dan_k6

I just wanted to know if charging all our camera batteries, AA NiMH's, battery

packs, etc. consumes a significant amount of electricity. In other words...do

you think it costs a lot of money for all that charging?

G.V.,

Thanks for that link. I just saved $5.00!

Thanks Kent and Edward.

Edward, should I be concerned about the advertised self-discharge rate of the IMEDION's. There's nothing like having fresh batteries when you need them right away.

I am definitely going to pick up that 8 bay charger. I didn't know that conventional chargers stop after the first battery has been fully charged. That's scary.

Cool!!!

Great pictures BTW Wayne.

I currently use the Impact brand of NiMH AA's that B&H sells. They come with a

sleek cordless wall charger. The problem is they take forever to charge. I

would estimate minimum 4 hours. Also there are times when the batteries just

sit around because I am not using the flash and they gradually lose their charge.

I just checked out this company called MahaEnergy. They make some nifty

batteries and chargers. They have this brand of battery called IMEDION. It is

rated at only 2100 mAh though. The cool thing about this battery is that is

doesn't lose it's charge. They claim that it may lose 5% over the period of 1

year. This sounds great. I might pick a few pairs up as well as their 1 hour

charger.

My question is...Am I going to notice anything with 2100 mAh versus what I use

now at 2700 mAh? I certainly appreciate the convenience of these IMEDION's but

I don't want to sacrifice a considerable amount of power.

I wouldn't call it a lazy man's choice. There are always some situations where you just can't move around or you need the speed of the zoom. That's where this lens comes into play.

I agree with you that while $479 is an amazing deal on a brand new 2.8 zoom, sometimes I wonder if spending $479 for a 2x zoom is really worth it.

Again, for what I do...I need the zoom so the 35-70 is a steal in my book.

Juanjo,

I've used those screen protectors on a few of my point and shoots, PDA's, and iPod.

I feel the best one is the invisibleSHIELD. It comes with spray and a squeegee. Some of the films on the market can get cloudy and some have more problems with air bubbles than others. I've never had problems with bubble with the invisibleSHIELD. They also have a lifetime warranty which is pretty cool.

Personally on a DSLR, I would rather have one of the plastic shields take any abuse as opposed to a sticky screen protector.

http://www.shieldzone.com/item_description/NKND200.html

Does anybody use the AH-4 handstrap with the D200? I bought it but for some

reason it just does not feel right. I should note that I don't have the grip.

The camera feels secure on my hand but I can't move my wrist enough so that I

can navigate the thumb dial.

Is there a better hand strap you recommend. I use an RRS L bracket so I am

threading the strap through it.

The AH-4 is constructed very strangely in that it has a piece of Velcro that

wraps around your wrist but I feel the length of that piece of Velcro is too short.

Thanks guys.

I just bought Jason O'dell's eBook. He does have an addendum for version 1.3 which is available for free.

The Nikon site is nice too and I'll use it as a reference.

Thanks again.

Thanks guys.

Paul,

Have you had any experience with this eBook? Would you say it is rather complete? Do you feel it leaves anything out?

Thanks

D2H is a 4 MP camera.

As far as bang for the buck and what you want to shoot and the features you want...why don't you just pick up a new D300.

For the 8fps, I don't think you can really go cheap.

You listed film cameras in there as well.

With all the different equipment you suggest..."bang for you buck" becomes highly subjective.

I've had a copy of NX for 8 months now but I don't know how to use it at 100%

capacity. Is there a tutorial DVD that exists. I heard the book by Ben Long is

disappointing. Or do you know of a good book tutorial?

Does Nikon School offer an NX class?

Thanks

If you were shooting people with flash, what settings would you use on the D200?

Tom,

In one of your posts you said to get the shutter speed up to 1/250 to get the ambient light out of the picture. Do you mean I should be using another speedlight on stage for this?

Also does the custom white balance alone take care of the color cast or is the color cast strictly because I have flash and ambient light?

And I believe you are recommending not going with TTL BL and just sticking with TTL. What is TTL BL for anyway?

I personally have a $145 B+W 77mm MC circular polarizer.

I used to have a 62mm Tiffen circular polarizer and it used to work just as good.

