alistair o

I can recommend the 24-85 3.5/4.5 AF-S. I have it and really like the contrast and sharpness possible with this lens. Another candidate that lots of folk speak highly of is the Tamron F2.8 zoom in this range. About the same price as the Nikon 24-85 3.5/4.5 AF-S but a lot faster although not as fast AF (AF-S is hard to beat!).

I simply do not have sufficient experience with either of these systems to have an opinion on the efficacy of one over the other. However I now understand how each works thanks to the time you have taken to explain it Joseph and Michael. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

 

regards

Umm Eric, the F6 takes both film and CF. The CF stores the EXIF data.

MSp, thanks for the clarification. I did not realise the preflash thing was a Nikon only initiative and that Fuji et al (Fuji at least anyways) still use the traditional TTL route.

 

regards.

It is really easy to get confused in this area. I actually believe that iTTL is essentially the same as TTL, albeit modified due to the fact that there is no film plane in a digital camera to bounce light off.

 

TTL in the film world works DURING the exposure itself. When the shutter is released and the flash starts to discharge it sends its light to the subject and that light reflects back from the subject into the lens and onto the film plane. It then reflects off the film plane and onto a sensor. When the sensor determines that the film has had sufficient exposure it sends the appropriate signal to the flash to cease its discharge and turn off the light. All this in as little as 1/300 second (F5 min sync speed).

 

In the digital world there is no film plane and a CCD/CMOS cannot substitute for same in this function. Instead exposure calculations are made BEFORE the actual exposure by firing a preflash. The light from the preflash is reflected from the subject and travels back to the camera through the lens to a sensor inside the camera. This allows the camera/flash to determine and calculate the required exposure and a fraction of a second later the actual exposre occurs.

 

With respect to distance information, provided you are using a D lens and have 3D exposure metering, TTL and iTTL use this in the same way. THe camera knows its distance from the subject in focus and calculates its exposure accordingly.

 

Now layer on top of all this the concept of Creative Lighting System (CLS) introduced in the SB800 manual. This appears to refer to the ability to control a number of flashes wirelessly. I am yet to figure this out fully and what the difference is between this system and earlier wireless control.

MSp, thanks for the explanation of how digital bodies meter flash. One point though; the sensor which reads the preflash output is presumably inside the camera body and the light travels through the lens to hit it? If so then surely digital too can lay claim to the TTL nonemclature?

 

I must say this whole area is dreadfully confusing. I have recently purchased an SB800 to use with F5 and F2 and whatever digital bodies may come and go in the future. I wish someone would publish a half understandable instruction book (as opposed to the SB800 manual) that explains this technology. Currently I use a sprinkle of holy water and a brief incantation but am getting less than 50% satisfactory results with this method.

 

regards

 

Alistair

Also have a look at a near new F5 and compare that with what you get for the same money in the digital world (duck!)

If you read the DP Review 10D pages when Canon released the 10D you would have seen that they were full of focus and soft image issues. Hard to tell where the problem lies - manufacturers or users.

Be careful. I bought a Coolpix 5700 there a couple of years ago. Very good price. They debited my credit card then proceeded to sell me the charger and battery and manual. They also did not want to give me the box. Many of these so called discount shops are two bit crooks. I found out the hard way and the camera ended up costing me more than if I had bought it from the more reputable high st stores. Anyway it kind of had a happy ending as I did not really like the 5700 and sold it on Ebay shortly after I returned home for a little more than I paid.

Either would do the job. A85 has manual controls and swingout LCD vs the Elph which has neither of these but is a very compact and convenient size and is beautifully made. They have equivalent picture quality. You cannot really go wrong with either although personally for your needs I would go with a camera that has more in-camera sharpening and does not need post processing to get the best out of it.

 

I have the Elph 400 which is basically the same as the 430.

OK. SOunds like you have all the light you need and that speed is not really an issue and that you want a relatively small camera and that you probably do not want to piddle around with post processing of the image in photoshop or some other software. You probably need 3-5 megapixels.

 

Something like a Sony DSC-V1 at around $500 would be perfect. You can set in camera sharpening so that you can get a good image straight out of the camera. The Canon A75 or S500 are also good although I have a Canon S500 and Canon tend to make their images a bit soft out of the camera and expect users to post process to get the required sharpening.

 

If you want to spend the time to compare a few "on paper" I suggest you look at the various sites such as DPreview.com to view the reviews on the various cameras.

 

 

Good luck.

Robert, sounds like you are stuck with PPT. Sounds like you haave some pain in the a** managers there that have been taken for a ride by smart a#$ management consultants... don't get me started. Shame as a digital presentation projector will not "pop" the images out on the screen like an old analogue slide.

 

In respect of the camera that you need, it really depends on what you are photographing. If you need speed and good focusing in poor light then most non-SLR digital point and shoot cameras will struggle. You may be better with a Nikon D70 or Canon D300, both of which are plastic and are lighter than your old film SLR. The better point and shoot digital cameras like the Olympus 8080 are nearly as big as these smaller DSLR's. There is also the Pentax 1st which is a DSLR but is quite small.

