bokeh man1

<p>FX sensor = narrower depth of field.</p>

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<p>In favour of the D40 is that you can add older lenses opening up the chance to use wideangle primes at reasonable cost - but against this is that most are still not wideangle enough for you.</p>

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<p>This is not true. The D40 only autofocuses with AF-S lenses. If you want a cheepy that works with all autofocus lenses go for a second hand D50. I recently bought one from ebay for £100.</p>

<p>Bernard, use what you have and when you find there is a hole in your collection buy what you need to fill it, but don't buy anything because it seems like it is missing on paper. Personally I started with primes 30 years ago, progressed to zooms when autofocus came about, but found many picture weren't possible due to the lack of maximum aperture available with primes. Even with a pro zoom the aperture is never wider than f/2.8. Now I'm back to just 4 primes (15mm 2.8 fish, 24mm f2.8, 50mm f/1.4, and 105mm f/1.8) but normally only ever take one out at a time. One other thing, people are talking about dirt on the sensor and having a zoom so you never have to change lenses. Well me personally I bought an SLR so I can change lenses. If you get a lens that covers all focal lengths it's going to be a piece of garbage with a maximum aperture of f/4 or smaller. No professional zoom lens covers the entire range so a pro still needs to change lenses. So you've got a choice, risk needing to clean the sensor every so often or use a garbage lens.<br>

Lastly using primes is "childsplay" as there's less to think about. Here's a picture my six-year-old took today using a prime.</p><div></div>

<p>Why are people recommending manual focus lenses? Is it just because they are cheap because I can't see any other reason? If you want manual focus with an autofocus lens you just flick the switch; if you want autofocus with a manual focus lens you're stuffed. If you want a high number keepers and you are taking pictures of people in action autofocus is a must.</p>

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<p>A test at f/8 won't show a darn thing! But it does. The quality between the three is noticeably different (if you can't see it right away, look for color fringing and sharpness). Tests like this are important to remind us, myself included, that a prime does not necessarily outperform a zoom lens. </p>

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<p>Not a fair test. Most lenses perform their best about 3 stops down. A 50mm f/1.4 performs best around f/4 while the f/2.8 zoom sees its sweet spot around f/8.</p>

<p>I've got the 105mm f/1.8 and love it. I put a CPU in it and it meters fine on my D50 now.</p><div></div>

<p>Stop obssessing over gear, the 50mm f/1.8 is a great lens. Throwing money at the hobby won't make your pictures great, practice will. Also if you want the highest number of keepers forget manual focus.</p>

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<p>"Needing motorized lenses is not entirely a negative."</p>

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<p>I think it is a big negative. I have a collection of non AFS lenses that cost thousands. They all work fine and take great images so who is Nikon to decide it's about time they are consigned to the scrap heap. I think they probably did this to stop professionals buying the D40 as a backup body. Also it stops any long time Nikon fan from getting on the digital bandwagon with this camera. From AI up to the release of the F80/N80 Nikon was prided for its lens/body compatibility. It's a pity they discarded that philosophy so easily with the D40.</p>

<p>I use a Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fish as my wide angle lens with DX format cameras. The image is wider than using a 12mm rectilinear lens. Barrel distortion minimal in the DX format and doesn't notice at all in most of the applications I use the lens for. Nevertheless, if your type of photography dictates it, the distortion is easily corrected in Photoshop (using Panotools). The image below has not been corrected in any way.</p><div></div>

<p>The comments about image sharpness in the corners are really a non-starter unless your entire scene is at infinity or you are shooting brick walls head on. Any minor sharpness issue when shooting a test target is not going to be of any importance in the real world (unless you're a measurebator). Anyway the OP is using a DX sized sensor so these non-issues are well outside the image circle in this case.<br>

For all the experts in these lenses that can see these differences which lens was the following picture taken with Sigma, Nikkor AFS, or Nikkor AFD ?</p><div></div>

<p>I worked for a magazine for years reviewing cameras. Out of all the cameras I reviewed the D50 is my all time favorite. I owned one myself for a while after doing the review but sold it to get something "better". Now I've just bought another one from ebay for £100 in immaculate condition.</p>

How do I convert a negative film image to positive image and remove the film

orange mask? Is there any software capable of doing this?

Can anyone advise me as to the difference in quality of these 2 lenses? Is the

higher price of the Nikon really justified?

Are the F4, N90s and D50 all compatible with the new AF-S and VR lenses? Is

there any noticeable feature about the cameras that immediately shows which

lenses are compatible with which body?

