peterafle

<p>Thanks for the perspectives, guys -- very helpful. <br>

Michael -- those orchids are lovely<br>

CPM -- great minds think alike; I was definitely planning to try these lenses with my extension tubes and bellows. <br>

Thanks again,<br>

PR </p>

<p>Was going through some of my old gear, and found my dad's old Asahi Pentax SLR (the camera I cut my teeth on) and a couple of lenses, a 50mm and 100mm, both M42 screw mounts. On a whim, I did a search to see if they could be adapted to mount on my Nikon DSLR bodies. Found <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/97559-REG/General_Brand_ABSN_Nikon_AI_Body_to.html#features">THIS </a>and <a href="http://dotlinecorp.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1112&products_id=6600&zenid=c63136aeca2ce554887d30d751bc88c9">THIS</a>.<br>

Does anyone here have any experience with such a setup? Any risk of damage to my cameras with such a mount? I have a D90 and a D50 -- I know this would be strictly manual-mode...<br>

PR</p>

 

<p>+1 for Capture NX2 -- it does a great job automatically correcting CA (and correcting distortion from many Nikon lenses, as well -- the 18-200 has quite a bit of distortion at the wide end, so this can be really useful). The free trial is 60 days, so you have plenty of time to decide whether it's worth buying (I use it almost exclusively now).</p>

<p>My mistake, Francisco and Rob -- you're right, I was looking at the 1.8 AF-D version. Which begs the question "is one stop worth a thousand dollars..." :-)</p>

<p>To me, the real question is this: at ~$1700US, is it four times better than the AF-D version (which is advertised right now at closer to $400)? </p>

<p>Chuck -- looks like your second post went up while I was typing mine. A couple of additional thoughts -- </p>

<p>First, even though you're just starting out, it's inevitable that you will end up with a sizeable collection of digital images in no time at all. My feeling is that now is the time to invest in enough hard drive space so that you are making decisions about your images based on the quality of the pictures and what you'd like to do with them, rather than on whether you have room on your computer to store them. On that score, there is no rule that says you have to save all your images permanently. I usually delete (permanently) a fair number of images after I've downloaded them onto my computer. Often they are pictures that looked sharp on the LCD on the camera, but on closer inspection, weren't worth keeping. </p>

<p>As for finding images 6 months (or 6 years) later? That's a whole conversation unto itself, but if you start now with a filing system that makes sense to you, it need not be a problem. I have tens of thousands of images, but they are all filed in chronological folders, labeled by day and event. I also use Nikon Transfer to rename the files as I transfer them, so instead of innumerable files with names like "DSC_9887.jpg," they have names like "2010-08-13_Chuck's_Birthday_DSC_9887.jpg". </p>

<p>Also, if you need to transport a few edited images to a client, and email won't do the trick, try a small USB flash drive. Even a 4gb thumb drive can be had for $20-30 these days. If he needs to see the images on site, your laptop screen is going to display them in a far more attractive fashion than even the 3" screen on your D300s.</p>

 

<p>Chuck -- Welcome to the wild world of digital photography. I have to second (third?) what Shun and Mark have already said. </p>

<p>I think you would be hard pressed to find many other photographers who save modified images back to their SD cards. A more common workflow would be to download all the images on the card to a hard drive (better yet, to two or even more locations as backup), and save any modified versions on your computer as well. The card then returns to the camera to be formatted, which erases all the images and prepares it to be used again (and again, and again). Programs like Lightroom and the Nikon software (CaptureNX2, Transfer and Viewer) are designed to help you manage, organize and optimize the images from the time you take them off the camera through processing to end use (printing, web display, etc).</p>

<p>The SD card is your re-useable digital "film." You should consider it temporary storage of your undeveloped images. Long term storage -- your "negative files" and "albums" -- all resides on your computer's hard drives. There are lots of excellent articles on digital photography workflow here on photo.net (<a href="../learn/digital-post-processing/">http://www.photo.net/learn/digital-post-processing/</a>) and elsewhere on the web. It will take some time and trial-and-error to decide what software and processing steps work best for you, but you'll find it all makes sense once you've spent some time exploring the options.</p>

