rick_twigg

New Z6 owner here. I can confirm the eye-autofocus is very nice and quite usable. I'm seeing a *much* higher hit rate at 1.4 with the Sigma Art 85, and the 24-70 f/4 kit lens is much nicer than I expected. It is far and away the best kit lens I've seen.

 

I suspect the Z6 focuses better in low light than my D850, but I have no data to back that up.

 

Eye AF does *not* focus on animal eyes, at least not on my dog's. In my extremely unscientific test, it finds my daughter's eye almost instantly, but hunts when I try to focus on my dog in the exact same lighting conditions.

I loved my Elan IIe (it was destroyed in a car accident). It's a great camera body, hang on to it!

I use Irfan View. It's easy to use and a free download. Just do an internet search on it and you'll get a download site for it.

Don't forget to post some shots when you're done!

Can't speak for the Tamron, but I love my Nikkor. It's a great

value.

I second Matthew's comments...especially that you won't miss a sturdy tripod/head until you've owned one.

I second the suggestion for Photoshop Elements 3.0. It's a great value.

Mine doesn't click at all.

Amazing the number of people who are much more interested in

sarcasm than in reading Philip's post. I have had the same

problem lately as the lock gets looser with age/use. Haven't

found a fix yet, but I may have Nikon replace the lock with a new,

tighter one if possible on its next servicing.

I don't have any experience with the Sigma, but I can tell you the

Nikon is the best lens I've ever used. The VR works well and the

bokeh this lens produces is wonderful. I'd say spend for the

Nikon.

Get an Sb-800. You won't regret it.

Mr. Kidron,

 

I mean you no disrespect, but I'd be pretty annoyed with you if I were Ken Rockwell.

If you search some past threads on this topic, you'll see that basically everyone who has compared the 2 feels the 1.8 is a little sharper. I do a lot of lugging my gear around backcountry locations like you do and have found the weight savings of the plastic 1.8 a significant factor as well.

Most of you probably already know this, but I was able to remove

*all* of the considerable number of specks in my F5 and N80

viewfinders using the Nikon Optics Maintenance Kit ($20 U.S. at

Adorama). The included speck grabber and lenscloth are fantastic and

it only takes about 2 mintues to clear out all those maddening

specks which had been bothering me for a long time (and have seen

other complain about on this forum). Just thought I'd share.

 

Rick

So when did this turn into EnglishEducation.net??

I had similar ergonomic issues and wound up with Nikon. They're both outstanding tools. You really can't lose either way. Pick the one that seems to work best (or that you just *like* best) for you and know you've got a great camera.

I've found the Nikon to be a great travel lens, and quite a good lens in general for the money. For an amateur lens it's pretty sharp. You won't be disappointed with it. It's pretty popular with the folks on this forum; try a search on it for lots of info. I have no experience with the Tamron. Good luck.

Has anyone used a Bogen 488RCO (replaced 3055) ball head? Opinions?

What kind of photography do you like? Do you have to carry your equipment around a lot?

Here's a couple sites that offer opinions on a variety of lenses:

 

www.kenrockwell.com

 

www.nikonians.com

 

www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html

 

www.nikonlinks.com (you'll have to do some hunting through this one)

 

www.moose395.net

 

 

I was in your situation a couple of years ago and understand that we're not all made of money. Good luck.

As someone who used to work at Ritz and has used them all, I think it depends on what you want to do with your pictures. If you'll only post your digital pics to the internet, never make a print bigger than about 8 X 10 and are going to shoot print film with your N80, the Ritz lenses will do you just fine; you might as well save the money. But if you want to do large blow-ups or use slide film in the N80 then spend for the Nikkors; you'll need (and notice) the quality. So, in short you won't see much difference between the cheapies and the good stuff if you are only going to make small prints (with print film) and post to the net or make only small enlargements. If you shoot slides with the N80 and want to make big prints with your D100, get the good stuff.

I agree that Photoshop Elements is an excellent value and has most of the functionality of the full version for a fraction of the price. Another thing to consider is that Adobe sent an offer with my copy (came with my Epson scanner) of Elements to upgrade later the the full version for $299, which is half of the retail price. So you could get Elements now and decide if you want to spend for the full professional version later.