jonb

It depends. Unless I'm in a situation where I expect to have to zoom a lot, I grasp the barrel near the front, in front of the focus ring, with my elbow resting on my chest for maximum stability. But if I do want rapid access to the zoom, I'll remove the foot or swing it up out of the way and grip the zoom ring.

Ronald: 5 posts down in what forum? Not the Nikon forums. I'm pleased that Tom posted it here, else I might not have seen it.

I'll confess that I don't quite "get" this. I crop a high percentage of my shots. I often compose shots in the expectation that I'll be cropping them later. I've taken shots knowing that I will later crop them to a long "pano" format. Others I've known would end up being square. To me, one of the joys of the digital revolution is the ability to easily break out of the mental frame imposed by the physical frame of the camera.

 

When I was shooting slides, I had to concern myself with making the shot work in the 2:3 format because I had no practical alternative. That's no longer the case, and I found the transition easy and liberating.

 

I think Nikon should use sensors that are as large as practical, leaving it up to the photographer to decide what parts of the image space to "throw away." Bjorn explained the physical limitations that affect the sensor width (image circle size) and height (register) of F-mount bodies. With the D3 and D700, Nikon is now making bodies that fully exploit that space. How you choose to use that is up to you.

Joe, your characterization of that page's content is curious. What the page actually says is:

<p>

"Adobe is committed to working with Nikon to ensure that our common customers have an excellent experience when

using Nikon cameras with Adobe software, and the company is disappointed that there has been confusion about this

in the market. Adobe wants to ensure that our common customers get the very best quality from their photos when

using our products together."

<p>

and

<p>

"For the future, Nikon intends to cooperate with Adobe and other industry members in order to pursue its

objective of providing images with better quality, convenience, and usefulness to end users."

<p>

Nowhere does it say "Adobe products will therefore mimic all in-camera settings made in Nikon products." The

cooperation between Adobe and Nikon takes the form of opening the Nikon

SDK a bit to allow third-party converters to read proper WB information, as Walter describes, from D2X NEFs. That

is the background against which the statement was made. By the way, that Adobe page is actually a <a

href="http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=130907&TICK=NIKON&STORY=/www/story/09-05-2005/0004100183&EDATE=Sep+5,+2005">joint

statement</a> by Adobe <b>and</b> Nikon.

<p>

It would be nice if ACR (and other third-party converters) could integrate Nikon's entire processing engine, but they

don't, nobody has ever claimed they did, and I don't foresee that they ever will.

Did you try the 50/1.8 with the D200 or try the 17-55 with the D3? In other words, does the D3 work okay with other lenses, and does the 50mm work okay with other bodies? Answering those questions might help narrow the problem.

 

If you have enough light to shoot 1/100, f/1.8 at ISO 800, you should have enough light for the D3's AF system.

 

Since the 50mm is an AF (not AF-S) lens, its focus actuation is completely different from that of the 17-55. I think more testing might help reveal whether there is something not working right or if it's "just" a difficult AF situation.

Fortunately for me, most of my use of the 70-200 is in the context of action sports shooting -- shots similar to Arthur's but with two-legged subjects -- shots that show the 70-200 at its best, especially on a DX body, although even there the 70-200's tendency toward flare and ghosting are an annoyance. But, Nikon, really, where is our updated 70-200 with FX corner sharpness and nano coatings?

If the adjustable ISO range can only be so many stops, I would rather have those stops at the high-ISO end for the simple reason that I can always add ND filters, but I can't always add more light -- especially good light. Yeah, ND filters are a pain, but not <i>that</i> much of a pain.

My first thought was the same as Shun's. A mirror that hadn't fully returned to the down position would cause all of the above. What would worry me is: What kept it from returning fully? Is there something broken? A foreign object in the mirror box? I think I would look around in there to see if anything looked awry.

Harbortronics makes some products that may fit the bill:

<p>

<a href="http://www.harbortronics.com/detail.php?id=18">http://www.harbortronics.com/detail.php?id=18</a>

The Nikon converters only work on Nikon AF-S lenses -- and not all of those -- whereas the Kenko will retain autofocusing with AF lenses. That's the reason you see the Kenko recommended when the question involves use with a lens that is not AF-S. And the Kenko is optically quite good.

The only way to truly get rid of it is to get the flash off camera -- way off camera. Flash brackets work well at portrait distances but not courtside.

 

The camera's red-eye reduction won't do much to help. It works, when it works at all, by causing the subject's pupils to close down. That requires that the subject stare at the light for several seconds. That's not likely to happen in a game, and if it did it would interfere with the player. So don't do that.

 

For field sports, I clamp a flash to my monopod well below the camera. In the gym, that isn't practical (not least because I don't use a monopod there). If you have a remote triggering system, wireless or wired, you can mount the flash up on the wall by clamping it to whatever is handy, then stand below it to take the shots. I've done that using two SB's to cross-light the key on a basketball court. Getting the flash a couple of feet away from the lens axis is what is needed to fix the red-eye.

 

Failing that, you can resign yourself to touching up each photo in post-processing.

