gaute_solheim1

<p>Have the Hexar and used it as my only camera for some years beween a pentax slr and a Nikon dslr I got in 2006. No other camera has given me the percentage of keepers I get from the Hexar. It focus in a blink, even in the dark, and you get those shiny wet eyes. Built like a tank, almost weather sealed with a filter, and fits in the pocket of my jacket. What more could you wish for (except when you want something else than 35 mm)?</p>

<p>My best advice is to spend time getting to know those in charge instead of spending money on gear. Getting close is more valuable than a new lens. Shooting on level will beat shooting from above nine out of ten times.</p>

<p>I struggled with this myself, and finally called a manufacturer of this kind of light and asked for the RD department. A very helpful person confirmed my suspicion that they mix two sources in some designs, with the balance between them varying over the cycle. There is no way around this. The WB of the light is not consistent, so the WB in the camera has a moving target. But I get the best results by using a manual WB on my D7000.</p>

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<p>Nikon could have redused the likelyhood of pushing the wrong button by using the same technique as is used for the "f" and "j" on most keyboards - a small knob that you can feel under the tip of your finger. A really hot needle could probably do the upgrade as DIY.</p>

<p>This is two very different trips. Hiking 10k to a camp for three nights calls for comfort. Packing for 2000m up and one night at the top calls for a light back pack. And you start by picking a good sleeping bag. If the temperature may drop to freezing, pick one designed for five below. It is the sleeping bag, not the tent, that keeps you warm. Any tent will do as long as the wind stays below a gale, and if I make the right deduction of what you write, you should not be up on the mountain in worse conditions.<br>

Staying warm gives you the mental surplus you need for focusing on taking the pictures, if that is an important part of the hike.<br>

For the one night on the top, I would seriously consider dropping the tent in dry weather and camp under open sky. That will ensure that you do not sleep through all the exiting changes in the light.</p>

 

<p>A 24mm on a D5100 gives the same perspective as 35mm on FF. I had a Konica Hexar AF (35/2) as my only camera for several years. The only time I felt the need for something else was when our girls played handball indoor. The 35mm perspective gives me a picture very much like what I visualize when I reach for the camera to capture something. I understand very well the choice of perspective/lens your wife has made.</p>

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<p>Go for the d40. I did not treat it nice when it was my main camera and it survived. My eleven year old has used it several times bringing it to school and back in one piece, and my 15 year has more or less used it as her own for two years now. They learn so quick at that age, and children do really appreciate the difference between toys and the real thing. I will never forget one time I picked up the prints at the lab back when I used a Hexar AF. There was this really amazing picture of my father in law. I could not remember taking it, and after a while I understood that only a grandchild could make that smile shine like it did. My daughter was five or six when she took it, and it still by far is the best picture I have of him.</p>

<p>I am a parent, and I do know what I want: The action photos of my kid. The team photos are not that interesting. And it isn't just me. The feed back from the other parents of the kids my two girls are playing handball with is unison: They will take an avarage quality action photo of their kid any day over a team photo.<br>

The kind of pictures parents love to see is like this one<br>

<img id="ImgSrc_5" src="http://www.njard.no/resources/imagebank/000/012/533.gif" alt="" /></p>

<p>First - do not be afraid of "screw something up". Unless you physically damage your camera, there is a reset option in the menu bringing you back to factory settings.<br>

There are two main factors influencing what picture you get after pushing the button. The first and most important factor is what you have decided to put inside the frame. The second factor is the settings of the camera when the picture is taken (and I include focal length here).<br>

So you basically have two approaches. You can take the engineering approach, trying to learn every option of the settings. You can take the reverse engineering approach, or you may call it the picture approach. Personally I prefer the second method. I see a picture someone has taken that I would like to be able to do myself, and then try to find out the technological factors that gave that result, reverse engineering from the result to the settings. As you can see in the galleries, most pictures do have information about at least the basic technological factors for the picture.<br>

