wilfred_wong

AF-S is not a problem to FM. But G lens are... you can only use its min aperature. Many AF-S lens are G lens now.

90 or 105 micro is not convinent to use esp in indoor.

how many baby feet shots you'r planning to take? if i want to take baby feet shots, i'd prefer a wider lens (i prefer to have some background to show where i took the shot.)

 

When you baby is running around in your house... a 17-55 will be more useful as it's a zoom and focus faster.

 

when your kid is running outside your house sometime later, you'll want a AFS 70-200 :D

 

btw, the Tamron 90, esp the earlier non-Di version, is cheap. if you can afford the 17-55, the tamron shouldn't be a problem!

Thanks for the info.

 

and how about AF speed?

 

i use 70-300 ED as lightweight tele lens as 70-200 vr is often too big... but i'm getting spoiled by AFS lens.. AF on 70-300 is quite slow. How does 55-200 AF (speed and noise) compare to others?

mine is a REALY early purchse... first batch in asia.

 

They fixed under warranty, when it was about to expire..... free of charge of course.

 

not just that.... i found i might 've focus issue 2 months after they fixed it (warranty expired already)... and my LCD was staring to fail... frame count can't display properly. I send my camera back, with the invoice of the repair (which was under warranty). They checked the focus for me, and REPLACED the LCD panel for FREE!

 

i don't trust my D70 as much as the D100 anymore, but at least i'm happy with the customer service.

Ilkka ...if dust in your camera can move.... you can simply blow them away, right?

 

I've never performed any sensor cleaning with D70 since march 2004. I just 've blow the sensor for a few times. D70 isn't as attractive to dust as D100, dust love D100 more than D70. I'm not living in a desert but in a rather dusty city...lots of sand in the air too.

 

I change lens quite frequently yet dust is never a big problem with my D70. When i change lens in the field, i always 've the 2nd lens ready... losen the rear cap, unmount the lens with the body faced down and quickly mount the 2nd lens.

 

i actually can't understand why those sensor cleaning kit sell so well.

"i'll be shooting people in a low ambient-light setting with a d70 and a sb-600 on camera. I, of course, want to get the perfect ambient/flash ratio "

 

try using higher ISO

use slow(or rear) flash sync

set the SB-600 to TTL-BL

use large aperature

 

you can try to lower the flash power too (i usualy set it to -0.7)

 

you can try manual mode too (i use quite a lot of M mode if i use flash)

Well, how about getting a D2H instead so you can cross out number 2 (but probably also 7)?

I don't know why many people wants very powerful flash. I've a SB800 too but i don't think i've really used it over it's 1/2 power. I usually worry about the flash being too powerfu... even i use flash i still want avilable light to make the picture look natural.

 

i use the build-in flash a lot, although external flash gives better result but i'm not willing to take it everytime i carry my camera. a less than perfect flash is better than no flash. for fill, the little internal flash is helpful.

If Coolwalker is selling at $499, i think many (if not most) people would go for the epson. Everyone 've quite positive review on the epson.....Larger screen, larger HDD, good battery life, view RAW from different brands, more features (might be just fancy but i use "digital wallet" usually only dring trips so those fancy features are fun to use when i'm not having trips)

 

the epson is quite attractive....I don't 've one, i'm considering one, but people said it just accept 8.3 filename. since i use rather long file name for my pictures "yyyymmdd_"+ name from camera so i'm a bit worry about this.

Yes but not too useful to me. No optical quality issue, but i think the min. focusing distance is still not good for "close-up" shoots. i don't think 85 1.4 /w 500 D is a very useful macro lens.

I use USB card reader too but the D70 USB port is useful for NC4 camera control and to upload custom curve.

 

I don't 've this problem with D70 but with a portable HDD... it works well with only 1 USB cable and usually failed with others (disconnect very soon then stop working)... it was due to poor contact and i used a screw driver to push the contacts in the HDD towards those in the usb cable. It works flawlessly since then.

most people say DR on digital is the same as slide film.... but i really don't think so. looking at my velvia and k64 slide, i think they 've better DR than my D70 or D100, and even 've blowed hightlight, they look much better than on digital.

 

I frequently branket shoots but this cause a lot of problem. handheld shots ain't suitable and it won't work with anything that can move. Also, branketing means double or triple storage required for a pictures and required a lot more time in post processing.

 

DR in print film is good, but not easy to get most of it.

 

sometimes i found it's difficult to keep the sky blue instead of white

 

i sometimes under-expose my pix to keep brigher area and pump the exposure up in post processing. that, however, result more noise.

 

about GND filters.... to my experience, if the composition suits using GND filters, they look better than stacking multiple exposure. not sure if the GND filters enhanced the color (i use singh ray)

get the latest update the camera raw from adobe.

 

if you prefer the result from capture than camera raw, you can't skip the step. I like the result from capture so... i can't avoid that step.

 

the camera RAW from CS2 seems better than that from CS to my eyes. but i havn't direct compare CS2 with NC4 yet.

when used on a slower body like D70/D100, sometimes it really take seconds to "settle".

sometimes it's much faster..

