eric_mudama1

<p>If your kids are little, 300mm on a D700 will be fine. If they're teenagers/high-school on a regulation field, you might find you want a bit more reach than that combo provides, or else you'll be limited to shots on the near quadrant of the field.<br>

I shoot soccer using a D300 and the 70-300mm, and it's just barely enough reach in DX format. Lack of light is only an issue for me at dusk, but you'll have another two stops to play with.</p>

<p>I think that "worst" should be qualified with value. Bagging on a $90 kit lens because it's inferior to a $1500 piece of glass seems silly.<br>

Comments about being disappointed by some of the 2.8 or faster stuff are very interesting reading...</p>

<p>Depends on how close you want to get to the baby... Some people prefer the 600 f/4 for baby photos.</p>

<p>Picasa 3.0 supports the RAW out of my D300, the earlier versions of Picasa 2 did not, and left me with big black squares in the preview window.<br>

My workflow, personally, is to shoot in RAW+JPG, remove my throwaways in picasa, then save the raw images to a different work area for use with the nikon tools. I basically have My Pictures\raw\<folder>\xyz.raw and My Pictures\<folder>\xyz.jpg</p>

 

If you don't yet own the 50/1.8, that's one of the best value lenses ever made.

 

For portraits, your 70-300 at 70mm should be pretty good already, it's a tad slow (4.5) but not that bad. Getting a full stop or two faster will be expensive.

 

For macro you'd probably want the 105, since the 60 in a full-frame may force you to get too close for the shots you want.

btw, I'm not even sure 300mm is enough, if I had the 200-400, that'd be my lens of choice I'd think for outdoor soccer.

After shooting the 55-200 for a while, I eventually gave it to my brother-in-law and bought the 70-300.

 

200mm on DX just wasn't long enough for me shooting outdoor soccer on a full-sized field.

 

Speed was/is only an issue well after sunset, otherwise I had no problems at all getting 1/1250 shutter speeds with reasonably low ISO (400-800), all shot wide open.

my guess is that the flash had to cool off before you could take more shots, my sb600

has a warning about this

Interesting find!

 

I just tested with my 10-20 and my 30/1.4 on my D300 (A1.01/B1.00), and found the same issue you see. My two Sigmas appear as whatever was programmed first, it can't tell them apart, but deleting one from the list and attaching a new lens will properly detect the focal length/aperture of whatever I've just attached.

 

All my nikon lenses with CPUs identify individually.

 

Bummer, since my 30/1.4 is the only lens I'm applying an adjustment to, but my 10-20 is my current favorite lens.

 

--eric

"AA NiMH batteries don't have enough capacity for camera use. Stick with the Li-Ion batteries recommended by Nikon."

 

Huh?

 

I'd think that 8x 2700mAh Sanyo cells would be pretty good.

 

The EN-EL4a cell is 11.1v/2500mAh, while the EN-EL4 is 11.1v/1900mAh, meaning a pack of those Sanyos should give better longevity than any other option.

The absolute #1 upgrade to the system specs you listed would be more memory.

 

Memory is very cheap now, you can probably get 2GB for $50-60.

 

Once you've done that, THEN decide if you need to spend more money. Pocket the remaining $940 once you realize that only RAM is what you needed.

The focal length doesn't change based on sensor size, it's always exactly as advertised on the lens. That being said, the field of view does change when using a smaller sensor, which they refer to as the "effective" focal length.

 

DX lenses simply don't use as much glass as full-frame/35mm/FX lenses do of the same focal lenghts, so when using DX lenses on a full sensor, you get vignetting... dark/black corners. However, because they're optimized for smaller sensors, they can achieve focal lengths not possible on full-frame designs, hence their "equivalence."

 

 

Yes, the Sigma 10-20 gives effectively the same field-of-view as a 15-30 would give on 35mm film, but that's still called ultra-wide.

