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farski

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Posts posted by farski

  1. <p>don't get caught up in the "pro lens" labeling. A pro lens is any lens that someone's making money with, and that could be anything. Of course, for people that work in the industry there are certain characteristics of more expensive lenses that allow them to do their job better. Fast lenses allow us to shoot photos with higher image quality with less light, so you'll see most pros carrying the fastest lenses they can afford, which tend to be 1.4 for some prime lenses and 2.8 for zooms. Zooms that have a consistent aperture throughout the range provide better light and allow for shallow depths of field at longer focal lengths, so you generally don't see pros carrying the 4-5.6 variable aperture lenses. But, like I said before, those aren't rules and you'll find wedding photographers making a living with "slow" variable aperture lenses and landscape shooters whose lenses aren't the absolute sharpest in the world. </p>

    <p>If you have money to through around, and just want to cover the basics, a D700, 14-24/2.7, 24-70/2.8, and 70-200/2.8 if a pretty rock solid setup. The 14-24 is probably not going to get a lot of use for the jobs you mention, so maybe just ignore that unless you find you need it. You probably want to do some more reading on the basics of the gear before you spend much money though if you aren't even sure on the needs for the kinds of shooting you're already doing.</p>

  2. <p>Lisa, I think you may be a little confused. To answer your second question first, the final images should <strong>not</strong> vary between each other because of how the lights are cycling. If you do enough fine-tuning, all your shots should be able to have the same (or at least very, very close) skin tones. Changing the white balance should more-or-less be able to cancel out any color cast from the lighting. Some will be way off, but most should be close. But in general, I prefer warmer tones for indoor shots just because I think most gyms look pretty dingy in real life and need some help.</p>

    <p>In regards to your first question, the difference between working with raw versus jpegs in terms of white balance isn't really an issue of simplicity or working in batches. It's really more of a technical matter where with a raw file, you're making the first and only decision about what the white balance of the photo should be; the camera takes the picture not knowing anything about white balance and you take the file and say "this is the white balance". With a jpeg, the camera is taking the photo, taking all the little bits of information about the pixels and coming up with it's own determination about white balance (either 'auto' or what you set it to) and spitting out a jpeg that has that white balance 'baked in'; the determination it made about white balance has effected every pixel in the image and there's no way to get back the data about the image before white balancing. So, if you take a picture as a jpeg and it's set to auto, and the camera says "ok this is a little too blue" and spits out a jpeg that it has warmed up, and then you bring it into photoshop and you want to change the white balance, you're changing an image that has already been white balanced; the original information about the image (which the camera thought was too cool) is gone, so you're left just working with some only part of the image data you could have been.</p>

    <p>It's kind of like if I go to the super market and buy some chocolate chip cookies, I am actually buying sugar, flour, eggs, etc, but they've already been turned into something else. If I wanted to make brownies it would be really tough (impossible even!) to take apart the cookies and reuse those ingredients. But if I had gone to the store and actually bought the ingredients, when I get home I can make anything I want with them. Raw files have all the ingredients (data) still separated, and you can choose what you want to do with them (what you want the final image to look like). With a jpeg, the camera has already decided what to bake, so making changes down the road is pretty tough (not tough for you, it's still just moving a slider, but tough to maintain image quality). I'm sure that analogy made no sense...</p>

