m_tt_donuts

<p>I would start with a local camera club. The members I find are always typically happy to share and critique, and around here it's not like thousands of members but more like 20-30 members. It's pretty common fare that camera clubs run contests monthly.</p>

<p>I know what you mean, my sister works for Fidelity and they have a photo contest periodically. I've helped her pick out her best, and she has no hope of winning since the photo contest is global there's typically 8000+ photo entries. She's asked a few winners what they use and their equipment blows me away and then they spend a whole lot of time photoshopping their pictures for the edge. It's a brutal competition for her to try being a beginner, she's sending in pictures she took with her $200 point & shoot Casio without editing (nor can even shoot in Raw). I told her the same advice.</p>

<p>I agree with everyone, you have all you need in lenses to get a great shot. </p>

<p>I just hope you have a decent flash. That's going to make or break a picture more than anything else. There's a million+ ways to take their picture, when you settle on one there's now a million+ ways to use the flash. </p>

<p>You can get excellent results bouncing the flash, and I would practice on how to do it if you're not familiar already. For babies I personally like to set my camera to 800 iso, the higher the ISO the more background will come in with flash (100 iso the background will typically be almost pitch black) and have the flash bounce come in from the side or behind. I know all the instruction booklets say to bounce the flash at a near 45 degree angle in front of you and your subject, I actually find aiming it 45 degrees BEHIND me and my subject produces much better results in most cases. So does having it come from the side. If the baby is looking sideways typically you want to make sure when the flash bounces that it comes back in a way to light up the babies face (vs. the back of their head if aimed incorrectly). Make sure you get close shots of the fingers, feet, with shallow DOF. </p>

<p>There's a plugin from AlienSkin called "Exposure" where you can select different films. Kodachrome is one of them (I don't know if 4x5 Kodachrome was the same as 35mm). They did all the testing, you can download a fully functional 30 day trial of Exposure. <br>

I ended up buying it after the trial expired, I found myself spending so much time seeing what more contrast will do, less contrast, adding this color, that colors, it was my answer I was able to just click Next through 100 different films until I found the one I liked. </p>

<p>I'm confident the megapixel war is over, the new war is dynamic range.</p>

<p>For example, are you aware it takes 4x the MP to double the quality? If you have a 12MP camera, a 48MP camera will have only twice the quality. Then, there's crop factors and resolution, after around 12MP on a crop factor anything more is useless. I saw a test comparing the 18MP Rebel to some other brand 12MP equivalent, and the other brand was slightly sharper with more detail. How is that possible? The end result was since the 18MP Ti was a 1.6x crop factor camera vs the 1.5x the image quality sacrifices made to the Rebel for more MP combined with the bigger crop factor causing lenses used on it to have less ability to resolve put it behind in the sharpness/detail. So, if you wanted a sharper camera you were better with the 12MP other brand than the 18MP Rebel. Combined with, more MP means more susceptability to hand shake (so does more crop factor), more noise, less ability in lower light so 18MP 1.6x vs. 12MP 1.5x actually helped you get blurrier images in real use and whose pictures took up more hard drive space.</p>

<p>Dynamic range though, seems to be the new battle. Being able to get 2-3 more stops of data in the highlights and shadows over the competitor is far more useful over more MP as the MP war is over. More and more are beginning to learn and understand RAW images and how to get detail out of shadows & highlights and that the dynamic range of the camera is more useful than cramming more MP. I'd personally take dynamic range over MP :) There are still so many others as mentioned that think MP is all that matters, and I REALLY like the poster who mentioned the CPU of the computer as an example... and now people are realizing it's the graphics card more than the CPU. More & more, I'm seeing people answer that MP at this point doesn't matter and sometimes saying more MP comes at a cost to image quality when used in real life, which is nice to see.</p>

<p>I would like to know what you're taking pictures of... are you taking pictures of newspapers hung on telephone poles down the street, MTF charts, and church steeples? Those don't typically win photo contests :) None of the ones mentioned will likely perform any better if you're hand holding them. I have this vision in my mind of someone setting this all up on a tripod and taking a picture of a newspaper down the street... finding there's a slight improvement and then walking around taking pictures hand-held...</p>