I think I just bought the B+W because the lenses I use it with are really expensive and I don't want to skimp on quality.

I wouldn't spend too much money on a 62mm filter. Just stick to a regular Tiffen or Hoya. They should be good.

Thanks everybody.

These pictures were at night. I don't know too much about which type of lights are illuminating the Church but I know the lighting is more warm than cool.

I do have the D200 setup like Ken Rockwell. How did you know? The vivid settings seemed to make the colors pop. I know that by going Vivid, something is suffering but I don't know what.

These are JPEG's. I never bothered to shoot RAW because I still consider these snapshots.

I have an expodisc and I did try to point it at one of the lights to get a CWB but it kept saying "no good."

I wish I understood what geling a flash meant. I put one of those gel's on my sb800 one day and popped it off a few times and I noticed the gel started to buckle so I got scared and took it off.

I tried using faster shutter speeds at previous events at this Church but what was happening was I was getting even darker backgrounds. I had a post on that a while back and I was told to drop the shutter speed to balance the light. I agree it is working but It's not coming out the way I want it to look.

For the flash, I do have the diffuser on. I believe for the on stage shot, I did have the diffuser off and the white card up.

I do want to add, that I'm purely guessing my exposure values when I'm shooting at this Church. What I mean is I walk in, dial in a few numbers and if they are coming out good, I stick with them. I know this is wrong but I don't know how to manually set my camera properly. The 70-200 is such a great lens but I cannot get it to work for me Indoors. If I didn't tell you I took the picture of that girl with a 70-200, you'd probably not believe me as it is soft and doesn't jump out at you.

Was it wrong of me to dial in +2/3 flash compensation? By doing that, I almost exhausted my Quantum Turbo SC within 2 hours of shooting.

Is it really possible to get good results without flash in a place like this?

Here is an example from the other end of the Church of that structure that looks like a "tray ceiling."

I think my flash is hitting that elongated piece at the top and it is not making it's way inside where the stage would be.

In this third and final picture, I am ON THE STAGE. I am within the border of the tray ceiling that I was referring too earlier so the bounce flash is confined to the stage.

In this picture things look much better and the wall looks more like the way it looked in real life albeit a shade lighter...which is fine.

34mm f4.5 1/100 ISO 400 same flash setting.

In this second picture, I am using the 70-200VR again from the front of the stage

155mm F4, 1/100 (I was scared to go higher because I didn't want a really dark background.) ISO 400 same flash.

This background is disgusting and it doesn't even look like the flash hit the girl.

I was checking out two shoots I did at Christmas and New Years Eve at Church. I

was using the D200 with the 17-55 and also 70-200VR with SB800 bounced +2/3.

The walls in this Church are eggshell but more often than not I keep getting

"warm" walls...sometimes with the 70-200@200mm, I would get an orange

background. Why is this happening. What's even strange is that in one or two

pictures the wall actually came out white.

I think I have an idea but I would like your interpretation. I'm usually at the

front pews moving around in front of the stage. The stage is about 3 steps up.

The stage is enclosed by what resembles a tray ceiling. It's not really a tray

ceiling but there is this 2 foot border that protrudes from the ceiling and in a

way "encases the stage." So when I'm bouncing the flash, I believe the flash is

hitting this "border" and bouncing back at me. Very little if any of my flash is

really getting on stage. They really don't like it if I jump on stage with them

as it is a distraction so I'm confused.

I asked a while back if it made sense to put a remote speedlight on the stage to

correct this. I wasn't very detailed last time so I didn't get a good response.

Some posters said that another speedlight would create weird effects. I'll

post a picture or two to show my problem.

I thought a camera like the D200 with the SB800 should get this right the first

time every time.

In this first picture, I am standing in front of the stage.

This is at 1/50 sec. f5 50mm ISO 400 SB800 bounced at +2/3

The wall did not look that dark/warm in real life.

It would be nice to go to 10mm. After reading KR's review and seeing his sample pictures, I did notice the other 3 lenses did look better but 12mm and 10mm is a big difference.

On a similar subject, which lens performs best @ 12mm?

I plan on using 12mm quite a bit.