  3. <p>Raw files are generally close in megabytes to what the camera is in megapixels (e.g. a 12 megapixel camera will produce roughly 12mb files). Based on this statistic I found just from googling about the D5000: "4GB - 4288x2848 - NEF (RAW) - 10.6MB - 268 pictures", each of your 8gb cards should hold at least 500 shots, so together you should have plenty of space if you're looking to come home with 6-800 shots. That's pretty close to what I can get with my D700, which is also 12mp; I can usually get well over 1000 shots on a single 16gb card, so you should be fine.</p>
  4. <p>Tom, it's impractical to use a grey card for white balance in these situations. It's really just a matter of dialing in the correct values in post by eye shot by shot. Some times you'll get lucky and find something neutral that's in most of the shots (a uniform, a piece of paper hanging on the wall, whatever) and can use the eye dropper to at least get close, but a lot of times it's just doing it by hand for every photo. Sometimes you'll get so unlucky a single frame get's caught mid-cycle, and half the frame has one color cast and half has another. For those you just yell a little bit if it was a good shot and hit delete. When you're doing this kind of editing in bulk, I recommend every so often comparing your results to the image you processed maybe 20 or 30 shots prior. Otherwise you may find that as you go through a lot of images, you slowly creep in one direction or another, and your early shots are significantly different than the later shots; like at the beginning you may be slightly "cool", and then slowly over time you start getting a little warmer, and then a little warmer, etc. It's not that the one way is bad, but since you're doing it by eye you just need to make sure you're being consistent throughout the event.</p>

    <p>Lisa, other than the hard drive space issues, the nice thing about raw (and just to nitpick, it's raw not RAW, not sure where or when people started capitalizing it, but it doesn't need to be, might as well break you of the habit early!) is even if you aren't an expert this week, in two months when you are, all the data about every image is still going to be there. You can just go back and fix all the mistakes you made the first time around without losing any quality. If you can figure out your storage, it might be worth shooting raw ASAP, even if you have no clue what you're doing, and just opening the good images in whatever raw processing application you have (like the one that came with the nikon) and hitting 'auto'. The results that gives you should be at least as good as what the camera is doing when it's baking in the settings as a jpeg. Then, down the road when you actually know what recovery, tone curves, etc are, you can go back and say "oh now I understand how to make this shot really look awesome" and it will be just like starting from scratch.</p>

  5. <p>Based on the last thread, I know you're not going to like my answer, but... :-)</p>

    <p>In general, since you're inside, you should be better off being in manual mode, meaning you won't need to be metering, so the mode won't matter. Unless there are lots of windows in the gym, the lighting throughout the entire competition should be rather consistent, especially if you aren't changing locations too much. If you dial in your settings at the beginning, you shouldn't need to worry about exposure much for the rest of the shoot. Set your aperture to wide open, figure out the minimum shutter speed you need to freeze the action (or create whatever effect you're going for), and then determine the required ISO. Unless there are drastic differences in how much light there is in different parts of the gym, or something like sunlight is changing light levels you should then be good to go without worrying about metering. Even in the position where the subject is being backlit, the subject will still be correctly exposed, the background will just be blown out; you'll either need to decide if that's what you want, or if you want to try and be creative and do a silhouette or something.</p>

    <p>As far as the color cycling with the lights, that's just another one of the many hassles of shooting in a gym. Aside from setting up strobes to overpower all the ambient light, there's not much you can do except deal with it. It unfortunately makes dialing the white balance in on the camera a bad option if you're shooting jpeg, and if you leave it set on auto the results will most likely be just as bad. The best option here is going to be shooting in raw. When you capture a raw image, it has no white balance, so you can set it to whatever you need to later on the computer; when the lights are white, you can balance for that just as well as when the lights are yellow. If you try to do that to jpegs it's not going to work as well.</p>

    <p>I know you said you're not really looking to switch to raw yet, but shooting sports in a poorly-lit gym is one of the most demanding things you can ask a camera to do; even the most expensive cameras are going to struggle with some things, so asking your D5000 to do it while putting it at an immediate disadvantage with shooting jpegs is asking a lot. While I would be advocating raw for any situation if the camera allows it, indoor sports is really the only time I would say "it's your own fault you missed that shot" if the person chooses jpeg. Outside, even outdoor sports, there are advantages to raw, but it's not a necessity. Indoors, in my opinion, shooting sports is just something you need to do. It might be time to jump into the world of raw with both feet for this, the water's not as bad as you think. Learning to process a raw file is as easy as watching a 5 minute video on youtube for the most part.</p>

