markwilkins

1) Depends on whether there's any other damage than the hot shoe. I wouldn't want to

guess, but probably somewhere between $200 and the price of a new camera.

2) Only you can say, but since you have an accessory flash unit (was it damaged too?) it

sounds like you use flash and probably need your camera to have a working hot shoe.

3) Definitely send it in to Nikon service. The camera's going to need a complete

evaluation and I have trouble imagining that there are many third-party camera repair

places well-equipped to completely go over a D70 a year and a half after its release.

-- Mark

All the filter brands you mention are excellent and should not introduce any optical

distortions to your image, although as pointed out, they may on rare occasions induce

flare when you have very bright light sources in your image.

There are sometimes issues with metering when using linearly polarized filters. Circularly

polarized filters provide a similar effect and do not cause these problems, but can cost

more, and not every camera is sensitive to this issue.

I tend not to use protective filters on my lenses, but I also don't often use them in hostile

environments. If I were taking my camera out in the rain, I'd definitely use a filter to

protect the front element of the lens.

-- Mark

You ask a couple of questions. I'm not the best to offer web sites that discuss these issues

in depth, but I wanted to offer my experience about learning the aesthetic side. While my

situation is unusual, I think it can help offer some ideas about the kinds of learning

situations that can best help you apply these things in your own photography. Apologies

in advance for those who frequent the Photography forum on The Motley Fool website, as I

just posted some of these thoughts there earlier this evening.

I work professionally as a digital lighter for computer animated films. While I can't

recommend changing careers to learn more about how to be a better artist, I've found the

style of critique that I've encountered in that work has forced me to learn these principles

as they are applied to practical problems in creating a visual image.

The experiences I've had there have helped my photography because the constant detailed

critiques from art directors have taught me to be attentive to the kinds of details that

make an image effective or undermine its impact. For example, I now spend a lot more

conscious attention thinking about how the background, even if out of focus, will affect

perception of my subject or work for or against my subject aesthetically. I think more

about how the angle of the key light striking the subject will bring out or flatten the

subject's shape, what choices I need to make about color and contrast and hardness or

softness of light, and so on.

It's easy to have someone explain these principles to you, in a class, a book, or a web site,

and I've heard plenty of photographers I respect talk about them, but it's another thing

entirely to subject yourself to withering critiques of images that have problems and go

back again and again to correct them until you've addressed every issue to the art

director's satisfaction. It's humbling, but a great learning experience.

My advice to someone who wishes to improve the impact of their work is to find a

*trustworthy,* highly skilled artist who's willing to offer your work repeated critiques.

Photo clubs can be great for this if the members are good, but watch out, because quirky

tastes can be reinforced in those kinds of settings (leading to environments where

members disparage work that isn't critically sharp, for example, regardless of content, or

where critiques tend to pressure members into converging into a common style.)

Incidentally, most of my portfolio here predates my having had these learning experiences

because I've only been working in an artistic capacity for about the last year or so.

However, I'm hoping to have some new photography to post soon!

-- Mark

I have been using my D200 with a manual 50/1.2 AI and it's been very nice. The biggest issue is that you really have to rely on the in-focus indicator in the viewfinder, because the focusing screen is partially transmissive for better brightness and it can be a bit hard to judge the precise point of focus just by looking.

-- Mark

One suggestion that has GREATLY reduced my dust problems is to tilt the opening of the lens mount down while removing or attaching lenses. Most people have a tendency to tilt it upward so that they can see what they are doing, but by tilting it down, you're less likely to have dust settle into the camera body while changing lenses.

-- Mark

When you shoot a JPEG image, your camera is internally doing all kinds of processing that could have this effect. I'd check out whether you have that issue with RAW mode photographs.

Either way, unless you can see banding or posterization, it's not a big deal.

-- Mark

Is there any correlation between the problem and the lenses you're using? A problem with

the lens diaphragm might cause underexposure.