 

The widest 35mm rectilinear lens right now (that I know of) is 14mm, so the sigma 10-20 comes really close in terms of perspective on a DX camera. (14mm on FX ~= 9.3mm on DX) To my knowledge, anything shorter than the sigma 10mm or the 14mm nikon is a fisheye.

Forgot to mention that the 70-300 is a fair bit more expensive, so if $225 is near the limit of your budget, try the 55-200VR, I think you'll really like it.

The 55-200VR is a good, lightweight budget lens. However, I sold mine and bought the 70-300VR to replace it. 50% more reach will offer more interesting pictures of small animals, in my opinion.

300mm is 50% more reach than 200... I sold my 200 and got the 300, and it's worked out great for soccer and birds.

Pre-AI works fine, I mount a 135 f/2.8 on my D40x all the time, the conflicting part would be the minimum aperture ring, which a D40x doesn't have.

Depends on what you do on your vacations. If you can get up close to your subject, the perspective on a 10mm lens is unique. I own one and love it.

The above posts are (IMO) good advice. I think the 70-300 is an excellent lens, and $150 off is a great deal.

I have both the 30mm/1.4 and the 50mm/1.8, and I wouldn't sell one to get the other. They're both good lenses. Yes, the 30mm is a tad softer sometimes (possibly due to slight focus miscalibration, possibly just user error with the extremely narrow f/1.4 dof) but they're both lenses that I enjoy shooting, and plan to keep as long as I own my camera(s).

"The 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor (Gauss design) is an excellent lens. I've used it on my D200 and have been very happy with the results. Just make sure that you avoid non-AI lenses (they have P*C in the name) or you could damage your lens mount. As for metering - shoot in manual t until you get a good histogram."

 

OP has a D40x, pre-AI lenses will not damage his camera because it has no physical aperture detection ring like their other digital bodies.

 

I've found that Hockey is the 2nd-worst-lit indoor sport, behind indoor soccer, so unfortunately you're just gonna have to crank the ISO or use very expensive glass, if you want shots at the other side of the rink. On the near side, a 50 1.8 would work for your own goal, but you're going to be cropping a fair amount, and it won't autofocus on your body.

1) Sigma's VR equivalent is called "OS", and their AF-S equivalent is called "HSM". If you don't see those acronyms in the description, it'll likely be missing a feature you want.

 

2) Picture quality is generally good to very good, but if you want the best sharpness you'll probably need to spend more money.

 

3) I have a D40x, and originally bought the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 because Nikon didn't offer a non-mechanical auto-focusing standard prime. I've also since purchased the Sigma 10-20mm, and love it. There's a fair amount of odd distortion, but the pictures are sharp and clear, and it's 20% wider than any other wide angle lens for DX-format cameras.

 

 

Can I ask what you're trying to shoot? You probably already have the 18-55mm kit lens. I had originally bought the 55-200VR as my 2nd lens, but found it just didn't have enough reach. I ended up giving it to my brother-in-law, and buying the 70-300 instead. Another 50% at the long end made the difference for shooting outdoor sports.

Oh, another thought:

 

superbikeplanet.com doesn't strip the exif data when they post their jpegs online, so find some of their racing pics that you like and examine their settings. It'll often tell you exactly what hardware and setup is being used for their photos.

I'd concur that 24mm won't be very wide on a D80, it's actually very close to the "normal" 30mm DX /50mm film perspective.

 

I have a sigma 10-20 and love it. The nikon 12-24 for DX and the tokina ultrawide zoom are both also popular lenses. None will be as fast as the 14-24 2.8 from Nikon, but that's a huge lens, very expensive (~$1800), and not nearly as wide on a DX body.

 

As for the zooms... the 70-300VR is great on a budget. If you're rich, the 200 f/2 w/ TC should fit the bill.

my guess is the OP's monitor is not configured to run at the panel's native resolution

Given that one huge advantage of the DX sensor size is the extra reach, it'd be neat to see a 70-200 2.8 AF-S VRII in DX for say $1k.

 

Or a 400/f2.8 DX for $2399.