<p>I would get the D7000 in a heartbeat if you can afford it there are so many things about the D200 which I find incredibly annoying. D200 has no Live View, I find myself taking many shots down very low (but the ground is dew or mud) and hoping for the best. Rinse and repeat until I get something close, wishing I had live view. I hate the fact the D200 doesn't have focus adjustment, my F1.4 50mm focuses about 1/2" behind what I focus on and it has ruined so many excellent pictures... as I take a close-up of a toad and find the eyes that I focused on are out of focus but oh the middle of his back is nice and sharp! I have to focus, backup 1/2" and hope for the best and at F1.4 even 1/8" makes a lot of difference. Rinse and repeat. No dust cleaning. And most annoying, I don't know if your D200 has it but mine has the issue it randomly sets off my flashes (both the SB600 and SB800). Sometimes it'll trigger them 5+ times in quick succession without me wanting it to causing people to say what the (@#&(#! I took pictures at a christening, and didn't use my flash for fear right in the middle my flashes would start triggering as if possessed and startle the baby or upset the priest. So, I ended up taking pictures at 1600 ISO which to me 800 ISO is about as good as I can get from a D200 and still be happy... 1600 is beyond the D200's ability and many came out blurry from movement, or noisy and me processing the pictures to remove noise just wishing I had a different camera.</p>

<p>I've already saved up and ready for the new full frame D700 replacement whenever Nikon releases it... the earthquake in Japan slowed that down. In the meantime I can't wait to be done with the D200 and move on. My $0.02, D7000 takes care of ALL the issues of the D200 and takes movies. I certainly would be very happy with a D7000 and be done with the D200 :) </p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>Only if you want to make bad decisions based on worse data. DxO's tests are worthless. They actually rank MFDB's lower than FF DSLRs and even some crop DSLRs. They're a joke.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Since DxO labs is a testing facility I think they have more say than us who have really nothing but our own opinions to go on :) I don't think you read their warning when including medium format and MFDB's, there's a yellow exclamation point next to them clicking says:</p>

 

 

<blockquote>

<p><em>Professional portrait and landscape photographers often use medium-format cameras because of their superb performance under controlled lighting conditions. However, as these cameras are definitely not designed for so-called “action photography” scenarios, they generally do not perform well with respect to DxO Labs’ Low-Light ISO metric. Because of this inherent low-light limitation, medium-format cameras do not receive top marks on the DxOMark Sensor Overall Score, even though they may show outstanding performance with respect to Color Depth or Dynamic Range.</em></p>

</blockquote>

 

 

<p>So there ya have it. Their highest rated sensor IS a medium format :) It does seem FF have advantages over Crop Factors. Like the 7D released in 2009 compared to the 1DS full frame released 8 years ago. The 1DS still rates better in ISO performance, it has huge pixel pitch. </p>

<p>I possibly found the reason behind the emphasis on Dynamic Range. Seems the MP battle is over and dynamic range is the new battle so maybe that's why they seem to put emphasis on DR. People can post process noise out of the photo or blow up the image with special programs that do a great job making high ISO performance and MP less of an issue. But if you think about dynamic range, it's one thing that can't be added or post processed. If you want more detail out of blown highlights or dropped shadows the more dynamic range your camera captured the more ability you will have to do it, and that's a feature of the camera. Maybe that's why they seem to emphasize DR. </p>

<p>1st, you do realize you're asking this on a Canon forum right? If you want to compare camera sensors, go to <a href="http://www.dxomark.com">www.dxomark.com</a> then click sensors and compare sensors. Pick the D7000, 7D and 5D. For all around performance the D7000 wins, for ISO performance the 5D wins with 1400 vs. 1200 so there is a slight edge with ISO on the 5D, the 7D just gets beat. I don't know how they weigh things, the D7000 even beats the 5DMarkII for all around performance which I have a hard time believing. They put too much emphasis on dynamic range and not enough on ISO IMHO. I find Canon lenses to be a little cheaper, but usually within $50 USD. I find Nikon cameras usually cheaper for what you get so perhaps its a wash. </p>

