george_bourke

<p>Well, if you enjoy hearing about oddball lenses, my 7.5mm f/8 Spiratone circular fisheye is pretty good. But for an all-around bargain, you cannot beat the Nikon 28-105mm AF-D (I think it's "D")...I could actually live with that as my only lens.</p>

I have both a D70 and a D200 and use nothing smaller than a 4GB card in either camera. My 4GB Extreme III and Extreme IV cards work flawlessly in both cameras as does my 8GB Extreme III cards. You didn't ask about other brands, but I've never had a problem with Ridata 4GB cards, Seagate 4GB CF drives, or Hitachi 4GB microdrives either. Do you swap cards a lot? I use larger cards to cut down on that. Every time you swap a card is a new chance to bend an interface pin or wear the gold off of it.

I would assume that it is in the prism because websites like Katz Eye say that their brighter focusing screens DO affect metering. I cannot imagine how they could do that otherwise.

You might want to consider buying it from a dealer with a 30 day price guarantee if this is a major concern to you. The way most of them work that is that if you buy from them then find it cheaper within 30 days they'll refund 110% of the difference in price...and many of those dealers include if THEY offer it cheaper within 30 days as well.

 

Personally, I wouldn't expect a drop within 90 days (minimum).

I bought my Nikon F (w/FTn finder) new back in March 1973 and still have it and it still works perfectly! If you look at your AF and AF-D lenses carefully at the aperture ring near f/5.6 you'll see a couple of very faint tick marks...those are the marks for the screw holes for adding a meter coupling shoe/prong and you can still get it done. I believe that John White (www.aiconversions.com) still does it for a very reasonable fee (~$10). Once the prong is added, an AF/AF-D lens (non-DX, non-G) operates just the same as any lens from that era on that camera...nice, huh? (And still works the same as it always did on your newer Nikons.)

 

George

This is in response to Brooks' response:

 

Can't you just use a tripod and PS's HDR feature to extend the dynamic range such that you DON'T blow out the light fixtures?

 

George

B&H also sells a "generic" GC CF-to-cardbus adapter...the reason you may want to consider it is because it also handles Type II cards (microdrives) if you use any of those. It is around $20 with a great storage case that'll hold the adapter + 2 CF cards.

Back about 15 years ago when I bought my Bowens Prolite 100 lights, there were two U.S. distributors for Bowens: Bogen and Calumet. Calumet has kept distributing Bowens both under the Bowens name and under the Calumet name and provides parts and repair. Bowens is the actual manufacturer and is based in the U.K. (Calumet also distributes them there). A third party source of flashtubes is Lumix in France, but I'd take the Bowens tubes as you can get them UV coated. FWIW, Bowens/Calumet equipment from about 15 years back up to today are generally referred to as "Series 2" and use the same reflectors. Older Bowens flashes (Monolite series, a.k.a. "Series 1") use a different series of reflectors though I believe an adapter is (was?) available to use older reflectors on newer flash units.

 

Hope this isn't too confusing...

The worst lens I've ever owned and the only Nikon lens I ever sold was the Nikon 35-70mm f3.3-4.5 AF (sold it for $35 when it was 6 months old, it only sold for about $70 brand new)...I've still got my Nikon 43-86mm AI which is FAR superior and a very nice portrait lens. Ignore the parrots who've never used the lens and/or don't know the negatives apply to the lens permanently affixed to the old Nikkorex AND the pre-AI versions only. If the lens is the AI version, TRY it for a few shots and see what you think.

 

George

based on that expression in "sidnee copy.tiff", I'd sleep with one eye open if I were you! I got quite a chuckle out of her expression on that one...keep shooting, you're doing great!

 

George

How old are the bulbs? You know that bulbs change with age. If the bulbs looks yellowish at all, that'll drop it down a few hundred degrees Kelvin.

I never heard of magnetic lasso before...looked it up and tried it and for well delineated subjects it is fantastic. I'll have to get back to experimenting with it.

 

George

Bell & Howell wasn't the only company to fall victim to an overly-ambitious importer. Remember:

HONEYWELL Pentax?

Sony SUPERSCOPE?

ROBERTS (Akai)?

 

I'm sure that many more will come to mind after I post this!

Also, if you're ever published, Elements cannot produce files in the format printers usually request. I just converted a few for the local university for publication in a technical journal because they couldn't produce a 300dpi CMYK TIFF file (the trick was that they couldn't make it CMYK in Elements).

Someone in this thread mentioned about recovery from a microdrive and was wondering about how recoverable a solid state card is...

 

As an electrical engineer, I just wanted to point out a couple of things:

 

1) Unless the microdrive failure is due to a head crash (meaning that it touched down on the magnetic platter surface, usually grinding off the magnetic oxide), you are MORE likely to be able to recover the data from a microdrive as it will still exist on the platter (won't be cheap, however)

 

2) Usually solid state memory failures are catastrophic (destroying layers of semiconductor material, usually making them permanently non-conducting)...in these instances, you cannot recover the data. If you had a "ham-fisted" moment, and broke bond wires, in theory (and in actual practice assuming you have access to the proper equipment in a clean room environment or $$$$$$$$) you could recover. This recovery would be more expensive than the drive recover (both should be done in a clean room, but the solid state memory requires things to be kept much cleaner).