 

use on a pro body should be much better

the nikon 12-24 , without any filter, 16mm is usable. add a filter and 18mm and up is fine. the 18-24mm range is what the 12-24 DX performance at best.

 

I tried a sigma 12-24 on a 10D. Not very impressed, esp it's big, hate it's front element, and flare easily.

 

i've tried the tokina on a D100 and D2H in a shop. it seems very nice, but havn't donw any direct comparison with my nikkor. Don't know how it perform at higher resolution. The tokina is bigger, heavier than the nikkor but the tokina don't 've AFS(the tokina focus very fast, just with more noise and 've no manual override).

 

personally, i'd prefer 12-24 to 11-18. because i don't need that wide and 12 is usually wider than i need.(don't like too much prespective distortion)

how about.... remove the lens, set it the M mode and the shutter speed of a few seconds. you should be able to see the mirror is up and the shutter open.

i think Voigt 've a SLR camera now.

 

if i want to use Voigt lens, i'd get a bessa. SLR with no viewfinder but rangerfinder? why not use a rangefinder camera? they'r smaller, and the lens are cheaper (Voigt lens in F mount are more expensive).

bessa body are cheap.. i'd get one instead of getting a nikon and modify it. you get metering as well.

 

if you really want to use Nikon...why not get a F2? I think it has MLU. maybe i can check it out tonight...

how about this?

http://drchung.new21.net/previewextractor/

 

it gives highly compressed, full resolution jpg from the RAW preview. files size is small and should be ok for email. it should be the fastest way to get low quality jpg from NEF files.

Ikkla, if you post it 2 months earlier then you'd 've saved me $1700.

 

anyway, as a former 80-200 (pull push) user,i'm very happy with mine. havn't use it on film body so i don't know how bad its corner performance is.

 

how about center sharpness?

 

seriously, the VR give me more "practical sharpness" and yeild more keepr having better focus speed. I usually don't use tripod unless at night. so..i won't feel unhappy (i think) after reading your test.

 

btw, the 180 seems amazing!

"when will the price start dropping?"

that's my first question :)

 

my next question is, how low the price can be?

 

and..

when will we have a D2X's little brother? ("digital-F100" again :D )

i guess the best bokeh in 35 - 60mm range is the 58 1.2

 

i personally prefer the 50 1.4 (i've AI only) to the 50 1.8 ('ve AI and AF). maybe that's something to do with the 9 blade aperature?

 

85 1.4 and 70-200 VR give me the best bokeh among my lens. but both longer than 60. i'm very happy with the 60micro's bokeh too.

 

how about comparing a 2.8 zoom, say, 17-55 or 28-70, to the 45mm ? seems some new nikon zoom 've quite good bokeh.

Walter, are you refering to Vuescan? I've one and agree that it's a good software. No photoshop needed so it can do its job in the background.

 

i think 1200 dpi is a bit too low for scanning film. I 've only done this when i was using a filmscan that goes only 1200 dpi at max. i seldom scan lower than 3000 dpi. When i want smaller file, like the previous members said, scan at max resolution and resize later. using 4000dpi to scan and downsize to 1200dpi is better than scanning at 1200dpi.

 

from your photo you attached, looks like that the scanner is underexposed. yes, you can brighten up it with photoshop but it bump up scanner noise as well and give bad color. Try to adjust the exposre in the scanning software. there should be an option to adjust the exposure (not adjust brightness)

most of their coolpix camera is really ugly...

 

look at the current coolpix lineup(not those "prosumer" class).... they really don't 've a "target" group in mind when design. in their ads, they really don't 've mention what's unique in their cam. panasonic market their anti-shake lens, canon state they use "digi" clips (although i don't understand why this works), some says smallest size, some says fast startup, strong battery life (like Casio), good movie ability etc... Nikon? they just never state why people should choose their coolpix(their their marketing do think their coolpix is that unattractive??). looking at the ads, people just can't find reasons to buy nikon.

 

by the way....many girls, at least here in asia, want pocket size cameras. They don't care about handling, battery life(they realize only after purchase, right?), speed (they got frustrated only after they missed shots in real world shooting), quality (judge by LCD screen when shopping)...... they want a big screen(i found many of them keep pictures in the card and use the camera as album) , small size, stylish looking, colorful (the camera itself, not photos they produce :D ) and they're happy with good looking pictures on the LCD screen and 4x6 prints.... well, this market is eaten by Canon IXUS, Casio, Pentax, Sony, Panasonic (my girlfriend 've a FX-7).... maybe the coolpix S1, which is not yet avilable, can 've better sales...

"Actually, the mission of the D70 is to sell Nikon users into digital, and the purpose of the infamous viewfinder and Multi-CAM 900 are to sell the D2X in great numbers to these D70 users. :-)"

 

That's exactly what i think... but i hope i'm not going to fall to their evil plan. I still want something between D70 and D2X....ie, a digital F100-like camera. thinking how many i times i've used a F4S compare to F90X and other cheap SLRs, i really don't want a cam that force me to 've the vertical grip.

 

i think i won't get the 55-200. just wish they'll release something like 50-200 or 50-150 f4 VR.

interface seems strange to me...

i think most people prefer to 've a preview of pictures.

yes.. the "gallery" way works better for me.