marian_deaconescu4

<p>The zf2 version will work in A mode on the body, as mentioned above. It becomes a manual focus quasi-50mm F2 lens, which is good wide open and can be used in hyperfocal distance at F8 to "catch" everything clear from about 2-3 meters to infinity. Better used on a tripod, to take advantage of the super resolution at margins and at F5.6--11 for landscape work. Manual focus is a joy, super smooth. It can be used for close-ups at about 30cm, nice velvet-ish bokeh wide open, it has a certain "punch" to it. Very nice color rendition, this lens has a lot of character and it's very, very, versatile. But it doesn't replace a 24-70 (a long, heavy lens, used for snapping around at events or at moving targets and almost double in price).</p>

<p>I was really scared discovering a *large* - about 4 cm - scratch on the front element of the Tamron 200-400. Didn't show in print, nada, zilch! . But of course, it's no point re-selling the lens at a large loss due to that thing; it will go in the back-pack of one of my kids.</p>

<p>Go for the 18-200, it's plenty sharp for most uses outdoors and definitely the do it all for amateurs. Yes, you'll find bigger,better, sharper, faster, but no one will be as fast when needed to capture the right angle at the right moment - I'm assuming you don't want to use it for weddings indoors, though.</p>

<p>A D4 with stabilization (to take care of the old lenses in my shaky hands). If not possible, a 28-105<br>

with vr , at 2.8 max opening and super, corrected optics at both ends.</p>

<p>Mihai, salut!</p>

<p>The 20mm focal length is a bit too large for my needs. Thanks for the tip, I'll look for a 24-25mm<br>

Voightlander if there is one - the price is decent and I guess the quality leaves nothing to complain.</p>

<p>Many thanks for your input- I couldn't reply sooner, for I just returned from a trip in... Iran (nice place, by the way, nice and friendly people) - I took portraits at a conference with a 50mm 1.8 and it went fine.</p>

<p>Stanley, the 12-24 is good indeed, from 20 mm onwards on D700. But it's now in the bag of one of my daughters... I seldom go "under" 24 mm anyway, so I have had the PC in my cross lines, but I have no need for it, for I don't do architecture and it's bulcky, as it was mentioned here.<br>

The new zoom 16-35 gets, as I can see now, a glowing review from K.R., but I'll still wait for other opinions (in fact, I decided to submit my question *after* seeing some comments from other quarters on relative corner weakness in corners of the new lens).<br>

Wouter, I don't plan to use the 24 on DX - the problem is on FX. For DX use would take automatically care of the corners - but the field of view is too restricted on that format. I think I have mentioned already that I am interested in performance at 8-11.<br>

And no, Edward, I am not so stupid to burn dollars just because I can - your solution with the 55mm is often just too narrow for my taste (after all, I have the super 50mm 1.8 for that, it works very well at the mentioned apertures).<br>

I thought that my venerable Tamron 20-40mm (used for 12 years on film) would save the day, but what worked on slides is looking bad on digital. That one would stay, however, on my film camera for ever. The zoom 16-35 seems to be in the cards in the long run and the 24 ais will see some mountains this year.</p>

<p>Mihai, yes, a second hand option is something I am still looking at, but it needs a bit more digging.</p>

<p>Again, thank you all for the input; I wish you many good pics in the bag,</p>

<p>Marian</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Hi, long time no see.. I have the 14-24mm zoom (great for indoors, *the* answer, on a *DX machine* for indoor shooting with flash) and I have the 24mm 2.8 ais. The zoom is a pain for landscape because it doesn't take filters and it flares copiously if you throw citiscapes at it in the evening. Great at (natural) landscapes in the evening or if there's no sky in the viewfinder...The prime has to go down to 8-11 to get satisfactory (not great) corners. I have the funds to get a 24 1.4, but the question is how much better it'll be stopped down, at 8-11?</p>

<p>For if the difference between the two fixed 24's at 8-11 is not great (these are the apertures I use for landscapes anyway) I would rather take my light ais, slap a small 52mm filter on it and fund a nice trip this summer...</p>

<p>All the best,<br>

Marian</p>

<p> </p>

Curiously enough, few people mention the longish lenses (as for example the one with 200mm at the long end, which you already have).

 

Last summer I found myself shooting 80% of the time from the side of a mountain road (on tripod) towards the other mountain across the deep valey adjacent to the road. A long lens was called for in order to have detail. DOF wasn't a serious problem, the targets being hundreds of meters away and the lens barely 200mm.

 

Most of the time, for me at least, photography is about isolation ( not inclusion of unwanted distractions in the picture).

To Matt Laur: postprocessing is not my game. I would rather capture the whole thing in-camera. And the method you mentioned works only if there are no moving objects in the frame...

 

After all, my question is - see Jhon Crist's comment: why *not* doing it in-camera (now I see it's possible)? For this is claerly possible and it would also fix problems with otherwise fine lenses as the 14-24mm last zoom: this is avoided by many just because it can't take filters...

 

And yes, I would buy that lens *only* if the in-camera ND filters would be provided in a future incarnation of D3 or similar.

Hello,

 

I'm new to digital photography and all this talk about restricted exposure

latitude combined with the existence of a collection of digital filters from

"Nick", as advertised by Nikon, begs for the following question:

 

couldn't the effect of graduate ND filters be duplicated in-camera, digitally,

user adjustable? Straight from the box, for JPGs? Sure, there could be technical

obstructions, I would be interested to read your opinions.

 

I'm not talking polarizers here, just a software assisted, user adjusted way to

maximize DR.