  6. <p>I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you say it's different than with the 70-200, so I'll assume you mean it's just strange not being able to change focal lengths when you're already so tight. If that's the case, for things like baseball I would suggest that when you find your shooting location, pan around to all the field to the different positions and make a mental note of how each one can/should be framed, where it makes more sense to shoot H rather than V, if any near positions are so close you need to decide how to crop the subject etc. I find that when I have zoom available, my first few shots of any game are WAY too loose, like I'm not confident enough in myself to be able to frame shots well if I'm appropriately tight. I need tell myself, uh hello you've been doing this for how many years? and get back to where I need to be. Point being, you may need to go through this sort of exercise at several games before you feel really comfortable going straight from the pitcher to the first baseman without having to think about what's going to be waiting for you there when looking through the 300mm.</p>
  7. <p>For what it's worth, I've never heard of or experienced in-camera noise reduction affecting auto-focus; are you sure he didn't mean vibration reduction? If you're shooting raw, which is probably the way to go especially for indoor low-light conditions, in-camera noise reduction won't even actually be doing anything in the camera; it just picks a starting value for the raw processor on the computer to use. Regarding Noise Ninja, up until this year I would have said it was an essential piece of software for this sort of thing; the upcoming release of Adobe Lightroom 3 does an as-good if not better job I think, without the need for an extra specific application. The noise reduction in the Lightroom 3 pre-releases has been incredible.</p>
  8. <p>So I really don't know the specifics about acro, but I did a bit of googling. It seems like there's a good deal of vertical elements involved, which is another factor that I take into consideration when deciding if I'll need a support. Even if I were sitting in the same spot all day I think I would be changing angles drastically enough (going from shots of people on the ground to people in the air) that I would just leave the monopod at home. You mention using a tripod, which isn't something I would ever consider for any type of sports shooting, and I'd be hesitant to recommend it for use at any level; it's just way too limiting even for acro. But that's just my gut feeling from looking at a few pictures online. Re: that strap, there are quite a few bandolier-style straps showing up now, so BlackRapid is just one company, but they're the only ones I've used and can recommend. But to be honest, the situation with acro seems like you'd need neither a *pod or a strap; if you're just going to be in the same spot handholding should be very doable if you learn how to hold the camera in a nice, balanced way. Just my opinion though, definitely do whatever you feel will work best for you and allow you to get the shots you want. (also, if I could shoot my dog all day I would, more shots in my flickr gallery! Bailey )</p>
  9. <p>Here's my advise on a monopod: if you're interested in really shooting sports and getting the best shots you can, the monopod isn't what you should be investing in right now. Unless you are almost exclusively shooting sports like baseball or tennis where you're pretty much sitting in the same exact spot the entire game, the monopod is just going to be an excuse to stay in one spot when you shouldn't be.</p>

    <p>At every single soccer game you'll see someone standing at midfield, panning back and forth with their monopod. That's a fantastic strategy if you mostly want to get shots of the backs of players from far away. If you really want nice shots from any sport like soccer, football, lacrosse, etc, you definitely want to be mobile and going to where the action is. You also usually don't want to be standing up. Having a monopod is a good way to get in the habit of standing up in one spot.</p>

    <p>Since you just dropped how ever much money on this nice lens, I'm assuming you're not looking to just grab some OK snapshots (but if that's the case, more power to you). I'm assuming you want to work at getting really great shots, and to continue to learn and grow as a sports photographer. If that's the case, a nice strap like a BlackRapid RS-7 will go a lot further than a monopod. It's a great way to give you a lot of mobility as you move up and down the field but keeps the camera right where you need it for quick access. It's also just a great strap in general for your non-sports shooting. I've never done anything but hand-hold 70-200s on even the heaviest bodies, and I couldn't beat a flea in arm wrestling; using a good strap or just resting it on the ground when you're not shooting is really all you need to make it through even the longest games without any support.</p>

    <p>Again, if all you're shooting is baseball then monopod is definitely a good choice. If you're shooting other stuff too, you're either going to find you don't need a monopod for this kind of lens or you're doing something wrong.</p>