I'd suggest you invest in three books, all by Thomas Tomosy:

1) Nikon Camera Repair Handbook (it has a section on the 80-200 f/4.5 AI)

2) Camera Maintenance & Repair Book 1 (has a section on how to build a collimator to optically align a lens that has been disassembled and many more on lens repair)

3) Camera Maintenance & Repair Book 2 (has a section building an aperture tester and many more on lens repair)

 

If you want to scrimp anywhere, do it on the third book. I believe you can still get them all at Overstock.com.

 

George

I bought one of the last ones made and it has been one of my favorite lenses for years, especially for portraits. It has been around almost forever with one version of the early Nikkorex bodies having it permanently affixed...the old ones had a bad (and deservedly so) reputation for softness. The later ones like you got are very nice lenses that get knocked all the time by people whose only experience with them is "something they read somewhere".

 

George

My favorite is Photoshop Magazine (pricey). Also, because old habits die hard, I still generally read Photographic...what I'd liked about them was all the technique articles (especially the old Dean Collins "Basics" column).

 

In general, I'll look at the table of contents and if I see info on techniques I'd like to learn or workflow of some professional that I like or samples of great photography or even photography critiques, I'll consider buying the magazine. If it is primarily equipment reviews (other than expendibles: film, paper, ink, etc), I'll pass.

I have used my 45CL-4 on my D70 in auto mode a limited number of times and it worked well those times... You can take that however you wish, granted it was a limited number of times (3 or 4 occasions of maybe 50 photos each) without problems...good exposure (but I wasn't expecting miracles, it was outside and pitch black). I know my SB-800 couldn't have done any better (if as well due to lower output).

The kit lens (18-70) is quite nice (I love mine) BUT for your usage, I think you can save a few bucks and be equally happy (if not happier). I have seen quite a few VERY impressive photos taken with the Nikon 28-105 and it turns out it has quite a reputation for its sharpness. The good news is that you can pick 'em up on eBay for around $200 or buy 'em new for around $300. For your baby pics (and growing baby), I think you'll find it more useful to have a bit more choices on the telephoto end rather than the wide angle end.

 

BTW--The photos I saw on here that impressed me with their sharpness, put my 18-70 to absolute shame in that aspect (granted, I don't have many shots taken on a tripod to compare them and don't know if the 28-105 shots were taken on a tripod or not). But, they were some of the sharpest shots I've seen in a long time.

Doc,

 

You're forgetting one important point about those 10's of millions of MP3 players (IPod, Muvo2, etc.) with MicroDrives in them that are NOT failing: most are in the hands of teenagers who are absolutely meticulously careful in their protection...in fact, most players are further protected by being packed in backpacks and protected by a housing constructed of (seldom-read) textbooks.

 

MY Hitachi 4GB drives (3) have worked perfectly for a couple of years so far and continue to do so. As for those who shy away from them, fine. Really, you are just looking at different failure mechanisms with microdrives vs solid state CF cards. The solid state cards are more susceptible to static discharge damage, radiation damage (that's why military electronics are radiation hardened), breakage of bond wires (ever wonder how your camera "talks" to the silicon die?), etc. While your microdrive would fail from things like mechanical shock damage (major dropping) to its head/seek mechanism, oxide separation from substrate, mechanical wear to bearing/spindle, etc. On the wear failure possibilities, you've got to remember that most drives are rated something like 30,000+ hours MTBF (mean time before failure)...I may be wrong, but I don't think MDs are spinning all the time they are in the camera, but even if they are, that is about 3.5 YEARS of 24/7 usage.

 

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who insist on only using solid state CF cards as you make the microdrive manufacturers hungrier so that I can pay less. (I actually use BOTH, but use microdrives much more often.)

 

George

The way I became aware of them in the first place was someone in the US selling a bunch of them on eBay (for various studio flashes, but not Bowens). BTW, both on eBay and in most search engines, you can add -XYZ to your search to have the search exclude items with XYZ in it. So, you could search for:

Lumix -Panasonic

 

George

If you want to save a couple of bucks and get the same functionality, you can do what I did: buy the Minolta Colormeter II WITH the optional flash receptor. (But you gotta get both!)

Bruce and Ellis: Thanks for the info. Sounds like they'll do just fine for my purposes.

 

Concerning the frequency drift...that sounds a bit strange since the cheap way to get a stable frequency (and it has been used for years) is to simply use a crystal oscillator (and these are VERY cheap). I used to work for a company that developed "steering" electronics that learned the time-aged drift (crystal oscillators drift for about 3 weeks then settle down...most companies don't use "un-aged" oscillators) and provided the minute amount of correction required to make their performance approach that of an atomic clock. Maybe, Quantum was popping in brand new, non-aged crystals...if so, they should have known better.

 

George

Yep, that was the one. Thanks for the link, Will. If memory serves, they actually have a non-exclusive US distributor (non-registered trademark w/Customs). So, I think you can either buy them here or from France or even distribute them yourself. Options are good...right?

 

George