<p>I'm going to say if your choice is to go with a 5D or switch to the D7000 your comparison isn't really fair. The 5D is 5 years old, doesn't have live view, no lens adjustment, no video, its autofocus system is prehistoric, metering is generations behind, no built-in flash, no built-in commander, no built-in time lapse, D7000 has a better WB system, color 3D metering, color tracking, more fps... The 5D does have a slight edge to ISO performance and a full frame camera gives you a little over a stop for DOF but without lens adjustment the DOF advantage may not be an advantage at all especially up close. When I shoot at F1.4-F2.2 (my camera doesn't have lens adjustment) what I focus on, and what's in focus in my picture are 2 different things. It's normal for lenses to be slightly off depending on what camera they're attached. What happens with me with my F1.4 is I focus on someone's eyes and in the picture the focus is 16mm - 20mm behind leaving their eyes blurry. It drives me crazy, forcing me to shoot at smaller apertures. I won't get any camera that doesn't have lens adjustment (which saves your setting for each lens) or live view after having one without (I also frequently get into situations I try to take pictures I simply can not fit or get to the viewfinder so live view is important). MP doesn't matter, you have to quadruple them to double the resolution so... if the D7000 was 51.2MP it would be 2x better than the 5D to MP is moot. </p>

<p>My vote, don't get a 5D... don't get a camera without lens adjustment, live view, and I no longer will get a camera that doesn't have a built-in flash that doesn't act as commander. You can compare the 7D to the D7000, as it stands the D7000 has the edge. Leaving the lenses and flashes to consider... think about what you want to do. Nikon has a better flash system, look over the lenses to see if you like Canons better. I'm not going to say switching to the D7000 is a bad idea, it's probably the best camera going right now but in 3-6 years you'll probably be replacing it... that's why I recommend basing your decision on lenses and flashes which will stay for the long haul. </p>

<p>My vote is easily digital, for many reasons. Taking the picture can be half the battle, the digital darkroom is the other half. With color film/slides what you shoot is what you get unless you scan it in as mentioned but at that point you're already behind in quality compared with digital. Then we get into the ISO and WB... if you have 100 ISO film in your film camera and go into a dark room and start shooting indoors it's not like digital where one can crank the ISO to 800 or 1600. Or have 800 ISO film and then go outdoors and start shooting landscapes in bright sunlight. Digital has less noise than film at high ISO anyway. Then WB can easily be set with digital, go from outdoors in sunlight, move to shade, go inside to flourescent light, and move to incandescent you're fine with digital. Film you need filters, or have to scan it in to correct it later. Digital it's easy to take 10 pictures of the same thing and pick the best whereas one is far less inclined with film... and digital you know you got the shot. You know if it's blurry, if someone wasn't looking, blinked, or aperture was too fast, or should recompose because a trashcan or telephone pole wires ended up in the picture.</p>

<p>With film what I liked was, after taking the shot I was pretty much done. With digital I can spend hours & hours editing photos afterward. When it comes to looking at photos, I don't think anything can compare to looking at slides. I have a special loupe that lets me insert a slide to view it and I can point it to the sun for some serious bright detail. To me there's so much depth and detail doing that, I can't say digital on screen is even close. But, according to your rules of giving it to someone who knows what they're doing I think they would do very well with both, but digital would have the edge since the picture is only half the battle, the digital darkroom is the other half and in that aspect is better with digital then scanning in film.</p>

<p>Hi Shun, I got mine in 1999 and was there in 1999-2000. I had metering problems when I attempted to use 1.2v rechargeable AA batteries in it. But that was well known rechargeable AA batteries didn't have enough power for the F5 matrix meter to function correctly. Once I switched to MN-30 batteries the meter was spot on. The only other issue was cheap polarizers, the ones that lost around 2-stops they tricked the meter into thinking white was gray. My polarizer was Singh-Ray (which I think was 1 1/3 stop) which didn't trick the meter so my whites came out white. I dug out my Antarctic slides, I miss the meter of the F5 so much compared to my D200.</p>

<p>Wow Daniel, your post is probably one of the best posts I've read this year. I think them important. I would also add, make it easy for people to remember you and make a DVD or CD for people to take home with them. That puts you way ahead of those who don't.</p>