 

These days I just dial up my D3 to ISO 4000 and leave the speedlights at home. :-)<div></div>

Well, I know <i>I've</i> done what I can to contribute to Nikon's bottom line.

Of course, you are assuming that some other company would be better as regards customer service. I can't remember the last time I got anything resembling decent customer service from a consumer products company of any sort. I'm not sure Nikon is any worse (or any better) in this regard than the industry as a whole. That's not a defense of Nikon; it's an indictment of the consumer electronics industry.

No, those plug-ins are for Photoshop. (Nik has some Capture plug-ins, but not noise reduction.)

 

Capture NX noise reduction isn't nearly as sophisticated as NN or NI. It's similar to the Photoshop "Reduce Noise" filter. Useful, but not as robust as the third-party noise reduction products.

 

I'm hoping that Nik, the authors of Capture NX, will make their Dfine noise-reduction software available as an NX plug-in.

Eric, I see AF-I lenses showing up on <a HREF="http://www.keh.com" target="_blank">KEH</a> fairly often. In fact, there is a 600 f/4 AF-I there as I write this.

The metering system (the 1005-pixel RGB sensor) is used to help the AF system determine which AF point to use in dynamic AF modes, but it does not directly participate in actual focusing.

 

The specification for the AF system's sensitivity remains as it was for the D2 bodies, so that aspect of performance probably hasn't changed much, if any.

 

The ISO setting has no effect on AF performance. (Except, perhaps in Live View mode? But that's not what you are asking about.)

One mark against the new 14-24 is the lack of a thread for filters on the front. That by itself makes the 17-35 an attractive option for those who want to go wider than 24 mm.

As Edward says, a standard flash bracket doesn't provide enough separation to make much difference. You need to get the flash at least a few feet away from the lens. Scott is correct that many shooters (me, for example) clamp the flash to a monopod a few feet below the lens and fire it via a cord or radio slave (PocketWizard, e.g.). Not just as fill, either, but as a main light source. This can make for odd shadows at some angles, but otherwise works well.

 

I wouldn't recommend available light unless you are shooting at fields lit a whole lot better than the average prep field. On fields around here, at least, even at ISO 1600 you're unlikely to get more than 1/160 at f/2.8.<div></div>

$275? Covers <b>at least</b> the same focal lengths? There <i>are</i> no other options!

<p>

Other manufacturers have 18-125 (ish) lenses. The only one I'm familiar with is the Sigma 18-125. I'd rather have the Nikkor.

<p>

Unless you want to step up to an 18-200, which is substantially more expensive, you really have no options that cover that range. The 18-200 would give you a larger range plus VR, if you can swallow hard and spend the cash.

I think this is going nowhere, Frank. Unless you have the circuit schematic of the SD-8A, your description of the SD-8A internal operation is speculation -- as is mine.

Frank, I think you're looking at it wrong. I don't think the SD-8A feeds the flash via the sync cord. Rather, I think the SD-8A is triggered by the pulse on the sync port that occurs when the flash fires. Perhaps this pulse is intended to take the SD-8A out of standby mode and get the high-voltage circuitry operating. (Note that the SD-8A has no on/off switch.) However, as I said, it doesn't seem to be required with the SB-800 or SB-25.

 

I don't think connecting the cord will have any effect on life expectancy of the camera, flash or SD-8A.

The SD-8A manual is quite clear that the sync connector should be plugged into the flash's sync port. It just doesn't say exactly <i>why</i>.

<P>

<A href="http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin/nikonusa.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=13820" target="_blank">This Nikon KB entry</A> shows the PC cord plugged into the flash and says of the cord:

<P>

<I>

This cable provides quick recharging and should always be plugged into the Speedlight.

</I>

<P>Maybe that's true under some circumstances, but I haven't been able to detect any different with the cord connected or not.

One thing I'm pretty confident of is that Nikon will make it right if problems are encountered in production models. (Ask D70 owners who suffered the "blinking green light of death" or D2H owners who had metering circuit failures.) That history substantially reduces the risk, although it doesn't quite eliminate it.

I routinely use an SD-8A that way, with the pack plugged into the front of the flash and a sync cord from a PocketWizard plugged into the sync connector of the flash (SB-800 or SB-25). I've never been able to detect any difference in performance with or without the SD-8A sync connector attached. I get a recycle time of about 1 second at full power either way. (As far as I know, the SD-8 and SD-8A differ only in the shape of the 3-prong power connector.)

 

If anyone actually knows the purpose of the sync connector on the SD-8(A), I'd be interested in knowing what it does!

No Nikon TC will give you autofocus with that lens, period. (The TC-14E won't even mount on the lens.)

 

I have seen it reported that the 70-300 VR and the Kenko TelePlus 1.4X Pro 300 DG will couple and operate. The caveats already mentioned about AF performance, manual focusing difficulty and optical properties apply.

 

I don't have the 70-300 VR, but my old 70-300 G and the Kenko TC have no problem mating. The rear element of the 70-300 doesn't come anywhere close to sticking out the back at any focal length, and the Kenko TC doesn't protrude much, either. That may not be the case with a 2X TC, but I can't imagine that a 2X TC on a 70-300 would provide results worth having anyway!