  10. <p>James, I'm not entirely clear on your process and what you mean by eyeballing certain photos, but depending on quantity it may still make sense to go with scancafe. If you're planning on spending $300 on a scanner, factoring in 20% discounts that are relatively easy to find for scancafe (I know photofocus has had one recently), that equates to $375 worth of scanning, which (at 29 cents per scan) is about 1300 scans. So, again depending on quantity, if you're in that ballpark of total images or you simply want to take advantage of their quality/speed benefits (I've never actually used them, but I've heard nothing but good things) it may still be worth considering. I realize though that if you invest in a scanner, you'll have it "forever" and should the need arise again down the road there will be no new costs, but just throwing everything you have in a shoebox and mailing it them to take care of sounds so much nicer. Even if that means going through and picking out the images you didn't really want scanned in the first place, it will be a lot easier to do that on the computer than looking at negatives all day. Just food for thought.</p>
  11. <p>I've just started catching up on this thread, and this was one of the first things I read</p>

    <blockquote>

    <p>You wont keep Adobe's psd and favor a tif file, yet you are all for going with a raw file format (dng) that only Adbobe uses? That's really odd. How is dng more of a benefit when I can not open a dng in NX2 and a handfull of other software? The Nef file can be opened in a plethora of raw converters as well as in Adobe products. The dng is limited to Adobe.</p>

    </blockquote>

    <p>so I'm this post is being written under the assumption that Garrison is equally misinformed in his other posts. Sorry if you have already clarified your thoughts on this particular topic. I hope after I read through a few more posts it becomes apparent that this was some sort of misunderstanding as to what the DNG format actual is, and not just someone purposely making things up to support their case.</p>

    <p>You ask "How is dng more of a benefit when I can not open a dng in NX2...?" Here's how: there are lots and lots of other factors that go into determining the usefulness of a format. Most (dare I say, the very large majority) of photographers shooting digital will never open a file in NX2 in their entire life. So that is more-or-less a non-factor for most people. Most people use Photoshop, and either Lr or Aperture or Bridge. All of those support dng (and they're not all Adobe). So to them, the other benefits, like no sidecar files, being based on an open standard, etc, <em>easily</em> make dng more beneficial.</p>

    <p>Just for the sake of verbosity, at the expense of not being annoying, here's a list of some vendors/applications that natively support DNG, <strong>excluding</strong> all Adobe products. Some other notable absences are Aperture and Max OS X itself, which supports DNG through frameworks like QuickView. Clearly there is support from within the industry behind DNG at this point, so I'm not sure how anyone who thinks they know enough about raw camera formats to have an educated discussion about them could have missed it.<br>

     

    <table border="0">

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>Canto</td>

    <td>Cumulus 6.0.3</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Corel</td>

    <td>Paint Shop Pro X</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Corel</td>

    <td>Photo Album 6</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Cpicture</td>

    <td>Cpicture 1.5</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>GIMP.org</td>

    <td>GIMP</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>AccuSoft</td>

    <td>ImageGear 14.5</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Apple</td>

    <td>Preview</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Breeze Systems</td>

    <td>BreezeBrowser 2.12</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Breeze Systems</td>

    <td>BreezeBrowser Pro 1.2.2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Camerabits</td>

    <td>Photo Mechanic 4.3.3</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Cerious Software</td>

    <td>ThumbsPlus Digicam Raw Plug-in 1.5</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>dpMagic</td>

    <td>dpMagic Plus 1.2.068</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>DxO</td>

    <td>Optics Pro 2.0c</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Extensis</td>

    <td>Portfolio 7</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>FotoWare</td>

    <td>FotoStation Classic 5.2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>FotoWare</td>

    <td>FotoStation Pro 5.2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>H&M Software</td>

    <td>StudioLine Photo2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Hamrick</td>

    <td>Vuescan 8.2.38</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Helicon</td>

    <td>Helicon Filter 3.1</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Hexcat</td>

    <td>ViewIt 2.8</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Ichikawa Soft Laboratory</td>

    <td>Silkypix Developer Studio 2.0</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Imacon</td>

    <td>FlexColor 4.0</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>ImageMagick Studio LLC</td>