<p>Typically it's just the wife & mother that goes to them. The wife brings home what she's collected and a few days later or a week later her mother, husband to be, and her start going through it. They won't remember your display a week later, or who you were but usually will scribble on your pamphlet (after walking away) some notes about you or if shey liked you or not. After my wife went she came home with booklets from about 10 photographers, scribbles on each pamphlet, and 3 had picture DVDs in their pamphlet. DVDs were winners. We popped those in and looked at the pictures, the mother, my wife, and I on our big TV and pretty much knew who we wanted from there next up was the one that included samples but no DVD was considered, and the one she scribbled on the pamphlet she liked. So, in the end after coming home with 10 pamphlets, all of the ones with a DVD were 1st place, the one she scribbled she liked, and the one with samples were considered. The ones who just had a pamphlet were at a disadvantage.</p>

<p>One thing I'll mention, the person who included the 6 sample pictures had the right idea but totally wrong topic. The samples they gave us one was building, another was a person skiing, another was a lake scene, another was cranberries, another was a dragonfly, none of her samples were anything to do with a wedding! Originally she was considered but we just thought she wasn't with the program. How could she think giving someone a sample picture of an office building, or a dragonfly equates to wanting them as a wedding photographer. If you want to include samples in your pamphlet, just make sure the samples have something to do with weddings okay, and trust me having a sample picture DVD is well worth it :)<br>

<br />Nice amendment to #4 I like it!</p>

<p>In reference to the 3D color matrix metering, the F5's meter I would say is the best meter Nikon has ever produced. Wish I could say that about their newer renditions. My favorite scenes being snow and me shooting slides (and photographing Antarctica) I didn't want to be messing with compensation, dials, and knobs with thick mittens or frozen fingers so the F5 made sense since it was the only camera that had a chance of nailing tough exposure scenes like snow and black lava. For 8 years, in extremely difficult exposure situations and Antarctica the F5 always nailed it perfectly (maybe 1 picture out of 40 rolls was underexposed by many stops but I think more than likely the battery died during the exposure or it was the cold). I used to try to beat it, eventually I just gave up it beat me over 99% o the time. Then I got a D200, boy do I wish it had the same meter as the F5. For the first time ever I'm frequently having to tweak exposure compensations, my F5 always got it right.<br /><br />For lens, it depends on what type of photographer and person you are. I was thinking the 28-105 makes the most sense and then see the gamut of other people saying it is an excellent lens.</p>

<p>Many people considering this camera, are those who have a robust Dslr system and want something more portable to carry with them. And, in that aspect one feature of the P7000 is very attractive to them... that being the fact it's compatible with Nikons wireless flash system (the CLS system) so it can control an unlimited amount of remote flashes wirelessly. The G12 can not do wireless flash. For the G12 to move the flash off camera one needs a shoe cord and can put it only as far as the cord can reach. <br>

So the P7000 being CLS compatible is important to strobists like me.</p>

<p>Here's some things about MP. </p>

<p>1st you have to quadruple the MP to double the quality... so take for example the Canon 5DmkII at 21MP vs. any number of 12MP cameras. Many people think 21MP vs. 12MP must mean almost twice the quality... but because you have to quad the MP to double the results it is impossible for the mkii to achieve more than 22% over a 12MP and that's only on paper. Factor in lenses, aperture, tripod used, mirror lockup then real world results should be little difference between a 21MP vs. 12MP. </p>

<p>2nd Some with a high MP camera like to take pictures of a chart or newspaper with the camera on a heavy tripod, mirror lockup, sharpest lens they have, at the sharpest aperture, blow up an area 100% and post the results to show how sharp it is then they pop it off the tripod and walk around handholding and shooting with a convenient zoom lens at unsharp apertures. If you want to take pictures of charts & newspapers, MP will matter and show the results but when it comes to actually walking around using the camera the difference becomes more & more marginal.</p>

<p>3rd MP's make less sense on crop factor cameras. The more the crop factor, the less the MP's make a difference. There's a 18MP 1.6x crop factor camera out there that I don't really get. A lens can't resolve that much detail on such a small sensor leaving one paying for an 18MP sensor, having to deal with the larger file sizes, noise, slowness, and more processing power it creates, and in the end that person is getting the same detail as someone with less MP but more noise.</p>