-- Mark

One thing nobody's mentioned is that a wide-angle to tele zoom like a 28-200 requires a

LOT more design compromises. Issues like corner sharpness, vignetting, and flare tend to

crop up much more frequently in such lenses, and though they have gotten a lot better

over the last five to ten years, a 70-300mm telephoto zoom in a similar price range is

likely to be a better lens overall from an image quality standpoint.

Both lenses are somewhat cheaply constructed, though. You might just see whether you

can find an older model of 80-200 f/2.8 in the under-$500 price range. That's a glorious

lens.

I like your portfolio, by the way.

-- Mark

I have the two-ring 80-200 AF-D with tripod collar, and when I've tried the AF-S version of

that lens, it was faster but not as much so as you might think (at least with my D1x and F100

bodies.)

I can't compare it with the 80-400 VR, but I've never felt like it focused slowly in an absolute

sense.

-- Mark

Steve:

Your perception of sharpness depends a lot on exactly what you're doing with those

images and how you're viewing them.

I don't know whether you were scanning transparencies yourself, but your scanning

software may be applying sharpening automatically, or if you're having a vendor do it, they

may be sharpening for you.

That you say using Photoshop to sharpen isn't helping raises questions for me. How

exactly are you sharpening? Can you show a before and after image?

I took a few pictures of a box of tea with my D200 at some different settings just to check

it out. I was using a Nikkor 35mm f/2 prime at a distance of a few feet. Here are 100%

crops from the center of the image. (I was focused on the seam down the center of each

crop):

http://www.melscripting.com/sharpness.jpg

I verified that this JPEG image produced the same impression of sharpness as the original

uncompressed 16-bit image before I posted it.

In the first case, the 1/40 sec shot at f/4.5, the softness of the image is from camera

shake, as I was shooting handheld. The common rule of thumb for 35mm photography is

that one over the focal length is the minimum useful shutter speed for handholding, but

that's not a conservative rule, and the digital crop factor and high resolution are working

against me as well. Still, in a 5x7 print I probably would not be significantly annoyed by

that degree of camera shake.

In the second case (at the bottom), the 1/160 sec shot at f/2.2, the softness is due to the

shallow depth of field. Because I have my camera set up to manually actuate the focus

with the AF-ON button and trip the shutter separately, I seem to have moved a bit, but the

in-focus areas are sharp.

In the third case, I stopped down to f/8 and used flash at 1/250 sec. In this case, the

image is sharp enough to see the halftone dots of the color of the surface of the box.

All three of these applied some moderate sharpening in the Photoshop raw importer, and

it did make a difference, but that sharpening is dominated by focus accuracy and camera

shake.

There was an additional 1/160 at f/8 picture that was just as sharp as the 1/250 example.

Assuming that the old 35mm guideline needs to be adjusted for the digital crop factor, it

would have suggested that 1/50 or so would be where I'd have an acceptably sharp photo,

but you need twice that and somewhat stopped down to be sure.

So, if you're trying to achieve critical sharpness at 100% from your camera, I'd recommend:

1) Stop down to f/8 or f/11.

2) Get enough light on your subject or crank up the ISO enough that you can use a shutter

speed of 1/(3*f) where f is your lens focal length in mm.

3) Start with a raw image and use Photoshop's raw importer. Use the sharpness filter built

into that to add a touch of extra punch.

Honestly, I have been SHOCKED by how sharp my images have been with the D200 when

i've had plenty of light and good focus. However, it also shows me pretty well where I've

gone wrong.

-- Mark

How are you shooting and processing your images? There's good information in this thread.

I own both cameras and these folks seem to be right that it's just a softer default in JPEG

mode, which you CAN adjust.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FPtn

-- Mark

Yeah, the D200 is the first digital camera I've used that actually feels like something practical to use and with feature set and robustness to last. I do have a D1x, but it's simply too huge to carry with me when I travel... nice for studio work though.

