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The 18-70mm is much better quality than the 18-135mm. I would want the 18-70mm, or if you like you can look into the Nikon/Tamron/Tokina/Sigma F2.8 offerings in that same range.

 

I have the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 and it is quite nice, and I hear almost nothing but praise for the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8. Obviously there is none better than the Nikon 17-55mm F2.8, but it is quite expensive.

 

If there is a Nikon warranty on the refurbished 18-70mm lens I would not worry about it.

^^ Great advice. (Adobe Lightroom does this breakdown for you)

 

Bottom line:

If you are always at 18mm and backing up, get the Nikon or Tokina 12-24mm.

 

If you are always trying to get closer and are zooming in to 200mm all the time, sell the 55-200mm and get the 70-300mm.

 

If neither applies and you have the budget sell both of your lenses and get the 18-200mm VR.

 

If you just want a better quality and more affordable option, sell the 18-55mm and get the 18-70mm.

 

For me, my solution is quite unique. I got the 24-120mm VR and the Tokina 12-24mm. I needed a wider lens than 18mm so the 18-200mm was not a good investment, but having the 24-120mm on top of the 12-24mm gives me my favorite focal range with VR for less money. I don't have a 1 lens anywhere kit, but I have a 2 lens anywhere kit (I almost never need my 70-200mm f2.8 anymore).

The 28DX or the 80DX is your best bet. Though it is much easier to find the SB-80DX used. Several are in the classifieds section now. I even have one for sale. http://www.photo.net/gc/view-one?classified_ad_id=687211

Please don't shoot on program. Program means you don't care about depth of field or motion control. Go for aperture priority or shutter priority at least. Aperture at 4.5-5.6 with flash set at -1 to -2 and ISO 400 for most everything. You get enough depth of field for most while not draining your flash too much and letting in more ambient light as well.

 

When you are shooting with your 50mm, change over to shutter priority at around 1/60-1/90 depending on your steadiness and let the aperture fall where it may at ISO 800. ISO 1600 is probably too noisy to be of much use, and keep in mind that the 50mm is awfully short for a ceremony. Better would be to use a longer lens wide open on tripod with shutter speeds no slower than about 1/15 - 1/30. Use a cable release if you have it and take a lot of photos to increase the likelihood of keepers.

 

And above all don't dismiss the 50mm at around F2-2.8 with balanced fill flash (set at about -1.5 to -2). And if possible use a complementary color gel on the flash to balance color temperature with incandescent or fluorescent lights. (Be sure to practice this at home first)

I use DXO, and one of the only things I dislike about it it the overly aggressive noise reduction. It causes lots of plastic artificial looking surfaces. But once I dialed it down to about a 20% reduction (I think), I got much less noisy photos at high ISO, but textures still remained.

 

Right now I run all of my wedding photos through DXO and then import to Lightroom for editing. A batch process of 1500+ photos takes a long time to run and kills both cores of my iMac, but if I start it at night it is done in the morning. Good enough for me.

Canon QL17 GIII www.cameraquest.com/canql17.htm

 

Small, light, very sharp fast lens, and pretty cheap ($30 or so) I picked mine up in a Pawn shop quite a few years ago, and it works great.

Try taking an older filter and give it a light misting of aerosol hairspray. Than use it a bit, if the effect is too much, wash the filter in hot soapy water and then give it a lighter misting.

Maybe my math is wrong, and I suspect that I will be corrected if so, but a normal room corner is a 90 degree right angle. You current 12-24mm would be able to take a picture from wall to wall, but only if you had the lens crammed into the corner. If you are standing in the corner, you would need a bit extra, and I suspect that the 10-20 would be enough.

 

Try this though to be certain. Put your camera with 12-24mm in the corner of a room, pressed into the corner and take a picture. See if you get from wall to wall. You will have to be creative to be out of the way, but I am sure you can figure something out.

 

You will probably just see both walls in the photo. However if you are standing behind the camera when you take the photo, you need more coverage to get beyond the space that you take up.

 

If you use a protractor you could probably figure out the exact angle of view you would need if standing and taking a picture.

 

Again, somebody please correct me if I am way off here.

Others have made very good comments I like what you have put in your cart so far. The 70-200MM VR may be overkill if you are able to shoot from a monopod or tripod, the 80-200mm f2.8 is much cheaper (but no VR of course).

 

The one suggestion I would make would be to consider the Fuji S5. It has outstanding low-light performance (sse the latest issue of Popular Photography - maybe Shutterbug, I forget), and in my mind the only real difference in use is that the S5 does not have 5 frames per second. But I suspect you might not miss that with the types of shooting you will be doing.