<p>Again, welcome!<br>

Pete</p>

<p>Well, I feel a little foolish. As <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/2341/saturday-night-live-weekend-update-emily-litella-on-puerto-rico">Emily Litella</a> would say, "Never mind...."<br>

Francesco, thanks for pointing me to that option under Account Options -- it worked like a charm. Somehow, I overlooked it when I was hunting for a solution this weekend. <br>

Thanks for the clarification, Shun. Please feel free to delete or modify this post as appropriate.<br>

PR</p>

<p>Did I miss a memo regarding the change in format for the Weekly Wednesday Nikon thread? </p>

<p>I am struggling to adjust to the new multi-page format, but so far I have to say I don't like it at all.</p>

<p>I really liked being able to scroll back and forth through a single page to view the images, and compare them to one another. I'm finding that the new layout -- which splits a typical week's offerings into as many as 15 pages -- really makes it hard to view and appreciate all the photos in the context of the others. </p>

<p>The CoolIris photo-wall only helps a little, since it shows only the images and captions, and not the text of the original posting.</p>

<p>Anyone else yearning for a return to the old version? Or am I the only one? And didn't there used to be a way to choose whether the thread displays as one page or many?</p>

<hr>

<i>Moderator note: This option is adjustable via the "My Workspace" page after logging in to your photo.net account. This multi-page or all-on-one-page option has been in place for about a year. A recent site modification reset the default. You can adjust it to suit your preferences.</i>

</HR>

<p>Tell us more about what you're doing -- why not just dial down the flash output and dispense with the filter altogether?</p>

<p>+1 for the GGS glass protector.</p>

<p>MS -- the 1" is the shutter speed, and it refers to 1 full second. (The 1/8 you described is one-eighth of a second, which is also a pretty slow speed.) The camera would select this very slow shutter speed when the light is low. F 3.1 is the "f-stop" or aperture -- the smaller the number, the more light the camera is trying to let in (3.1 is probably as wide open as your camera can go). The 1" is red because your camera is warning you that it is essentially impossible to get a clear shot at that speed without putting your camera on a tripod.<br>

What shooting mode are you in? It sounds like you may have changed some of the default settings accidentally. <br>

I found the manual for the S520 here: http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/coolpix/S520_en.pdf<br>

There's a lot of really good information on the S520's various shooting modes starting on page 33 -- as you work through all those settings, you'll learn a lot about how to get the most out of your camera.<br>

Page 118 describes how to "Reset All" to restore the default settings. This may be all you need to do to get the camera to behave the way you were expecting it to.<br>

Good luck!<br>

Pete</p>

 

<p>Melissa -- Couple of additional questions --<br>

What are you doing with regard to white balance in the camera? <br>

Do the images look OK on the camera's LCD screen, but then become too red when you import them?<br>

Also, have you tried using Nikon Capture NX2? As I understand it, Capture is the only program that will properly read and display an NEF file with the camera's Picture Control settings intact.<br>

Looking forward to helping if we can. A sample or two would help us zero in on the problem.<br>

Pete</p>

<p>As Hans has said, the MB-D80 does not increase the continuous shooting speed on the D90. The grip only provides longer battery life. The camera will draw on one of the two batteries until it is exhausted, then draw down the second.</p>

<p>I've been absent from the WeDNEsDay thread for several weeks -- here's one I took while I was out. Visited the Gulf Coast twice to view the impacts of the oil spill. Here's a clean brown pelican flying near an island rookery -- the orange object in the water is a containment boom meant to protect the island from oil, and the brown and white floating stuff near the branch in the water is "sorbent boom" that is supposed to soak up oil that makes it through the containment. I wish I could say all the birds I saw were as clean and healthy as this fellow.<br>

Marvelous images this week already! Looking forward to seeing what everyone has to share today.</p>

<div></div>

<p>Oh, man! Those Souldier straps are awesome! I have all the camera straps I need, but I'm always in the market for a new guitar strap...</p>

<p>+1 for Nikon Transfer<br>

I use it to automatically rename all my images as they are uploaded to the computer to include the date it was shot and a descriptive word or two for the batch, followed by a sequential number and the original file name (eg 2010_05_29_Pool_Party_001_DSC1099). I also set it up to create a new directory for each batch of new photos, with a descriptive name (eg "2010 05 29 Pool Party) so I can find things quickly.<br>