-- Mark

Most current digital SLRs, including the D200, have a practical dynamic range of about 8 stops, which is better than transparency film though short of negative film. I haven't seen or heard anything that would suggest that full-frame 35mm format digital SLRs are doing better than that, although there's always the possibility I guess...

-- Mark

If you liked the 50mm, you might consider picking up a 35mm f/2 for your camera. It's just a bit slower, but the cost is not outrageous (under $300) and it has a very similar field of view used with a 1.5x crop digital camera.

-- Mark

There's a setting for this.

Go to Preferences... on the iPhoto menu.

Click on the Advanced icon at the top.

There's a checkbox in that window titled "Use RAW files with external editor." Turn that

on.

The NEF files, not their JPEG conversions, should then open in Photoshop.

-- Mark

I have a Mac, and I love it, but just for the record, the current OS version (10.4.5) does not yet support the D200's raw files. D70s, D50, and (I think, please check before relying on it) D2x are fine, though.

-- Mark

I'm not sure how posting here will settle anything, but here goes:

Speaking as someone who makes a full-time living from digital imaging, a lot more goes into a good photograph (particularly a product photograph!!) than resolution. Some important factors are:

* Accuracy of color.

* Control over direction and intensity of light.

* Absence of distortions (such as those that make straight lines appear to bend in a picture)

* Wide dynamic range (the difference between the darkest dark and the brightest highlight.)

* Precise placement of focus on the subject

* Having the ability to blur areas other than the focus plane in order to separate your subject from the environment.

Because it gives the photographer control over how warm or cool the light appears, because it can control professional lighting equipment, because it uses optics that are probably better corrected, because the imaging sensor is larger and has better electronics controlling it, and because the autofocus system is fast and provides extensive control to the photographer, all of these areas are won by the D70s over any point and shoot camera.

As far as the professional photographer sending her assistant, the biggest issue there isn't the camera but whether the assistant is a skilled photographer. Presumably the photographer has thought about whether the assistant can do the job, I hope. :)

As far as how much resolution you need for a poster-sized print of a product, the real question is how it's going to be displayed. An 8"x10" photographic print from a 6 megapixel image looks great when viewed from 12 inches, so that same 6 megapixel image would produce a

40 inch by 50 inch poster that would look great when viewed from five feet, and who's going to want to get much closer to look at a poster that big?

-- Mark

I have one.

Answer to #1: You're in "Matrix Balanced Fill Flash" mode. The camera probably has a flash icon and "slow" showing on your display. The shutter will open for 1 second to expose far away parts of the scene properly that the flash can't illuminate, and the flash will go off just enough to bring the foreground up to the level of whatever is in the background. If you don't want that to happen, switch to the mode where just the flash icon is indicated.

#2: I don't think the SB80DX can automatically set the zoom head wider than 28mm. There's a little plastic lens that you have to pull out of a slot and flip down. I may be misremembering. If you don't do this, you'll get dark at the edges of your wide-angle image.

#3: In Manual mode, you want to set the flash so the distance indicated on the flash's display is the same as the distance to your subject. The amount of light that will properly expose the picture is greater if your subject is farther away and less if you are close. TTL mode chooses that amount of light for you, manual mode allows you to dial it up or down, and the flash conveniently tells you how far away a subject has to be to be properly exposed at whatever the current setting is.

#4: No matter what mode you use for the flash, any shutter speed at the camera's fixed flash sync speed or slower can be used with good results. I don't know what that flash sync speed is for that camera but I'm sure it's in the manual.

