dwight200

<p>Better cameras are coming!</p>

<p>But nobody knows (or will tell us) just when they will arrive. In the meantime, I will repeat my standard answer to this question. If you need it now, get it now. If you just WANT it now, then whether you wait or not depends on the intensity of your desire. Only you can answer that question.</p>

<p>Of course you would like more information, particularly as to the timing. So would we all. IMHO, the best predictions will come from Thom Hogan. Most people's guesses are just rumors, but his guesses are based on more information than others'. http://bythom.com/2011predictions.htm</p>

<p>Let's go back to the softbox. Is it lit by incandescent lights or fluorescent lights?</p>

<p>I thought fluorescent lights might be showing some variation over the shutter transit time. However, since the bright band is always in the same location it's not likely that the light is the problem.</p>

<p>John: You're right. I mis-read the listing in the KEH site. There was one on flickr, but it was a couple years ago, and pricey.

<p>Looks like a really rare item.</p>

<p>http://www.keh.com lists one for about $700. Bargain condition, some filter ring damage. I've never bought anything from them, so I don't know just what that means, but I assume it won't take a filter.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I have a TC-20E II, which I occasionally use on my Nikon 70-200 VR I. At 200mm (converted to 400mm) the image is just a bit soft. At 180mm (converted to 360mm) the image is just fine. I generally use the combination with the lens pulled back just a bit, and the pix are OK. I have not tried a TC-17E , but it's supposed to be better. Also, the TC-20E III has aspherical components and is supposed to do a better job, but I haven't had one to try out.</p>

<p>I keep mine in the truck and use it occasionally. I have no problem unless I'm using long lenses, then I'm a bit shaky. I got a Manfrotto, and it's a 3-section telescoping unit which can extend the camera well above my eye level (I'm about 5'10").</p>

<p>I have an SB800 and a Nissin (not Nissan) Di866. I don't have an SB900.</p>

<p>The Nissin Di866 is CLS compatible. Sort of. I did a few tests with the DI866 and the SB800 and the SB800 worked better all the time. I didn't do extensive testing, but enough to make me want to keep the Nissin. It works fine as a commander for the SB800 as an off-camera flash (I have a D3 without a built-in flash), which is why I got the Nissin.</p>

<p>In a test using bounce flash in a small room, high ISO (3200), and Ch at 9fps, the SB800 would give me as many as 10 shots before the exposure fell off significantly, all on one charge. The most I could get from the Nissin was 3 or 4.</p>

<p>Using the SB800 as commander and Nissin as slave produced occasional skips. No skips the other way around.</p>

<p>The Nissin is not a competitor for a Nikon flash, but will act as a supplemental unit.</p>

<p>The Nissin also has a secondary flash which can be used to fill when the unit is pointed upwards for bounce. I haven't really played with this much, but it appeared to be too bright, even at 1/8 power. Maybe for more distant subjects.........</p>

<p>Welcome to the digital world. Since you're new to digital cameras and presumably digital photo processing, jpg is the easiest format to handle.</p>

<p>If you get serious about your digital photographs, you will probably eventually find that the raw format is more flexible when it comes to editing your photos. That's because there are more bits in the image and the tonal resolution is better. For that reason, you might consider shooting raw+jpg all the time. You can archive the raw files, or if you don't want to use the disk space you can take those pictures you're completely happy with and just delete the nef files, keeping the jpg files. The raw files can be used to correct a lot of settings on the camera that weren't right, and can give you more latitude on exposures. Once you get some editing software and learn how to use it you can go back and fix a lot of things.</p>

<p>For the long term, however, I'd recommend getting an external hard drive for your computer, and backing up both raw and jpg files there.</p>

<p>Another thing you will want to do is take all your bad shots and DELETE them!. Otherwise later on you have lots of junk to look through as well as your good pix. Deleting bad shots is a discipline that is best developed early. I didn't, and as a result I have more than 30,000 shots in my backup disk, many of them pure junk. And I don't have the time to go through them and delete all the junk now. (The reason I have so many pix is that digital pictures are free [once you get past the capital cost of the camera] and there's a tendency to take lots of pictures. If it looks like it could possibly be a good shot, I take it. Most of the time it isn't).</p>

<p>Good luck and have fun with your new camera.</p>

<p>On my D3, the jpg's average about 30% of the size of the NEF (lossless compressed). I used to shoot NEF+jpg (single card, second card used for overflow), but finally switched to NEF only. The only time I shoot jpg is when I'm taking a blank screen image for dust checking.</p>

<p>I use NEF only because that forces me to use a converter. I use Lightroom, which encourages me to tag my pix when I import them. With 30-40K pix on my computer, I find tags make a big difference when it comes to finding a photo a couple years down the road.</p>