<p>Don't worry about MP, worry about the picture. On a crop factor camera about 12MP is all one can expect and as stated the difference between 10MP and 12MP is almost nothing. A 40MP camera would only d be 2x better than a 10MP. What matters more, is the lighting, the picture, and post-processin (the more it's post processed the less quality the print typically).</p>

<p>Hehe... amazing what one digit will do. Huge difference between a D700 and D7000. <br />I too would go for the D7000, bang for buck it's the best thing out there. It has one feature in particular worth mentioning that the D90 does not. Lens adjustment!!! I never knew how important that feature was until I really tried to get the most bokeh I could. Put my trusty 50mm F1.4, focused on the eyes at F1.4, take the photo... and the persons nose is sharp but the eyes are blurry. Huh? Time and Time again... focus on the eyes, take the shot, the nose is the only sharp thing in the picture. Put on my 18-200 VR lens, try to take a closeup and once again what I focused on and what is in focus is 2 different things. Now... it's not much... like 1/2" off or so BUT when you only have 1/4" in focus it's very difficult to get the shot. My camera also didn't have live view. After my model nearly all Nikons started coming with a feature called Lens Adjustment. It lets you fine tune each lens to the camera, as each lens will focus differently. If I had the D7000 I could say adjust the focus by 1/2" when using the 50mm lens and when I focused on the eyes the eyes will be sharp. And when using my 18-200VR lens adjust that one by 1/4". It stores the info for each lens. <br />That feature alone, since I'm a bokeh fiend, is one of the main reasons I'm looking for a new camera. The D90 is a good camera, but I would never buy it because it doesn't let you fine tune the focus of each lens.</p>

<p>You should've gotten the same result, not to be dumb but your lens didn't have a polarizer or ND filter on it did it? I've seen tons of comparisons using the same settings and they always look almost the same.<br>

If you were using the flash systems of both that's a different story. I know those moving from Canon to Nikon (TTL BL) suddently find that shooting at -3 EV flash on Canon equates to around -5 EV on Nikon. They have a very different philosophy on what's the proper amount of flash. But, if everything was manual you should've gotten the same result. <br>

I'm inclined to think the other poster is onto something with the flashes not firing at the right time.</p>

<p>As stated, if you want to get as much of a scene in focus as possible focus 1/3rd into it.... as 2/3rds behind that spot will be in focus and 1/3rd in front. </p>

<p>There's DOF calculators that can be downloaded to a phone if you have an advanced phone.</p>

<p>Yeah what is up with the blue/gold polarizer. I see now they're making it slim... that's awful. I have a slim polarizer and it's a pain not being able to put a lens cap on it and move on so I hardly use it. Then I thought, well at least there's Cokin. They have a blue/yellow P173 polarizer which will do similar. It too appears to be struggling with being in stock, but amazon has it available. Financially it's much cheaper than Singh-Rays Blue/Gold but not as convenient. If you're not familiar with the cokin system it takes square/rectangular filters. You need 3 things for the Cokin P system. First, the Cokin P holder, then the P173 variocolor blue/yellow filter, lastly a ring adapter to get the holder to fit your lens (77mm is the most likely). It's bulky, don't forget you can turn it sideways for wide angles to help against vignetting, some people cut off the extra slots of the holder as well (the holder is around $9 so no big deal).<br>

The Variable ND filter, there's 2 options (they are more expensive than I thought). The Genus 77mm Fader is an inexpensive one. Also has a good or bad feature depending on your style that being the front glass is oversized (the glass is 86mm) so it will help avoid vignetting on wide angles and it has marks to let you know what factor you're using. What's bad about 86mm front is you can't use your normal 77mm lens cap and pack it away with it in place. It's not coated either, so watch for glare (but neither are Singh-Rays). The other alternative is to get another polarizer, a linear one to be exact. Your camera needs a circular polarizer HOWEVER if you stack them you should have a linear polarizer on the outside and circular on the inside. Cameras need unpolarized light to autofocus and meter correctly, which is why they need a circular polarizer vs. Linear. The circular is actually 2 filters sandwiched together, it has a linear polarizer on the outside but we know the camera wouldn't meter or autofocus correctly so it has sandwiched on the inside a "scrambler" filter which takes the polarized light and scrambles it for the meter & autofocus. Then everything's happy we get the same effect as polarization and our meter/autofocus works. The sandwiching of the 2 filters in a circular polarizer makes them more expensive than linear. A linear polarizer is just the polarizer with no scrambler so it's cheaper, but we know the camera won't work with just it. So that's why to make your own variable ND filter use a Linear polarizer on the outside and a circular polarizer on the inside, and don't reverse the order or accidentally use only the linear. Going this route a thin mount one would be nice to help avoid vignetting or just get the Genus Fader.</p>