 

The D200 is a great all-around camera (I have one for that reason), but at least check the S5 out. You might find that the features it offers would be worth the small difference in price.

 

I second the external flash, you never know when you might need it, and at least having it is better than not. But if save some money and get the SB-600 instead.

 

I second the multiple smaller cards instead of one card, and I definitely agree that you need some sort of wide/normal lens. At least get the 18-70mm. It even comes in a kit. You don't want to have a sweet camera and not be able to use it for whatever you might want. Family photos, vacations, etc.

 

Get a filter for the front of the lens. I like Hoya HMC, but everybody has their own opinions on this subject.

 

Other than that, one word: monopod.

I took a look at your portfolio to try to get some context for your question. You black and white work is outstanding, but your color work is weak, and there is little if no flash examples in your portfolio.

 

You need to do a few things:

 

First, understand how to balance flash with existing lighting. If you want foreground and background exposed the same, you have to have the background get the same amount of light as the foreground (or at least within 1 stop or so). Otherwise you get black backgrounds and lit foregrounds.

 

So you probably need to increase ISO, decrease shutter speed, decrease flash output, and open up the aperture in order to even things out.

 

Second, you need to determine if your flash will be a primary light or a fill light. If it is a fill light all it is doing is filling in the shadows 1-3 stops under the existing light (same as outdoors in bright sun). If it will be the primary light you will probably have to either add light to the other parts of the photo that need (read extra lights/flashes) or accept less than ideal results.

 

Third, you may have to change your shooting style/coverage to fit more within the constraints of the lighting. More intimate shots that don't have a lot of background, or shooting from points in the room that allow the bounce flash to work most effectively.

 

Fourth, you may need additional pieces of equipment. Aside from the previously mentioned extra lights/flashes and methods of syncing them, mounting them, and metering them, you may consider a flash bracket and off camera cord to get the flash further above the camera, color filters for the flash to balance the flash color temperature with the temperature of the interior lights, or faster lenses that reduce or eliminate dependency on flash.

 

Lastly, you may need to explain to your boss that the lighting in the locations is not adequate for what they might be expecting. The best light for parties and showrooms, is rarely the best light for photos.

 

Above all else, you need to research the topic more yourself. Take classes that go over flash photography, check out books from the library, find articles in photography magazines or on websites.

 

If you are getting paid to take photos you have a responsibility to deliver. If you don't know how to do something properly you need to figure out how to do it before showing up for your paying job. Practice at home, at church, at parties, or anywhere else you can.

 

Finally, when in doubt BTHOOI (Bracket the heck out of it)

Ouch :-(

 

It needs professional attention. Best of luck.

What about the recommendations given to you in your last thread?

Seems a 50mm f1.8 was recommended several times. As was the 70-200mm f2.8.

 

Indoor volleyball pictureshttp://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Jw0f

If you want to continue to shoot sports avoid the S5 Pro. Normally 1.5 frames per second and only up to 2.5 frames if the dynamic range is turned off.

 

Obviously is money is no object than get the D2Xs with a 70-200mm VR, 300mm F2.8, 400mm F2.8, etc. But if you live in the real world the D200 is the best option.

 

Don't get me wrong, I would love a D2Xs, but it would take a lot of weddings to pay for it, and even then it would not make a big enough difference in my quality to make a difference.

 

If you think the D200 is fine, but you actually have the money for the D2Xs, then just get the D200 and put the difference towards quality glass. THAT will make a bigger difference in your photos.

for the best results you will want an external flash bounced off of the ceiling/walls. the softer light will make the biggest difference.

 

And with a baby's perfect skin, direct flash will look so harsh you will want to start shooting without flash just to get the peaceful serene light to match the baby's countenance.\

 

You can pick up an SB600 online for about $175 or so. Well worth the investment. Ken Rockwell (I know, I know...) even recommends the SB-400 at $129 as it allows for a simple bounce flash.

 

I think though that the SB-600 is more versatile.

If you don't have enough money for a 28-105mm, you probably will not have enough money for another good lens instead. You will be purchasing the best deal for a quality lens (50mm 1.8), and until you can afford the 28-105mm or it equivalent, you should probably not worry about other lenses.

 

You may however consider an external flash. It would drastically improve the quality of your flash pictures (assuming you use flash).

 

In addition to the 28-105mm you might also consider the slightly more expensive 24-120mm VR. It has a bit more distortion, but the VR can be a great feature. Also good deals can be had on the very good Tokina 28-80mm f2.8. The AFS 24-85mm is also a lens to consider, it focuses very fast and is very sharp.