    <td>ImageMagick 6.2.5</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>IrfanView</td>

    <td>IrfanView 3.97</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Iridient</td>

    <td>Digital Raw Developer 1.2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>iView</td>

    <td>iView MediaPro 2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Konverter</td>

    <td>Konverter 3.47.4</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>LaserSoft</td>

    <td>SilverFast DCPro 6.4</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Lemkesoft</td>

    <td>GraphicConverter 5.7</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Logical Designs Consulting</td>

    <td>SharpRaw Pro 0.78</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Phil Harvey</td>

    <td>ExifTool</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>PhotoLine 32</td>

    <td>PhotoLine 32 v12</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Mario M. Westphal</td>

    <td>Imatch 3.0</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>IOSPIRIT GmbH</td>

    <td>Picture Arena 1.2</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>PictureFlow LLC</td>

    <td>Archive Creator 3.0</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Pixmantec</td>

    <td>RawShooter 1.1.3</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Polybytes</td>

    <td>PolyView 4.27</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Polybytes</td>

    <td>PolyImagePro 2.11</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Pro Shooter</td>

    <td>DigitalPro 3</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>ProFotoSoftware LTD</td>

    <td>PFS Batch Processor Pro</td>

    <td><br /></td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Raw PhotoDesk</td>

    <td>Raw PhotoDesk 2.01</td>

    <td>

     

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </p>

  12. <p>Unless you have a very specific reason, you may want to consider converting to DNG and not embedding the original NEF file; the files will be even smaller than the original NEF. DNG at this point is being used by enough people with enough frequency in professional and mission-critical settings for the format to be considered viable on it's own. I convert 100% of my files to DNG and ditch the originals and have never (ever) run into an issue; I've been doing it pretty much since DNG showed up.</p>

    <p>Unrelated, using GMail as a backup is probably not the best solution. Things like Backblaze are less than $5 a month, and will back up <strong>all</strong> your photos (and all your other files), and you will never run into issues like file-size limits.</p>

  13. <p>I'm starting to think it's an issue with the lens motor, might need to take a trip to Midstate if it gets worse. For now I'll put up with just MF when I need to. Thanks for the help.</p>
  14. <p>I was on 9-point, and AF-C, but I'm curious why you say tracking should be short; for sports I almost always use long so it doesn't refocus if players run in front of the current subject. If switching will allow for better focus acquirement I will, but for sports, in my mind, long seems to make more sense.</p>
  15. <p>I've noticed over the last couple months an issue when using the D700/70-200VR1 combo that affects autofocus. It was really noticeable last night; I was covering a basketball game, so I was sitting on one base line, and as the action moved away from me toward the other baseline there was a range of distances where AF was having all sorts of trouble. Probably from about the far key to the far baseline. If I tried to focus on the opposite wall, though, it was fast an accurate. This happened even when I tested it on the ref's high-contrast black and white striped shirts in the no-AF zone. I'm no expert on AF systems, but this one has thrown me for a loop; doesn't seem like any sort of lens uncalibration would be a factor, but it also doesn't seem like the camera would care about distances when focusing.</p>

    <p>I haven't done enough testing to know if it is only happening at certain focal lengths; it may in fact be an issue of relative size of objects rather than focal length, but I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas.The D700 was new this summer, so it's never been recalibrated, but I would also like to think it's also not needed yet.</p>

    <p>Thanks</p>

  16. <p>Kris is spot on, Lightroom is made for a completely different purpose than the Photoshop you're used to. It's not intended to do pixel-level editing, or layering, or text generation, or any of that kind of stuff. Lightroom is designed almost exclusively to manage, process, and output raw files coming out of cameras. The integration with Photoshop, and it's ability to "round trip" files between the two applications for the kinds of alterations I just mentioned is really a second class citizen when it comes to Lightroom's features, and that's by design. Just like to build a bookshelf you need a hammer <em>and</em> a saw, to do raw management and developing <em>and</em> detailed editing you need both PS and LR; they are different tools designed for different things.</p>
  17. <p>sorry I didn't completely read through all the previous posts, but I shoot two cameras about 90% of the time and here's how I handle it. If I'm using both bodies at a single event, like a baseball game, I will name the folder on my computer: 2009-10-26 Baseball Yankees at Red Sox, which means I could have any number of event on that date and their folder names won't conflict, and I will also know the contents, date, and context just by glancing at the name. That folder will go in a year folder in my Pictures directory (the path is actually ~/Pictures/Pictures/2009/2009-10-26 Baseball Yankees at Red Sox)<br>