<p>Those velbon maxi's 343e can sure take a beating, greatest travel tripod I've ever seen by a long shot! They'd be important for those long exposures, and the D7000 has built-in time lapse I recommend you set it up for such on a tripod during landing and have it time lapse.</p>

<p>By the way I hope the weather for you is good. When I went, the weather was mostly 10-30F with whipping winds and stinging snow/ice/rain. My balaclava and gortex mittens (with glove inserts) was the greatest thing I ever bought with all the cold ocean and spray splashing over my hands and face most of the time we headed to shore or tours in the zodiacs. Our first landing I took off my mitten & glove inserts to get my camera ready and accidentally dropped a glove insert and the wind was so fierce it never hit the ground. It flew 30 ft in the air and was gone, I never saw it again. Our 3rd landing there wasn't wind so I dropped off my camera bag and glove insert by the beach and headed in for pictures. I come back, and my mittens are scattered my remaining glove insert isn't to be found. I wondered, who would steal 1 glove insert and move my mittens? Low and behold I found the culprit, the scavenger of Antarctica the white sheathbill had stolen it and taken it to a high perch. It apparantly tried to take my mittens too but they were a little too heavy thank god. All during the trip, everytime I left my bag at the beach I'd come back to see sheathbills trying to take anything not tied down... like zippers, straps, you name it so just a warning. I wished I'd brought 2 pairs of glove inserts. The last 3 days the weather was terrific... 60F+, sunny, warm... if your trip has good weather you may wonder what I'm talking about. If you get bad... you are going to be thankful for the balaclava and gortex gloves/mittens especially. Cheers</p>

<p>I went there in 1999-2000, the good news is if there's a place you will want Nikons color meter Antarctica is it, it's probably the most difficult exposure place in the world. The black lava ground covered with white snow, the white/black penguins, and it's often too bright to view histograms on the LCD the color meter is nice. When I went no Nikons died even the most basic which can't be said about any other brands. It was always the misty/foggy days that killed other brands. </p>

<p>Definetely the D7000 it has a color meter and weather sealing... on my trip more than half of the cameras didn't come back alive (we had mostly awful weather).</p>

<p>I don't think you need a 12-24mm but if you don't bring it you'll hate me probably. I found Antarctica to be taken best with normal and telephotos to emphasize the size of it. My mistake was using my 17-35mm at 17mm (full frame as I was using film) to fit everything in. The results were bad, I fit the enormous icebergs and mountains but the 17mm made them look like molehills and icecubes in the pictures. </p>

<p>I had a 500mm with me that was just enough so the 70-200VR with 1.7x teleconverter you'll find you'll probably want to keep the teleconverter on it constantly. Just watch out as I don't think the TC is weather sealed.<br>

Filters: <br />Polarizer is a must, variable ND filter to have any hope of slow water shots since it's so bright there many times my shutter speed was well in the upper hundreds with no chance of me lowering it anymore. Lastly a Blue/Gold Polarizer (different than a normal one above). Does amazing things to anything with water. You can look on youtube to see its effect(s) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34YyrguGYvs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34YyrguGYvs</a> just don't use on people they will look awful. <br>

A tripod, I'd bring the beloved Velbon maxi 343e. Get one on e-bay they have to be the best, smallest, most versatile, and most portable tripod ever created. I haven't found anything that can replace it. <br>

The only other piece of advice I can give is dress with gortex. Zodiacs are not high off the water and you have to hold a rope on the outside of them and if you're cruising each wave you hit will splash Antarctic ocean on your hands, if windy it will splash all over you and your bag. Oh, and I was one of the few that brought a balaclava, our weather was so cold and rough people were offering me $100 for it. Mine was just fleece. Have fun, wish I was going.</p>