 

Take a look at the classifieds and you can find some good prices. I happen to have both the Tokina lens and an SB-80DX for sale if you decide to go in either of those directions.

 

Also, you did not mention what lens(es) you currently have.

I have a D200 and am considering getting DxO to batch process to correct

distortion, but my primary lens is not supported on the D200. I use a Sigma

18-50mm, and while that lens is supported on the D70, it is not supported on the

D200.

 

Is there anyway around this? Some way to still get the distortion correction for

that lens, but perhaps just not optimized on the D200? Is this even a good idea?

 

Unfortunately the only f2.8 mid-range zoom on the supported lest for the D200 is

the very expensive (albeit very high quality) Nikon 17-55mm. And don't get me

started on my Fuji S2 lens compatibilities in DxO.

 

Any suggestions that don't involve me purchasing the 17-55mm? :-)

So then if the lens/body combination is supported I can queue it up, and let it run overnight. I can then import the corrected images into Lightroom for further tweaking.

 

Does this sound right?

Funny, the wedding I did last week I was shooting the SB-800 with 5 energizer batteries. I changed them out after the church and before the reception, and at the reception I managed to get off enough powerful pops in quick enough succession to partially melt/crinkle the Nikon color filter on the flash.

 

5-10 batteries is usually enough for me. Lots of extras though just in case.

 

It annoys me enough having my D200 on a flash bracket, I would hate to have a belt battery attached to it also.

So you mean I can't just queue up all of the images and let them process overnight? I know I should probably download DxO and just try it out, but I just don't have them time right now to put something through the wringer just to find out if it will do what I want.

 

I know that automatic processing is no substitute for a hands on approach, but I thought that at least the lens correction steps might be able to be run automatically with no shepherding. Am I correct in thinking this?

I am considering adding the automatic distortion correction from DxO into my

workflow, but I do not have experience with the DxO software yet. Is it easy to

incorporate the automatic corrections into a workflow?

 

Right now all of the images get imported into Lightroom and I do all of the

editing there, but if the automatic DxO correction is easy to implement I may

add it as well.

 

Also, is it even feasible to do the automatic corrections on large batches of

photos (last weekend's wedding was 1800 photos), or is it better do just cherry

pick the best ones?

Good grief. That's a lot of steps. I am sure the results are very good.

What ISO are you shooting at? It may be that the flash cannot dial its output down enough.

 

How far away are your subjects? What mode is your flash in?

What types of setting did you change?

From http://www.bythom.com/d40review.htm

 

I quote:

 

Autofocus performance is adequate. The number in the part name (CAM530 versus the old CAM900 in previous Nikon consumer DSLRs) indicates the number of overall points that are sampled for focus information, so it should be obvious that the D40 should be worse than a D70 (CAM900) or a D80/D200 (CAM1000). This is a little deceptive, though. Assuming you're using the central AF sensor only, there's no real performance difference between the D40 and the D50/D70, and only a small one with between the D40 and the D200 (mostly due to things other than the AF sensor itself). With only three AF sensors, the D40 actually gets a slight benefit in Closest Subject Priority over the D50, as not only is there less data to analyze, but it's less likely that an "unlit" sensor is going to cause the AF system to slow down.

 

For those shooting Single Area AF, the technical side of things means that the D40 isn't going to perform much differently than a D50 or D70s, actually. The D40 has two things that will affect performance for shooters who use other AF settings, though: (1) the AF-S only lens requirement means you'll never encounter the dreaded "screw-drive hunt"; and (2) the missing AF sensors mean you're going to be more tempted to revert to focus-and-recompose. That's especially evident when you shoot vertically--you don't have any sensors on the sides! In horizontal compositions I consistently found that I missed that bottom AF sensor (but not the top). In vertical compositions, the lack of the two extra focus sensors is more problematic, and you are forced to focus and recompose more often. Frankly, it's not a big deal, as you simply will start using this camera differently to compensate for its missing AF sophistication. Those of you who already are in the focus-and-recompose group won't have any trouble with the D40.

The flash cord should work just fine with an AIS lens. Besides it would be easy to take your camera, flash, and lens to a camera store and try it out. Your flash works on camera with that lens right? So then it will work off camera with the cable.

 

The TTL flash works from a meter behind the lens and measures the amount coming through the lens while the photo is being taken with the lens aperture closed to the desired setting. An AIS lens closes the aperture during photo the same way an AF lens does. TTL flash will work fine.

 

TTL metering does not work, because the metering is happening before the photo is taken with the lens wide open. The metering will only work if the camera knows what the maximum aperture of the lens is. Either through the AIS tab and ring or through digital contacts.

 

Bottom line? Get an off-camera TTL cord and you are good.