Just one other thing... which you might consider is stating the obvious but to photograph a saturated blue sky the sky must actually be deep blue. If you meter the sky it needs to be about 2 stops darker than metering the ground. If this difference doesn't exist or the sky is lighter than the ground you will not get a saturated blue sky however much you try to under expose the sky. A polorizer is handy for increasing saturation but again will do nothing if the sky is not intense blue to start with. Maximum blue in the sky (with or without a polorizer is at 90 degrees to the sun. If you hold your index finger and thumb in an L shape and point the finger at the sun the thumb will point to the area of maximum blue. Just remember 90 degrees. That means if the sun is directly over head the horizon will be blue right the way around whereas if the sun is just rising and is on the east horizon north and south will be where the sky is the most blue. One other thing... the colder and less humid the better. Post intense blue skies are taken in the winter.

I own an S2 Pro and had an S3 Pro on test for a month. I have also tested the D200. I feel the differences in image quality are merely subjective. As far as dynamic range goes a 6 megapixel camera (s2/S3) is always going to going to beat a 10 megapixel camera (D200) for dynamic range just as a 10 megapixel camera will always beat a 6 megapixel camera in resolving power. Six of one half a dozen of the other. Overall I personally would pick the D200. The features of the S3 were pretty dated at the time of its release 18 months ago whereas the features of the D200 are cutting edge today. Oh yeah, and I hated the software that came with the S3; it added something like 3000 files to my computer and had a terribly designed user interface in strange low contrast colors.

I must say reading this thread really has been a good laugh and shows a complete lack of knowledge of the human eye. The adult human eye in fact has an image focal length of 22mm and an object focal length around 16.5mm. The maximum aperture is 6 to 7 mm giving an f number around f/3.5. The absolute maximum sensitivity is around ISO 800. ISO changes with light level by increasing rhodopsin in the retina. This process takes a half hour or so to complete, and that assumes you haven't been exposed to bright sunlight during the day.

 

The use of the 50mm (standard lens) has nothing whatsoever to do with the focal length of the human eye. "Standard" does not refer to the focal length but to perspective. For an image to appear similar to the way the human brain/eye combination interprets it, it must be photographed from the natural viewing distance. If in your culture the normal distance between you and another adult in conversation is about 6 feet then you need a lens with the correct magnification to frame what you want for that distance for it to look "standard".

 

Changing focal length changes nothing more than magnification while changing viewing distance changes both magnification and perspective. The purpose of changing focal length is to cancel the magnification changes cause by changing the viewing distance, leaving only the perspective changes noticable.

The comments about download speed to pc are rubbish. Even the slowest cards read and write data far faster than it is possible to transmit data to the pc over usb or firewire. The only time the speed of the card would be relavent with the D70 is if you are constantly reach the buffer (the camera's intermediate memory)limit due to taking bursts of multiple photos. I do camera tests for a magazine and the only time I ever manage to fill the buffer is in a lab test. In normal situations it would be very rare to want to take 10 or more photos in a 5 second period. If you need to do this get yourself a video camera.

One thing to remember is by removing this filter you are effectively changing the position of the focal plane so your auto focus will be off. This is due to the removal of the refractive index of the Bayer filter.

I'm posting this question because I recently found I could no longer

read some of my CDs on any machine. What CDs do you use for archiving

and why? Do you buy a particular brand or is it the disc materials and

construction you look for? Or is the metal important (aluminium, gold,

etc.). Any information would be greatly appreciated.

The N80 and I believe also the N65 contain a film positioning system with an infra red beam shone onto the film so if you use infra red film in these cameras it will be fogged by the infra red emitter.

The ISO and ASA are two different standards. One american and the other international.<center><br>iso 21 = asa 100<br>iso 24 = asa 200<br>iso 27 = asa 400<br>etcetera.<br></center>Just to confuse the issue the Japanese camera manufacturers use the term ISO for setting sensitivity in their digital cameras but use the ASA numbers (100, 200, etc) which is plain wrong but has been done for yanks who usually have trouble understanding international standards (like centigrade and metres).

I recently tested that camera for a test article in a photo magazine. What the guy is talking about is if you make a 2 second exposure (or any long exposure) the camera takes a while to process the image file before writing it to the card.

Quick note to the Dutchman above: The S2 pro comes with Raw file convertor LE which does convert to 16 bit tiff files but doesnt allow the user to partcipate in the fine tuning of the conversion. If you pay a few Euros you get the pro version of the raw software and camera control software. The shop assistant told me the S2 was an old model and threw in the software for free.

Because your camera is a point and shoot and just like film point and shoot cameras they allow little or no creative control!

First: If you want a lens for low light go for a prime, period.

 

Second: Lots of people (often ones that can only afford third party lenses) state Sigma is reasonable optically. I only own one Sigma lens but it is a prime not a zoom so I wont comment in this area. The biggest problem I find with Sigma is bulk. The lenses seem enormous compared to similar Nikon lenses.