<p>It's actually really simple. The Nikon F5 and Nikon F6. </p>

<p>Canon, Minolta, Pentax, most Nikons even all their meters are grayscale and get fooled by colors. It takes time to learn, but just get a camera that doesn't have a grayscale meter to begin with as slide film needs it spot on. I spent years trying to beat my F5's meter using slide film and 98% of the time ended up with the same result or it being better than me so I went with it.</p>

<p>The Nikon F5 and F6 are the only 35mm film cameras with color metering that I'm aware. The F6 is likely out of your budget even used, the F5 used might be okay. Take pictures of snow scenes with them and they won't underexpose they know snow is supposed to be white. Take pictures of black lava/cats and also get it right and not overexpose. I took an F5 to antarctica, white glaciers/icebergs on top of black lava flows and it got the exposure spot on everytime. Penguins too with their white fronts and black backs using slides. </p>

<p>I'd look at a Nikon F5 used, it's big & heavy camera (at least the F6 can go small) and eats batteries for a film camera but it's the only one of two film cameras with color meters that don't get fooled and you're welcome to go manual. With slide film, it is nearly perfect every time at getting the exposure. Just be aware going back to film isn't as easy as you'd think. You've probably gotten use to RAW (with extremely high dynamic range), HDR, editing, auto-whitebalance, instant preview... with film you need white balancing filters, ND Grads, polarizers, and such to try to bring the dynamic range down to within the limits of slide film. </p>

<p>Stress is normal. Just wait until another photographer comes around (either Uncle ... with a camera or their friend). You may think sure! Until you get the results and no one knows which camera to look at so none of your pictures (or the other persons) come out good. When it comes (and it will) do not allow 2 photographers peoples eyes won't know which to look at, even if the other isn't in view the people look around for them wondering if they're taking a photo they should be in so it doesn't work then either. That's my tip.</p>

<p>The Lumiquest Pro-Max 80-20 system fixes your flash issue, pretty standard for wedding kit for the reasons you mention. Some use flash brackets, they're a bit unwieldy though. Practice before using. Does this make 2 tips. Anyway, enjoy.</p>

<p>Photoshop's HDR ability is pretty poor with JPG's you're better off with a program like Dynamic Photo or Photomatix. Shoot RAW, however and Photoshop (and Dynamic photo) can pull a lot of detail out of a single raw file. Both seem to add noise (that's to say bracketed shots merged or a single raw file you pull detail).</p>

<p>For a point & shoot the Canon powershot S90 can do both. You don't often need more than 3 bracketed jpg images, as long as you get -2, 0, and +2. The Canon S90 can do that (be warned each takes 0.9s), and it can also shoot RAW which is rare for a P&S.</p>

<p>It is not a bad idea to get a medium format camera HOWEVER, please pull out your 35mm film camera and get yourself re-acqainted with film again before investing. You have likely forgotten some of the difficulties of film (no auto whitebalance, can't change ISO, HDR is harder, doesn't hold near as much EV as a RAW file). There's plenty of services around that will develop and scan in 120/220 film professionally. However you will likely not be able to resist wanting to scan in your film, a medium format scanner (a good Nikon one like the LS-9000 or even 8000 aren't cheap even used). </p>

<p>So pull out your old 35mm camera and start using it to "refresh" your memory. It may not be what you remember, if you find it inconvenient medium/large format is even less convenient and more expensive. Also the equipment is big and heavy to lug around, it puts a damper on a hiking style. I don't think there's any doubt large prints from medium/large format are better, it depends on how close you are to looking at them though. </p>

<p>If you buy a used or old medium format cameras don't be too picky about ones with metering. Many came without metering, or with metering prisms that used radioactive material in them which decays over time. Don't expect much I'd say from an old medium format camera's metering. I have an RB67, I have to set my metering prism to ISO 400 to get it in the ballpark when using velvia ISO 50 film from the decay but I don't really use it. Nikons color metering system is a lot better than I am especially with snow, so I take a picture with my Nikon dSLR and review it to determine if the scene is worth taking with my medium format and if so, I use the same settings. Your Canon, you can do the same thing but just need to make a few compensations for snow. I would take pictures with your digital and if you like the results use your medium/large format also with the same settings (run a test roll through the film camera first to see if the shutter is fast/slow). Some medium formats used to take polaroid backs so you could see instant results before taking the real deal... before digital came along. I think that's doing similar. Definetely pull out your 35mm film camera and dust it off though, before you make the investment.</p>

