johnmyers

how about the 85mm 1.8D?

 

as said by someone above me, no need to get the 28-105mm, since most of the range is already covered. maybe a prime 135mm would be a good investment.

the sb-50 dx is a cheap flash, and it will work fully with your n80 and it's D-flash metering capabilities. i have the sb80dx and it's been wonderful.

n80...better bang for the buck.

 

people, why do we say "in my opinion..." of course it's your opinion...you typed it! :)

save up an extra $100 and go for the Nikon N80...you won't regret it one single tiny bit. it functions VERY efficiently as a manual AND an auto-everything camera.

zach, about developing on your own...it is very cheap, depending on what you want to do. if you have a negative film/slide scanner and don't need to do your own darkroom printing right NOW, it is incredibly cheap. all you need is a light tight changing bag (~$20), a reel tank (jobo makes a good one at ~$20), chemicals (all really very cheap, depending of course...probably under $20 for them all, depending on how much you want), some containers to store them in (just sealed/air-tight plastic containers will do fine, as long as you use the chemicals up within a couple of months), some graduated cylinders (cheap plastic ones from b&hphotovideo.com work just fine), and a thermometer (Weston (sp?) makes a very fast and accurate one for around $20 or $30, i believe), a stopwatch, and a bottlecap opener to pull off the end of the film canister to get the film out (that's so you can load the film onto the reel tank, obviously), then you just need clips to hang the negs to dry, and sleeves to store the negs in once they are dry. i believe that is all. so basically, you can get it done for around $100, maybe more, maybe less. all dependant upon where you shop.

i just bought my first roll of ilford delta 3200 a few days ago and

i will be doing some night street photography w/o a tripod...so i

need as much speed as i can get. so i plan to use it at an iso of

3200, but i've heard the contrast is terrible at that speed...i will

be developing in d-76 (haven't been developing film for very long,

so i want to stick with what i am familiar with). so do any of you

have any suggestions for development dilutions/times for this

film/iso/developer combination? i would like medium to low contrast,

if possible. for reference, i consider my night tables shot in my

folder to be a medium contrast photograph, and that is what i would

like to achieve with delta 3200@3200. thanks in advance.<div></div>

i would definately first suggest using a dilution. if that doesn't help, then try some D-76 like al suggested.

 

on a side note to the previous poster...pan f+ scans VERY well for me too, but so does FP4+. in my portfolio, the night tables photo is a combination of Pan F+ and D-76, and the lamp/chair photo is a combination of FP4+ and D-76. both seem to scan very well, or well enough, that is. my scanner (minolta dimage scan dual II) has quite a hard time autofocusing with slides, however.

stuart gives some good advice here!

 

it really depends on your own patience and such, but i always use slow film. the fastest film i have used for night shots was ilford fp4...a 125 iso film. how long should the exposures be? just basically depends on how you're going to develop, but i usually expose for the mid-low tones. the good thing about night photography is that almost everything is usually already monotone, so it's fairly easy to pick out the middle and low tones. as for moonlight photography...i certainly would not try that for your first time...you could be really really frustrated to spend hours and hours on that roll of film, and then have nothing turn out. i'd say stick to street lighting for now, see how that goes, then go to some more difficult shots. also, i wouldn't worry about the batteries in modern cameras...i have found mine to last a very long time in my Nikon N80, and all i do is basically night photography. but DO keep spares with you. they can be bought for fairly cheap on www.bhphotovideo.com.

 

look at my [rather small] portfolio, i have one night shot in there using Ilford Pan F+, a 50 iso film. i exposed for the mid to lower tones of the backs of the center chairs and tables.

I have a perplexing problem -- all of my scans from slides are

really very soft, but the slides themselves are sharp as a tack (I

checked them thoroughly with a loupe and light table). My black and

white negative scans, however, are usually very sharp. So it's the

slides that aren't scanning well. I have it set to autofocus for

every scan before both the preview and the scan...and it still comes

out fuzzy. It is very disappointing, as I would love to post my

work, but the scans are just so horribly fuzzy to me. My scanner,

btw, is a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II...it certainly should do the

job fine and once in a while I'll get a good scan off a slide. If I

have to manually focus, it'll take forever! Any help or advice?

Thank you in advance.