrance for Premiere Elements and Premiere Pro? It does support Direct X 10 and OpenGL 2.

 

(4) I will eventually add hard drives as my photo and video archive grows. I always buy them in pairs: one internal and one same-size external for backups. Should I be concerned about the ability of the built-in SATA controller to handle 1 blu-ray drive and 3 hard drives?

 

(5) Maybe I am wrong, but I always assumed overclocking is for the adventurous. In any event this system is a Dell so I assume it is not overclockable (you need to have a lot of control over the motherboards).

If Vuescan does the job, why go through all the trouble of installing Nikon Scan?

Dave, 64-bit drivers are needed because (I've heard) that the current drivers don't work AT ALL with Vista 64.

 

Aaron, Have you used VueScan in Vista 64?

Has Nikon released any 64-bit versions of Nikon Transfer, Nikon View, Nikon Scan (including drivers for the

scanners), or we supposed to use the 32-bit versions of the software and drivers on Vista 64?