mark_dalrymple1

Heh. Even <a href="http://nikonians.co.uk">nikonians.co.uk</a> works. No Nikonans.cx

(thankfully?)

Read anything and everything. After awhile the opinions and the facts filter out.

I enjoyed magic lantern guide for the D200 (but it had some factual errors, like auto ISO,

which made me think it was an editing of another camera's book). Thom's ebook is

awesome too (a single CD disk can hold a *lot* of text. Plus it's nice having the electronic

format for easy searching) You can take it to Kinko's or a big office store and have a

bound version printed. There are also a number of D40 books on the shelves of Border's

or Barnes and Noble. If there's one near you it'd be worth thumbing through them.

Who's to say the Parent with the D3 at the soccer game hasn't devoted some time to learn

how to use it properly? "oh, you're taking pictures of your cats with a D3 automatically

makes you a poser with too much money and no sense" I'm sure if Ansel Adams was still

with us, and had a D3, he could make some awesome kitty pictures and soccer mom

tableaux.

And yes, I own a D3, and so far the cats and "amateur" things have been its main use so

far (hey, I've got a day job). I've also studied with Howard Bond and can wield a 4x5 view

camera. So I totally fail to see your point.

If you do want purty flower pictures, your local florist (or flower pusher in large grocery

stores) should have a plethora of colorful items for purchase. If it has to be shot outdoors,

make a small hole in the permafrost and put in rose or something. If nothing else, the

incongruity of the shot should be worth a smile or two :-)

But I agree with Matt - there's a lot of beauty in the 'mundane' winter.<div></div>

ideal_iso(D200) == 100. ideal_iso(D300) == 200. If you force the D300 to ISO 100, you're

crippling it (not horribly, but still not letting it do as well as it can). Low ISO does not

necessarily mean highest quality.

If you have another drive (like a portable firewire drive), you can install Tiger on that, and use

it for photo-world, and then reboot into Leopard for other stuff. Luckily I haven't upgraded

my desktop machine (where I do my Aperture work), but I have upgraded my lappy, where I

do all my non-photo stuff.

The machine's promised ship date was Nov 30, which is jut a few days ago. A number of

folks here and on other forums and mailing lists have been getting their cameras. It's a bit

premature to start complaining about shortages and looking for conspiracies.

The D300 isn't getting as much love because it's a D200++. The D3 is full of shiny new toys

we haven't seen on the Nikon digital side of the playground yet. Naturally it gets the most

attention and drool factor.

Same thing happened to me today. What caused it was using the ISO button by feel. I had

accidentally gotten the Qual button instead. I should have thought about why my shot was

exposed poorly. 10 shots later I relized I was on jpg normal and switched back.