 

Tell us what the conditions are you are using the camera in and what you want to achieve and we can better advise you on the camera you are going to need.

The 80-200 is still in production and will be for the forseeable future and it is a bargain. If your photography requirements mean you would not benefit materially from VR and AFS then get it. If the requirements of your photography demand VR and AFS then get the 70-200 provided you could not spend the extra cash better elsewhere. Optically the 80-200 and 70-200 are both great. They may be better at certain lengths and apertures but I suspect overall its a wash.

Leave it alone. You (or some "technician" you give it to) will do more harm than good screwing around with it. It has hardly been used. Think about having it looked at after another 3,000 rolls.

 

Alistair

That flashing of the ready light means that the SB800 believes that your photo will be underexposed. In your case it sounds like the SB800 is correct. It will also show you on the LCD by how many stops you are underexposed. You need to dial in that number of correction stops or take some other corrective action.

 

Can you please post a sample picture and we can tell you a little more easily why you are getting underexposure and what the best corrective steps may be.

 

Regards.

If you wish to sell the lens at some stage in the future, the Nikon will sell a lot easier.

I have an SB800 and F5 and have the same issues. The manual really is hopeless. Apparently there is a new book on its way from Thom Hogan on this flash.

 

I understand from you comments that you had spot metered this exposure and dialled in +EV on the camera body.

 

Where was the flash pointing? I have had the most success in this type of scenario by using A on the camera TTLBL on the flash and pointing it straight up at the ceiling. Have not yet tried the diffuser. Quite nice results though.

 

BTW, I like you image.

Thanks Ilkka for the information on the D70 CCD. I had not realised it is a new design.

 

David, fully agree with your last post on this.

"As for the D70, because the colours are much more true to life than with any film"

 

Hmmm. The old Sony CCD used in the D70 is reknowned in its other applications (7x7 series) for doing pretty radical reds and generally "disney" colors for many hues while being quite flat in others. Be careful of generalisations.

 

Film on the other hand is produced for specific applications (portrait, landscape, warm, vibrant etc.etc.).

Digital is fabulous. Great quality and it sure is nice not to have those film bills. If you persist with learning the D70 I have no doubt that you will get great images that come very close to scanned Velvia.

 

There are some draw-backs though. First is the cost of the bodies. TO get genuinely fast, good handling body fully equipped with vertical grip and mirror lock up (which in my view are essential) you need to be in the D2H territory. Furthermore, given the speed of the technology advancement at the moment there is always something better out in a year or two.

 

The second is the archiving issues of digital. I do not trust CD's for long term storage. That means that you need to store on hard drives with constant back-up. Too much hassle. I have 40 year old slides that have been stored i glassine slips and they are as good as the day they were developed.

 

I have been with digital since the early days but I find that I am shooting a lot of film still.

 

One final thought; for less than the price of a D70, you can easily pick up a mint F5 or even an F100. Now those are just legendary bodies, especially the F5 which will shoot 36 perfectly exposed perfectly focussed exposures in 4.5 seconds and is a thing immense visual and tactile beauty.

Thank You James. Very droll. And there I was thinking I had found the answer to the looming energy crisis.

Slides always look so good on the light table and when projected; do they look as vibrant when printed or can you really not tell them from negs once on paper?

Kacy, Get a drink and sit down and read this. http://www.moose395.net/f5/flash.html

 

This describes TTL in Nikon's the most recent generation pro film body, the F5.

 

TTL has had to evolve a bit in the digital world because you now have a CCD behind the shutter, not film. This evolution Nikon call iTTL. Just how it differs I am not sure. Someone else will need to respond to that.

 

regards

 

Alistair

Thanks again for all the responses. Just to close this one off, I got the prints back today.

 

All this leads me to conclude the F5/SB800 combo responds to this scenario in the following way:

 

-Flash will fire but with a very very weak flash (too weak really to effectively subdue shadow contrast)

 

-Aperture will be left at the one selected (remember it is in A mode)

 

-Shutter speed will not go higher than 250 sync speed (or 300 if selected through custom menu). If it did go higher than sync speed, the image would be ruined by a flash band where the flash fires while the shutter slit travels across the face of the film.

 

-the images will suffer from overexposure and insufficient fill flash

 

-fortunately I was using negative film, and although not ideal exposures, there is sufficient lattitude in the film for them not to be ruined.

 

-Lesson learnt!

 

Thanks again regards

Thanks for all the very useful responses. You answered my question. Looks like I will get overexposure in this scenario. What I was wanting to do was use wide aperture (to limit DOF) in bright sunlight and use fill flash to limit shadow contrast. Looks like that unless I want to use ND filter I will need to lose the shallow DOF by closing up the aperture.

 

Frank, I have read the instruction book (many times!) but will re-read it again. The FP mode that will allow me to use F4/4000 sounds just what I am after.

 

Thanks again for the time taken to respond.

 

regards

 

Alistair