    To avoid the possibility of individual files' names conflicting, I have my bodies set to use distinct names when actually writing the files in camera. Instead of the default DSC_XXXX.NEF, I change the prefix to be indicative of the camera they came from, so if I have one full-frame body and one crop-frame body, I would set it to get images like FXA_2131.NEF and DXA_9871.NEF. If I were using more than one full-frame bodies at one event, I would get FXA_XXXX and FXB_XXXX, FXC_XXXX, etc. That way even in the Finder I have a way of quickly sorting an entire event by: capture time, camera, camera type, etc. And there's never any chance of naming collisions, without the need to rename every single file coming out of the cameras.<br>

    If I'm shooting more than one event in a day, like I already mentioned, the folder names include an event descriptor, so I can have five folders from 2009-10-26 sitting right next to each other and still know what each one is.</p>

  18. <p>No rattle here, I agree that it's a bit too easy to accidentally unlock and knock off when it's hanging at your side though. On more than one occasion I've been walking and heard it hit the ground behind me. It happens only rarely, but still not looking forward to the day where it happens in a crowd and gets stampeded before I can recover it. </p>
  19. <p>Howard, this is just my gut feeling, I've watched the 3 demo videos and downloaded it, but done little reading on the new beta. I get the feeling that almost all the of the stuff we're seeing in this beta are features lots and lots of users have been asking for since 2.0 or earlier. Adobe probably just wants to make sure they get that stuff right, since this is more or less their third try at most of this stuff (like exporting slideshows, that's arguably late just now showing up at version 3) and so they've released this beta early enough to get the feedback they need to check these changes off their list once and for all. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if more major additions show up down the road (or not at all in the public beta). Something big like native HDR support, support for video files at some level, etc, is not the type of thing they'd want to throw to the wolves this early in a public beta a) because it's probably not ready yet for such a wide audience (people are too expectant of beta's these days, thinking they're 99% done) and b) having thousands of people weigh in on a brand new feature isn't always good. It's usually better for the developers to make some of those decisions, let people get used to them, and if there are complaints fix them, rather than say "ok here's how we're doing HDR now, but let use know what you want"; they'd get hundreds of different ideas, rather than just ideas on how to fix what they already developed to completion.</p>
  20. <p>I kind of agree with Joe here; and I'm not trying to talk down to anyone or question motives/abilities, I have no idea how long you've been making photos or anything. It just seems like if you're buying a D3 at <em>any</em> price, and you're actually going to be able to "handle" it (there's a lot more going on with a D3 than with a D3000 that you need to think about) you'd be able to just drop by Nikon's website and be able to pick out the lenses to meet your needs based on their specs. Except for the rare technical glitches, like the old 70-200 with FX bodies, all the Nikon lenses are going to be good enough quality for you. For shooting birds, there are only a few options that will get you the reach you need (300/2.8,300,400,500,600,70-300,80-400,200-400), so it's really up to you deciding what you can do on your budget and what you need for specs. None of them are any more magic than the others; they all pretty much do just what their spec sheet says. I'm absolutely not trying to be unhelpful here, my advice is simply that I get worried when I see people asking these kind of basic questions the sentence after mentioning a camera that is anything but basic. I'm sure this isn't going to alter your decision to buy the camera, and it probably shouldn't if you're getting a good price and know you'll be using it for a while, I guess I'm just saying if you can't look at a very limited group of lenses with the ability to pick out the one that fits a need, it might be worth doing a little more learning (and maybe you were planning on doing that research anyway).</p>
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