It works for me, but there are lots of other options, and you'll want to set up something that reflects the way you think and the way you take and work with your pictures.<br>

As for renaming the ones you've already taken, consider downloading <a href="http://www.irfanview.com/">IrfanView</a>, a free image editing program with very powerful batch options that let you quickly rename/resize/convert lots of photos at once.<br>

I agree with Eric's advice to figure out an organizational system that works for you sooner rather than later. Better to invest a little thought and effort now than to spend hours trying to sort through thousands of images identified only by numbers later.<br>

Good luck.</p>

<p>I can't comment on any of the other lenses, but I love the 35mm 1.8 on my D90. It's sharp, fast, and a lot of fun to play with.</p>

<p>I've been curious about this, too...<br>

A google search on "cross processing photoshop tutorial" comes up with lots of helpful material.<br>

Here are a couple of links to get you started.<br>

http://layersmagazine.com/curvy-cross-processing.html<br>

http://abduzeedo.com/cross-processed-lomo-effect-photoshop-tutorial</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The whole image looks pretty much like this crop. I've noticed it on most of my shots.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Just to be clear, I was wondering how the image looks overall at less magnification -- did you look at it on your screen at, say 8x10 size and say "Gee, that's an unacceptably noisy/grainy image!" or did you only spot the noise when you zoomed in to 100%? <br>

Another thought -- if you are shooting RAW/NEF, is there any noise reduction applied to this image at all?<br>

The bottom line is that for a 100% crop, that doesn't look overwhelmingly noisy to me, especially if it's a little underexposed at ISO400. But everyone's line between "OK" and "Too Noisy" is different.</p>

<p>How does the whole image look? Did you notice any noise issues before you zoomed in to 100%?</p>

<p>

<p >If you do a search on <em><strong>"Lens Filter Ring Vise Camera Lens Opening Tool / Repair"</strong></em> on the great big auction site, you'll find a purpose-made tool for this job.</p>

<p >Never tried any of these, but here are a couple of do-it-yourself possibilities:</p>

<p > </p>

<p ><a href="http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/filterringtool.html">http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/filterringtool.html</a></p>

<p > </p>

<p ><a href="https://ritdml.rit.edu/bitstream/handle/1850/6180/ADavidHazyReport_04-2008.pdf?sequence=1">https://ritdml.rit.edu/bitstream/handle/1850/6180/ADavidHazyReport_04-2008.pdf?sequence=1</a></p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

</p>

<p>From the RRS <a href="http://reallyrightstuff.com/rrs/Itemdesc.asp?ic=B5&eq=&Tp=">website</a>:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"<strong>B5: Nikkor Lens plate for PN11 tube</strong></p>

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="1" height="14">

<tbody>

<tr>

<td ></td>

<td align="left"></td>

</tr>

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</table>

Specially designed for Nikon’s PN-11 extension (52.5mm) tube, with flange shaped to match heel of "bellied" foot on PN-11 tube collar. The B5 plate is tapped to permit stacking it atop the MPR-73 plate. This (B5+MPR-73) combo provides the clearance needed for mounting a B85-B flash bracket with the PN-11 tube behind the Micro-Nikkor AF 105mm/f2.8 lens. This permits 0.5X to 1.7X image scale, with the convenience of a rotating collar, and keeps the strobe centered, atop the lens, in both horizontal and vertical format."</blockquote>

<p>Another terrific exhibition of photographic talent!<br /> Not much time for picture taking this week, so I'm forced to go to the archives for virtual "toast" to all the great images today! Took this last December in Copenhagen when I was there for the UN global warming talks -- I liked the way the candle was shining through the beer.<br>

PR</p><div></div>

<p>Interesting link, Kevin -- do you know whether those points are still applicable to CaptureNX2?<br>

For the record, I shoot NEF and I tend to keep the Picture Controls on my D90 set to standard or neutral, but I have been known to shoot "vivid" from time to time. When I first got the D90, I even set up a set of custom controls that simulate the effects of shooting black and white film with colored (red, green, yellow) filters. I don't use those presets much, but they are kind of cool to play with.</p>