It is easiest explained by an example. May main camera until recently was a D40. I have three daughters who play(ed) handball, so I spend a lot of time following them to matches. I wanted to give these kids the same kind of action pictures that the top players got in the news paper. I looked at professional photos to find out where I should place myself in order to get the same kind of action in the frame. I checked out shutter speed, aperture and iso settings for sport pictures in the galleries. I figured out that the focus of the D40 was not able to follow the players, so I had to rely on prefocus, and them take the picture as the players came into the that area. I learned that the frame rate of the D40 was not quick enough to be used as a machine gun. I head to get it right exactly when I pushed the button, not in the third or fourth frame.<br>

I did it the same way with portraits. To me reverse engineering has been a much better way to improve my pictures than the engineering way, starting out learning everything my camera can do for me in any situation.<br>

Have fun. Take pictures.</p>

 

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<p>The fuzziness is caused by what is called "burned highlights", which is photospeak for an area that is outside the "dynamic range" (more photospeak) of the sensor at the given exposure. The area around each light point that is burned out does not have a sharp border, and that is the reason for it looking fuzzy. <br>

If you take the same shot one more time, but this time in Av, with the smallest f-number available(biggest opening) and adjust the exposure (+/- button next to the shutter release, use wheel) to -2, you will probably end up with sharp light points, but a much darker picture in general. There's always a trade off!<br>

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If the "certain conditions" are sports halls or similar lighting, the problem may be that many modern lighting systems use a two source system for the light, with a big gap between the colour temperatures. The camera observes two distinct temperatures, and is not able to calculate the correct temperature to use.

 

It would be a good idea if someone made plug in filters for PS for each of the most commonly used two source lighting systems. I have some pictures were the white is white and the skin tones are excellent, but the colours of the team have transformed from a strong green to a purple/bluish kind of thing.

I've had this problem with my D40 in two sports halls recently. I had taken lots of photos both places earlier using a grey card to set the WB with good results. Then they changed the lighting, and it became impossible for the camera to achieve a fix of the WB, It said something like "unable to achieve a reading". I started to ask around, and finally came across a lady with a PhD in light working for one of the larger suppliers to sports halls. She told me that many of the modern installations do have two peaks instead of one in their colour balance. It means that if you set the white balance in order to correct one of them, the other will ruin your colours. In my case my doughter was playing on the green team, but all the pictueres showed them in a terrible blueish outfit. The skin colours very pretty good. Tried to correct it in PS, using the clean white numbers as reference, but it didn't change the blueish back to green. The whites were already clean white. So there we are, permanent mixed lighting from one source (or technically speaking it is actually two).

I have tried this in practise. For more than ten years I carried my SLR with 28-80, a 70-200 and a 28. Then I bought a used Konica Hexar AF with a 35mm f 2 (silver with software hack). Within six months I stopped bringing my SLR with me. For five years I only used the Hexar.

I converted to digital two years ago, first with a G7 and then a Nikon D40.

The five years I only used the Hexar gave me more keepers each year than I got for each of the 15 years with SLR equipment. I did not get as many keepers with my D40 as with the Hexar. It is probably partly me, but I know that the DOF at f2 and available light ability was the main reason behind a lot of the keepers from my Hexar years.

I bought the Sigma 30 f1,4 two months ago and my luck changed. The keepers are popping up again.

At least for me I think that my visualisation of a picture fits perfectly with the field of view between 30-45 mm (film eq). As a consequence it is more easy for me to spot (and take) a good picture with my Sigma(or my Hexar) than with any other focal length. Other people have other perspectives and spot their keepers in other fields of view. Check the exif of your keepers. If they are mainly close to 30mm, get the Sigma.

You do not need to protect it. Mine dropped more than two meters on a solid oak floor. The only damage I could find was a dent in the floor. It has been carried in my daily bag to work and everywhere else in the pocket of my coat over a five year period. It has been used out in the rain and in snow. It just keep taking one superb picture after the other.

 

Gaute