mark liddell

<p>The general convention if that ideal lengths break down to:</p>

 

<p>50mm for full length<br>

85mm for 3/4<br>

105mm for head & shoulders<br>

135mm or longer for a headshot</p>

 

<p>Since 50mm is covered by my normal zoom already, I have the 85mm f/1.4 and 105mm f/2.8 macro. You can get away with a headshot with the 105mm and the macro functionality is useful to have for close focus distance as well as shooting details.</p>

 

<p>As far as 85mm is concerned, the f/1.4 vs f/1.8 is done to death on the nikon forums monthly but I bought the 1.4 since I find the 1.8 bokeh very ugly - not what I want for a portrait lens despite the price difference.</p>

 

<p>Some people just by the monster 70-200mm f/2.8 which covers all bases</p>

Wade: I was expecting the announcement of the 85mm f/1.4 AF-S the day after I bought the AFD, thankfully that was 2 years ago now!

They are spawn of the devil! If you can get a custom white balance reading you may be ok, do some testing.

For dust anything other than a brush or air will grind it against the glass - not good. You should be able to pick up something there if you are inventive.

 

For cleaning solution in a pinch I've heard vodka works ok ;) but in general I never use any kind of liquid.

Dynamic range, wide angle lenses and a decent viewfinder

Which lenses do you wish Nikon would make/update (be realistic, no 300mm f/1.4s)? I'll start:

 

24-105mm f/4 VR - a canon lens I'd love to have for nikon - very flexible

 

35-85 f/2.8 - most people won't go for this but since I don't shoot wider than 35mm I'd rather be able to gain a

short portrait length - 70mm is too short

 

85mm f/1.4 AF-S - we are long overdue for an update of this classic

 

70-200 f/4 VR - the 2.8 version is often too big and heavy to carry

 

35mm f/1.4 (not a DX version)

The 5Dmk2 is a totally different camera to the D700 despite being in the same price bracket: there is no "best out there" there is only "best for what you do".

 

If you need weather sealing, excellent AF performance, excellent high iso, ability to use all old manual focus lenses, use wireless flash with no other gear and can live with the gaps in Nikon's lens lineup, but don't need 20+ MP the D700 is the camera for you. It's a press/sports/wedding camera.

 

If you want 20+ MP and can live without the above then buy the 5Dmk2. It's a studio/landscape/portrait camera. I'd rather buy a sony 850 or 900 for this though ;)

I thought my stock D700 screen was good enough for manual focusing until I did some tests against the af with my 85mm f/1.4 wide open.... I have very very good eyesight too. The green dot rangefinder is not even close to accurate enough.

I have a katz eye screen in my D700 for manual focus and this is a must have for accurate manual focus with shallow dof. The spot meter issue is only relevant if you have slow long lenses.

I *think* I understand the look you are going for: something like this

 

The deep saturated orange sky is caused by underexposing the ambient light and the subject is lit with flash gelled with CTO (orange) gel. The flash isn't fill flash, the subject is lit mostly with flash (especially as they will be backlit by the sunset).

I would definitely use a flash and bounce it, just make sure you gel it to match any lighting inside.

£320 (SB900) vs £215 (SB800) here

It's mentioning that active D lighting does affect the RAW file from the camera if it is used.

To echo Scott's comments re: manual focusing, I also switched my screen for a spilt prism though I did ok with the stock screen as long as I wasn't shooting at f/1.4.

 

I would hold off purchasing unless you need the camera now - you are buying something 2 years old that will be imminently replaced and once it is the price will fall through the floor. I bought my D700 when it first came out and the price hasn't dropped much from the price I paid, I have had 2 years use out of it with minimal cost in depreciation so when it's replacement is announced I won't feel as bad taking the hit.

This is one reason I waited for full frame dslrs before switching from 35mm film. The D700 viewfinder is only slightly behind the one on my FM2.

 

You can't really generalise with MF and LF cameras since most of them have ground glass rather than viewfinders, With LF you need a cloth over your head to see the groundglass properly (a serious pain) but at 4x5" it's pretty nice :) I never had any problems even at almost night time with my RB67 using the popup magnifier and 90mm f/3.5 but there are brightscreen replacements for the glass. 645 cameras usually have a normal viewfinder and their lenses are often not that much slower than 35mm, 2.8, 3.5 are common. Viewfinder brightness is also not only dependant on the speed on the lens.

Is there any compelling feature on the D3 that the D700 doesn't have? It was twice the price when new and quite a premium to pay over the D700 for the extra FPS performance, 2 card slots and 100% viewfinder. I would hold out for the D700 replacement since it will be the next one to be updated.

 

The AFD versions of lenses focus very fast on the D3, D700, D300 etc, since it has a powerful af drive motor. The AFS versions of the lenses have the motor built in. You mention manual focus; one of the great things about the higher end nikons is that all the AI and AIS lenses work just as they did on the old manual bodies. There are loads of great lenses available for not much money if you shoot product, landscape, macro etc. and don't have to have af.

The power issue is noticable very quickly if you start using it for fill in bright daylight and especially for use off camera as a main light; try shooting full lengths shots with an umbrella in bright sun and you are very quickly wishing it had more to give. I've made a bracket so I can mount 2 SB800s side by side to get me an extra stop but this can only do so much. Large groups are also an issue. High iso is useless if the ambient light is horrible.

Why is off camera flash not an option?

 

External battery packs help the recycle time but are not going to stop you overheating your flash, check out distances and lighting level beforehand, if you able to shoot at low power your speedlight *might* be fine for the job but do some tests.

 

The professional thing to do would be to rent a proper strobe that can deal with this kind of situation rather than trying pushing the envelope with a speedlight that may or may not cope on a job entrusted to you.

The extra bit depth only really makes a difference if you are doing heavy editing in PS especially in b&w.

The SB900 has a better user interface but besides zooming to 200mm and being able to set the lighting spread to 'even' it doesn't do anything the 800 doesn't and it is much larger and more expensive. It does have a nice gel holder though.

 

I have 2 SB800s because they are £100 cheaper and take up less space in my bag. Don't go for anything other than the 800 or 900 - with speedlights you need all the power you can squeeze out of them.

In the dog pic it looks like most of the noise has just been covered up by darkening the dark areas thus hiding the noise.

Use a lens pen. Don't do anything else unless there is loads of dust on the sensor. People do more damage cleaning then leaving their lenses alone.

Amazing variety of gear choices here!

Make sure your popup flash is set to '--' in the commander menu, this way it will only fire the weak pre flashes to communicate. SG-3IR is not needed, just tape some overexposed slide film over it which does exactly the same job.

 

I have no problems with popup flash contaminating the shot.

<p>Camera:</p>

 

<p>Nikon D700<br>

2x SB800<br>

SD-8A<br>

105mm f/2.8 afd<br>

85mm f/1.4 afd<br>

35-70mm f/2.8</p>

 

<p>No need to carry the gitzo 1325 today </p>

 

<p>Lighting:</p>

 

<p>Westcott Umbrella (43")<br>

Westcott Apollo 24" softbox<br>

Manfrotto 1052BAC light stand<br>

Manfrotto nano light stand<br>

Tent pegs (work like a dream in the wind)</p>