<p>If you find that you're filling the buffer frequently, you might evaluate whether jpg only will work for you. Since the jpg files are smaller, you can pack more of them into the buffer before it slows the frame rate. I would expect that most sports pix could be done that way because the lighting is probably similar for all shots unless there are a lot of shadows on the field. If the activity is lit by fluorescent lights, I'd stick with NEF because you will probably run into color balance issues.</p>

<p>I have not tried the 24-70 on my D200, but it should work just fine. I also like the 70-200, which I have used on my D200. I'd say these are a good pair to upgrade to. They will also set you up for a future upgrade to FX if you want to go that way.</p>

<p>Before I got a D3 I used my D200 with the 17-55 and 70-200. The 18-200 was great for family outings and vacations, although the other two lenses were better for photos requiring the highest sharpness and low light applications. I was not bothered by the 55-70 gap. When I got the D3 I kept the D200, and I use it occasionally for shots requiring an internal flash.</p>

<p>Since you have a sizeable database of photos from your D200, you might consider running it through one of the analysis programs to find the distribution of focal lengths you use. When I did that I found the wide angle end of the 18-200 was used the most, but there was a secondary peak at 200. Knowing what you commonly shoot will help make decisions about what lenses you use. There are several programs available that read the EXIF data from all your photos and make a graph of focal lengths used (or shutter speed or ISO, or whatever).</p>

<p>Bjorn: Thanks. Was not aware of that product.</p>

<p>Since Nikon cameras don't come equipped with bluetooth, the GPS data will not go onto the photo file unless you add something, which then attaches with a cable and has to be put somewhere. So you haven't gained anything.</p>

<p>I have an Easytagger GPS and it works fine. It has one weakness: the cable attaches to the 10-pin connector, but the other end is just a friction fit into the GPS unit itself. The cable can snag things while the camera is hanging on your neck and can come out of the GPS unit, or can just be loosened to the point where it doesn't work any more until you push it back in.</p>

<p>If the cable were firmly attached to the GPS unit, you could let it dangle, or use a velcro strap to attach it to your camera strap. It doesn't have to be fixed on the hot shoe.</p>

<p>Depending on how old your flash is, you may not want to use a sync cord. Older cameras set off the flash with a mechanical switch. Newer cameras use solid state devices. Older flashes had a fairly high voltage on the sync line, which could damage the solid state triggers in modern cameras. You can get linking interfaces that protect your camera from high voltage sync lines if necessary.</p>

<p>I should note that you can't look at a NEF file. It's not an image. It's raw sensor data. It has to be converted to something else in order to see it on a monitor. Having said that, the NEF file does have an image embedded in it, but it's a basic jpg image, 8 bit range.</p>

<p>If possible, use whatever raw converter you are using to produce a 16 bit TIFF file instead of a jpg. See if that has the same issue. Or maybe just do the contrast enhancement directly in the conversion instead of after the fact on the jpg file.</p>

<p>I downloaded the picture and increased the contrast. I got the following image which shows posterizing. Is this what you're calling banding? It's due to the jpg having only 8 bits to define the color gradients.</p>

<p><img src="http://small-farm.org/00WP.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>I got an EasyTag. It acquires well, goes indoors a bit (not all that reliably).</p>

<p>My one complaint about it is that the cable to the camera has a small plug that goes into the GPS unit and is just held there by friction. When the camera bounces around on my hip, it occasionally comes loose and the unit quits working. It has to be checked frequently.</p>

<p>Other than that I like having GPS data on some of my pictures. I don't use it around home or at locations nearby.</p>

<p>The D700, like the D3, should do ISO 1600 just fine, with treatable noise. ISO 3200 has a bit more noise and will take more work to clean it up. This will be just fine for the ceremony, where flash is frequently frowned on.</p>

<p>At a weddingm reception, flash is more common and accepted. Everyone brings out their camera then. The action is fast paced and the lighting is frequently iffy. I'd say in that case flash would add a lot to the photos. You might still use moderate to high ISO levels and bounce the flash for softer light.</p>

<p>If you're talking about a "similar social function", it really depends on whether or not flash would be considered intrusive.</p>

<p>By the way, when taking group shots with TTL metering, some people will blink on the preflash, giving you a high probability of closed eyes. Rather than use the redeye mode on the flash, I just set the camera to high speed (Ch) and high ISO and take a burst of 3 or 4 shots of the group. That allows people to recover from their blink and you get a good photo on one of the later shots in the burst. If you get other people who are late blinkers, you have a set of shots to choose from and since the background doesn't change much during the burst you can swap heads in photoshop fairly easily. That's my approach. Other people have other ways of doing it.</p>

<p>Press the set button on the back briefly. The screen will show 6 icons. Use the arrows to navigate to the wireless icon and press set again. A screen will come up showing M (Master) and R (Remote). Choose Remote if you want the Di866 to be the off-camera flash. I'm assuming your camera has a built in flash. If it doesn't, you will need two flashes, one set to Master and the other, off-camera, to Remote.</p>