<p>Lenses spec what their fastest aperture & focal length (or zoom range) are. Their aperture as you found out can be set smaller than their fastest. Why do lenses only show their fastest aperture... in your case why didn't it say 50mm F1.8 - F22? It's because people hardly ever use a lens at its smallest aperture they use the smallest they can get away with so if you can take a picture at F16 you do as it will be sharper than at F22. ,Knowing the lens can go as fast as F1.8 you know you'll be able to autofocus in lower light, and the DOF will be extremely shallow. </p>

<p>Zoom lenses might say something like 18-200mm F3.5-5.6 and what that means is... at 18mm the fastest aperture is F3.5 then at 200mm the fastest aperture is F5.6 and can't go faster. At 100mm it's somewhere inbetween. Why would this zoom lens not have fixed aperture throughout the range? Because it's like a flashlight. Shine it on something 18" away you get a really bright spot. Shine it on something 200" away and the light isn't so bright anymore is it? It's something like that with variable zoom lenses, zoomed to 18mm it lets more light in and at 200mm it has to let in less.</p>

<p>Some zooms are fixed. An example is a 70-200 F2.8 which means... at 70mm the fastest aperture is F2.8 and zoomed to 200mm it's also F2.8. It takes more skill and bigger glass to create a fixed aperture zoom lens, the more you zoom, the more the lens opens up to let in more light to offset the fact zooming makes things dimmer. Fixed aperture zoom lenses are more sophisticated and more expensive than the other normal zoom lenses whose aperture changes depending on what your current focal length is. </p>

<p>If you read about her profile, she's a photoshop expert with 7 years experience. Send her a low res image (she typically only works in raw), and she'll return a quote with how much it will cost for her to photoshop it to look like fantastic. She does say she's a photographer, but it's pretty clear to me her business is photoshop editing. </p>

<p>I know you said aggressive cropper, the 18 MP Rebel T2i is a marketing ploy though. With a 18MP 1.6x crop factor sensor noise and dynamic range is sacrificed so they can claim more MP. Since lenses top off at around 12MP on crop factor cameras (especially a 1.6x one like the T2i) there is no point of an 18MP sensor is there? That's the marketing ploy, and to pull it off shortcuts were made with the rest of the camera. It could have been great, but as such since both the T2i and Nikon D90 use lenses that resolve around 12MP the Nikon D90 will produce better results, offer more usability, higher quality, and it has wireless flash capability the T2i does not. It’s better in almost every way except video (you’ll have to trust me video on either is not there yet). With the money you save you can pick up some nice lenses.<br /><br />The Mark II is a great camera especially for landscapes, full frame cameras capture more detail as they can record from the entire surface of the lens not just the center so 21MP of detail on a full frame is at least attainable. But I think for wildlife you're better off with a crop factor camera + telephoto. Your money should go towards lenses, the Mark II is I think too much for you right now since you don’t have the lenses to back you up. If you spend the money today on a nice lens it will be good on this years newest camera, the new digital camera you'll get in 6 years, and hopefully the new digital camera you get in 12 years. Digital camera's are somewhat disposable in the sense that in 3-5 years you'll probably be buying a new digital camera to replace your current, and again in 3-5 years after that that's why you should build up your lenses first and choose carefully (avoid high quality crop factor lenses if you think you'll go full frame in the future).<br /><br />I think a Nikon D90 suits you better and you'll have $ left over for some nice lenses. Also, a shoe mount/off camera flash will improve your pictures more than any lens will and the D90 has wireless flash capability meaning, get a Nikon shoe-mount flash (even a slave), take it off and set it anywhere you want and you can control its output and fire it within the D90 itself. It's really easy and powerful. The T2i doesn’t have that feature. Then get some good lenses. Otherwise if you have Canon equipment, I would get the Rebel and work on your lenses and get a commander flash (or transmitter) & slave flash. Good luck.</p>