-- Mark

<i>Once you go digital, you won't go back!</i><P>

I can't agree. I shoot a mixture of digital and film, and have actually used film more in the

last couple of years (because I find that using a rangefinder camera with negative film

helps me do a lot better in the kind of low-light people shots that I enjoy taking.)<P>

Having a digital SLR body is a must, though, because you can practice much of your

photography without concern about the cost of film.<P>

-- Mark

Ilkka:<P>

<i>Mark, noise scales with sensor size in the same way as grain does with different film

formats.</i><P>

Exactly. That's the reason that medium format images usually appear to have a smoother

tonal range than 35mm images when printed at the same size, and the same effect is

present if you're discussing scaling digital images of different resolutions to the same size

(or printing at the same size, as the case may be.)<P>

<i>When you start with e.g. a 10 MP D200 image, and print it at a lower size (say 6MP),

the noise per pixel does go down, but it shouldn't go any lower than that in a 6 MP

camera-original model, unless the D200 is just a better made camera</i><P>

There are two issues, average noise amplitude (which is a measure of the average

brightness of the noise) and the noise frequency distribution (which is a measure of the

scale of the noise.) Lower resolution cameras often have lower average noise amplitudes,

while higher resolution cameras have higher average noise amplitudes but also higher

noise frequencies.<P>

The vast majority of the noise in any digital camera is at the scale of one pixel, and scaling

down tends to smooth the amplitude variations from pixel to pixel by averaging them out.

However, the average level of the noise remains pretty much the same across this

averaging and tends to reduce the contrast.<P>

In the case of film, the noise amplitudes are the same between 35mm and medium format

(assuming identical film types) but the spatial frequencies scale with the format just as the

frequencies of noise in digital images do.<P>

My point is that the higher frequency noise of a high-resolution sensor looks smoother

when scaled down to print at a moderate size, even if its average value is higher, which is

analagous to the mechanism of medium format film seeming tonally smoother at a given

print size to 35mm. The increased average noise value that can come with a higher

resolution sensor tends to clip and raise the darkest blacks, but that effect is arguably less

noticeable than high-frequency noise in an image.<P>

Incidentally, it's quite likely that the D200 has higher quality components that keep

average noise lower than the cheaper cameras. Most consumer electronics manufacturers

put better components into their higher-end products because they can afford to do so

and to preserve the impression of greater value for those products.<p>

-- Mark

The D200 and D2 series have a custom function that will turn this behavior off. I believe the D50 and the D70 do not.

-- Mark

I'll also offer the thought that it's usually pretty hard to make a picture completely

unpalatable with depth of field as long as you have the right center of attention in focus.

Actually, in my own work I tend to follow the principle that shallower is usually better, so I

shoot wide open (and buy lenses that support this quirk.) :) It's only if you're really going for

wide-angle near/far compositions that you'll find insufficient depth of field really frustrating.

-- Mark

Equally good to a first approximation I mean. They obviously demonstrate measurable

differences.

Absolutely you're right, the body is important. I think the reason people are saying "don't

worry about the body" is that with the current generation of Nikon cameras, they're all

equally good.<P>

I can't recall whether I said this earlier in the thread (I think I typed it but didn't hit

"confirm") but one big difference between resolutions is the <i>scale</i> of the noise in

the picture. You may lose some of the fine detail you've captured when you scale your

image down for an 8x10 print, but you'll also average out the noise to some extent if you

started at a higher resolution, because noise in these cameras stays at about the scale of a

pixel.<P>

In the film world, this effect is a big reason that medium format prints can look better

even at 5x7 than 35mm prints. Some of the enormous amount of captured detail has

been thrown away in printing so small, but the tendency of the noise to average out makes

the tones much smoother. I suspect (though I haven't personally tested to demonstrate it

to myself) that this effect will also make images that originated at higher resolutions look

smoother in tone.<P>

Not that grain, or noise, is a bad thing -- often it can be used as an effect in itself.

However, in the digital world it's so easy to <i>add it back in</i> that starting with a less

noisy image is better.<P>

Note: I'm not saying that at the scale of one pixel the noise is any better with the higher

res cameras, just that when scaled down to the size of a 6 MP image, one that started at

10 MP will probably have less prominent noise.<P>

-- Mark

The only lens they make right now in 105 is a macro lens. Presumably a forthcoming VR

model will be different optically? If you want the new model, waiting until it comes out to see

what people think would probably be a good idea, because it may not be the same as a

current one.

-- Mark