<p>After choosing remote, a screen will come up showing the group (A, B, or C) and the channel (1, 2, 3, or 4). Generally, group A, channel 1 would be just fine unless you are around other Nikon owners who are using CLS also. Then you have to choose a group and channel different from what they're using. Otherwise their cameras will trigger your flash.</p>

<p>After that, you have to set your camera flash to be a commander. How you do that depends on your camera. Check the manual. When it's a commander you can set the power levels on the on camera flash and the different channels/groups. Zero means that the camera sets the exposure via the CLS system. -1, -2, etc. reduce the power on that flash. +1, +2, etc. raise the power output of that flash. "--" means the flash is turned off (although the on-camera flash will fire at a low level to signal the other flashes).</p>

<p>Two things:<br>

(1) Resellerratings:</p>

<p>This is a good site to bookmark. Check it out for anything you plan to buy online, not just photo stuff.</p>

<p>(2) Flash:</p>

<p>The SB600 is a good flash. It has some limitations if you get into flash work, but for a beginner they're not serious. Another option is the Nissin Di866. It can act as a master or slave for off-camera work, where the SB600 is only good for on-camera work. There's a review of this flash at http://dpanswers.com/content/rev_nissin_di866.php</p>

<p>I recently got one, but haven't had time to check it all out yet.</p>

<p>TIFF's have a 16 bit option, so you have a large color space. However, I wouldn't save TIFF files straight from the camera. I'd save the NEF file since the camera is really designed for that format. You can then change it to TIFF in post if necessary.</p>

<p>I'd recommend that you take a bunch of test shots at both 12 bit and 14 bit. Then compare them to see if it is really going to make a difference. My feeling is that most of the time you will not see a difference, since it is likely to be very subtle and limited to the highlights or possibly the shadows. Digital test shots are free, so the only thing this will cost you is time. If you can't see a difference, don't shoot 14 bit.</p>

<p>I don't know anyone who shoots sports at 14 bit. Maybe landscapes or portraits, but not dynamic subjects.</p>

<p>I use Eneloops rechargeable AA batteries. They have a low internal resistance, so they don't get as hot as other batteries do, although they do get warm. They also hold their charge better for long times (a couple of months) unlike the batteries I used to use.</p>

<p>Condolances on your loss. I hope you have some family around to help you through this time.</p>

<p>Most of the above responses are directing you how to do this yourself. If you are not into photography and/or computers, I think it would be easier (and safer) for you to find someone local to help you rather than trying to do things with an unfamiliar process on your computer. We don't have a clue just where you're located, so it's up to you to find someone unless you want to publish your location (which I wouldn't advise doing on a public forum).</p>

<p>A local photography club is probably your best bet. Ask around and see if you can find one. The local school might be one place to check. Also the local senior center. Schools that offer community educational courses frequently have a photography course. The instructor can either help you or direct you to someone who can.</p>

<p>There are stores that specialize in making photographs from digital camera cards. One of them would be able to help you take the card out of the camera and make prints and/or a CD that you can use in your computer (if you know how to do that). Other places that make prints such as walmart or some drug store chains might be able to help if you don't have a local photo shop.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>There's a freeware program called something like ExposurePlot, that will take all the photos in a directory (and subdirectories thereof) and read the EXIF data and plot the distribution of focal lengths. That will give you an idea of what focal lengths are most important to you and can help you decide where the gaps are or which end to try to extend.</p>

<p>The f/ number is simply the ratio of the aperture (diameter of the lens) to the focal length of an equivalent simple lens. For example, an f/2 lens will have an aperture of 1/2 the focal length. It's a non-dimensional number, i.e. it's a length (diameter) divided by a length (focal length) so the dimensions cancel out. Since the light coming through a lens depends on the area of the lens, exposure goes as the square of the f/number, i.e. f/2 gives you four times as much light as f/4.</p>

<p>For todays lenses, which are multi-element, you can't just measure the diameter of the front element and divide by the effective focal length. For that matter, the effective focal length is most likely different from the distance between the front element and the sensor.So the f/ number of your lens is unlikely to be directly available to a person with a ruler.</p>

<p>Somewhere I heard that the widest aperture (smallest f/ number) for a Nikon F mount is f/1.2, but I don't have a reference for that number. Wider apertures are indeed possible, but for the Nikon F mount, not all the light from a wider aperture will be available at the edges of the frame. It would take a mount with a larger diameter to get all that light.</p>

<p>So it's likely that different brands of camera would have different limits to the aperture, since they all have proprietary mounts.</p>

<p>PS: another problem with small f/ numbers is that a lot of the light has to hit the sensor at an oblique angle. Due to the AA filter, this presents problems detecting that light.</p>