mark soares

Dena,

try using the external power supply to see if it works - if it doesn't power on, put the camera in Preview mode and try to turn it on. If it still doesn't work then it needs to be repaired - for $181 Precision Camera will repair it for you. www.precisioncamera.com they can probably have it done in a week or so.

good luck

if i had a penny for everytime i hear this problem - its a function of the camera, READ your Manual!!!

I may be wrong on this so please bear with me but it seems to me that the problem is that you focused on the girl in the middle. Closing down the aperture is gonna increase the depth of field in front and behind the subject differently. The depth field is gonna have more of an effect behind the subject rather than in front of it, that's just how depth of field works, i think there is some mathematical formula as to why that is - i think it has something to do with the fact that beind the subject you have infinity and from the subject to the sensor is an obviously smaller distance than infinity. Anyways, the difference is very slight, if you want to eliminae this problem focus on the person that is closest and close down the aperture, then you should be fine.

good luck

Coco,

 

you have a bad shutter, can you fix it? no, but canon can. You have to send it in for repair as the shutter will have to be replaced. I think the shutter is malfunctioning and when it does give you an image it turns out soft due to the innacuraccy of its timing. It is best to have this handled by pros.

good luck

Ray,

Do a small test - charge your battery fully, insert it into the d200 and leave it on the camera while the camera is turned OFF - check the battery status 24h later to see if it has changed. If it drained the battery there is a leak on the mainboard probably that is causing this overheating. If it doesn't drain the battery, check to see if it overheats when using the flash, if thats the case the flash board is probably bad and may need to be replace, you can check easily by feeling the left side of the camera where the capacitor and flash board are located. The camera shouldn't be getting warm - i've noticed that rarely but on occasion the power board on the d200 heats up slightly, but thats on the bottom plate - the key to identifying whether there is an issue is to see how and if the battery is being depleted, if thats the case then it needs to be repaired.

hope this helps

No, it is not really fair to compare different lenses when one of them is a prime - its also not good to compare images taken with different camera/lens combinations. Having said that, look in the back element of your 17-40, is it dirty? if so clean it. Test the lens at 17 and 40 seperately and figure out which gives you the worst results. If it is on the wide end(17mm) then its most likely the properties of the lens since most variable focus designs tend to compromise image quality on the wide end - other things that affect the comparisons are the obvious differences in lighting - check your shutter speeds and adjust lighting accordingly before testing and ensure your using the lenses on the same body, shooting the same subject with the same lighting. Different lenses, different pictures!

hope this helps

Jeremy,

 

Alien Bees may not be top of the line but they will give you the results you are looking for - the only thing i recommend, as with virtually any strobe kits is that you invest on a Wein Safe Sync.When using any Studio Strobe with a DSLR camera it?s recommended to use a Wein Safe Sync for protection from voltage spikes from the strobe into the camera. This may seem trivial until your DSLR gets fried from these voltage irregularities that can sometimes happen.

Carlos, with batteries, as with everything, you get what you pay for. Most people tend to neglect the batteries assuming they will all provide the same results - you need to use 2CR5 batteries to get the proper results. If you checked the contacts and they look clean then try the new set of batteries - your situation would sound like the typical power "leak" that would cause the batteries to drain if you didn't mention that it started happening when you changed the batteries. Sounds to me like the batteries you are using are not giving you enough amp to power the mechanisms in the camera. If you try 2CR5 batteries and you still have the same problem the camera will need to be sent in for repair - but be warned! this problem is not easily diagnosed or duplicated, be very descriptive when you send this in for repair!

 

good luck

sounds like a shutter problem

The sony Alpha has a low pass filter on the ccd which filters out most of the infrared and uv light - putting an ir filter on your lens will give you a very weak ir effect because of this - the lowpass filter would have to be removed to correct both for the soft focus and the IR look your after. Because the lowpass filter sits on top of the ccd it focuses the image slightly above it, removing it will allow the IR image to be sharply focused on the ccd and correct for the fact that IR lighwaves focus at a different plane. Low pass filters can only be removed by disassembling the camera and it is reisky as it can cause damage to the ccd, however, the results can be amazing.

it can be cleaned if you take the back element off.

i dont think this is something you can repair - if it happens with different lenses, i think it could actually be the mirror not lifting up all the way.

you need to format the card on the computer, then format it on the camera. What happens is sometimes if you view files directly from the card on your pc and delete files or rename them it can cause problems because residual files can linger and only a pc formatting will remove them.

hope this helps

diopter adjustment or the screen is has moved slightly from its position

I have seen this before - if you are refering to multiple clack, 1 px thickness lines in every other pixel running horizantally across the frame then i have seen this problem and it is caused by either a bad ccd or bad mainboard - the darnest thing is that at times it will simply go away and work fine.

oh i just realized you have sigma lenses - ha, yeh, uhmm it's probably a lens problem

sounds like youre too close to your subject for the lens to achieve focus. It doesn't seem like its a lens problem at all - unless the lens was dropped or damaged in anyway i wouldn't send it for repair seeing as the camera focuses fine with other lenses

There's different color temperatures for different lights. There is Daylight, which is standard for perfect white balance, then flash which is equivelent to daylight, then tungsten light which is yellow and comparable to warm sunsets and then there's the dreadful fluorescent which gives everything a green cast. You need to either set a custome white balance in your camera if it allows for that by photographing something white in the scene or photographing a gray card and adjust in photoshop orset the camera to the specific mode that will perform best under that type of light. It's all about the color of light, you should do a search on different color temperatures.

are you kidding me? for $2000 for the body just get the Nikon d200, a nice wideangle lens and a telephoto and you should be all set.

I'm probably way off on this but, its a zoom lens, so zooming in is going to increase the focal length of the lens - meaning, a F10 f stop would be an F14 f stop at the longer length. Also the shutter speed would have to be longer if the length is increased - it seems like the camera is just compensating for the variation in focal length - this is just a thought, don't quote me on this

Take a series of pictures with the settings known to cause the problem. Then, compare them - did these spots move? are they in the same place? If they are in the same spot constantly they will need to be mapped out. If they moved then i'm guessing the lens is not covered evenly and the little light entering the lens is causing some noise to show up.

A regular IR filter fitted onto a flash would do, im guessing B&H would sell them - i know they sell the sheets of IR filters that you could cut and form to your flash but an actual adapter might be something you need to come up with yourself. If you use both the filter on the flash and the lens, then you will get a true IR image. If you just put the filter on the flash then youre just boosting the amount of IR light in the image which could be enough to get the results you need.

This is an weird proposition but theoretically, if B&W images are ok with you then you could consider using a infrared filter on the flash, with a IF filter on the lens you should be able to use the flash without any problems (the IR filter will block out all the visible light so they won't see the flash burst). If you need color you could do the same but the results may be a little weird. B&W will give you softer skin tones and a sort of glow around the figures.

just a thought

I think before anything else you should shoot both pictures again at 1/70th of a sec shutter speed. Minimum shutter speed should always be 1/focal length of lens. Both images look soft, if they still come out soft at 1/70th of a second then when you dropped the lens the mounting ring may have become slightly loose, causing a back focus problem.

i think if we all stopped obsessing over small technical specs and started shooting more, we'd all be a lot happier. If it takes a picture it's usable,who cares if it limits your shooting range... no camera is perfect! a year from now people will be arguing over the new model from nikon and why its not as good as canon's simply because it doesn't match their 34 megapixel sensor. This is all relative folks, just pick up a camera (any camera) and use it.