paul_scharf_

<p>D200, D300, D700 and D800 all have the same dial and button layout. So, it is fairly easy to go from one of these to another. However, the D90, along with the D70, D7000, ... have a different layout. Bopping back and forth between a D200 and a D90 can be a pain. Not to speak about missing a shot while you are re-familiarizing yourself with the controls. So, I would recommend sticking with a camera with the same layout, unless you just want to upgrade.<br>

Nikon has a lot of nice cameras with the video feature. Check out the D5100 and D3200 and see if that meets your need. If you have no desire for video, then check out one of the older models, like the D50 or maybe another D90.</p>

<p>I agree whole heartily with Shun. If your own shooting style is not screaming at you that you need some specific piece of photo equipment, don't buy but rather just hoard the monies until it starts screaming.<br>

Also, as Shun and Dan had mentioned, if you are shooting professionally, then you really do need a backup body/camera. When I first started shooting digital with a D70, my backup camera was a Nikon N90s. And, of all things, I had to use it for one event. And, if I did not have it, I would have been sunk! Ouch!!! When I purchased a D200, I used the D70 as a backup. When I bought a D800, I use the D200 as backup. The backup camera does not have to be the same brand. But, you just need to be able to be able to produce professional results with it. You never do know when that will happen.</p>

<p>Shortly after the D3200 came out, I had inquired about the software for the iPad and was informed that it would be out in the Fall. </p>

<p>Back in the film days, I use to use a flash bracket to keep from getting red eye or reduce the dark shadows. But, that was back then. Now, I will sometimes use a flash bracket for the aisle shots. But, that is about it. What I like doing in the non-studio like settings is to remove my SB800 from my D70/D200 and mount it on either a stand or a Justin clamp and place it to one side or other to get the right type of lighting. I will set the flash to shoot straight on or bounce it off a white wall/ceiling, while sending some light forward. I'll set my popup flash to Commander Mode or use my SU800 to control the remote flash. This is assuming that the remote flash can see the popup flash, either directly or via the light bouncing around the room (or some bounce card). If I'm doing studio like shooting, I'll use the radio slaves and set everything manually.<br>

Since you have a D90 and a SB700, you could try using the CLS system and see if it'll work for you. Just remember, the sensor on the flash is right above the battery compartment door.<br>

Paul </p>

<p>You said: "3 or 4 frames..... few seconds.... another 3 or 4 frame burst." Sounds like to me that you will be stressing out the flash unit and will probably need a pro grade flash unit. One that can hold up under a lot of firings. Now, if you don't need more than 1/64th power or less, a SB600 or SB800 or SB900 would probably hold up. What comes to my mind is a used Quantum T2. Shooting with a flash set on manual, a Metz CT60 will definitely hold up and would definitely have a lot of power. A Sunpak 611 would also do the job quite well and would be a cheap alternative and is built very solidly. It is quite powerful, just not as powerful as the CT60. What would be quite helpful is to know what ISO you will be shooting at, how far do you expect to be from the subject, what you expect the lens to be set at (ie. f-stop and 50mm, 100mm, 200mm setting) and do you expect for the flash unit to be the main source of light? By knowing that, we can compute how much power that you might have need of. </p>

<p>For a first full wedding, I think that you did a fantastic job! I like your composition and the limited depth of field. What catches my eye, negatively speaking, are the pimples/acne that I see. I would recommend that you touch up any acne/pimples. I'm not talking about major touch up of the entire face/neck, just the spots.</p>

<p>When I was shooting weddings all the time, back in the film days, I shot mostly with a 35-105 f2.8 fixed aperture lens (none of this "I think that I'm shooting at this aperture plus or minus 1/2 f-stop" non sense). I would also shoot with a 50 mm about 10 to 20% of the time and 1 or 2 shots with a 20mm. I veered away from shooting a lot of wide angle shots since they took too much in and they are just so much more finicky about being leveled properly. Not that I don't love wide angle. I do. I just don't sell many really wide angle shots. So, if I was purchasing for a DX camera now, I would be looking at a 24-70 f2.8 lens (or possibly a 17-55 f2.8 lens) for my main lens and then augment it with a fast 50mm and either the Nikon 12-24 f4 lens or the Tokina 11-16 f2.8 lens. Now, it wouldn't hurt to have a 70-200 f2.8 lens to get those close up shots from back of the church during the ceremony. As long as I had plenty of memory cards, I would be a happy camper.</p>

<p>Hmmm ... a 16-85, heh? That is equivalent to a 24-120 in FX (and if you want to be more precise: 24-127.5), which I think is a perfect walk about lens, not to speak about its IQ, which is very good. One that is easy to take on vacation or just round about. I would definitely use it for all my personal stuff and reserve the 17-55 f2.8 for paid gigs that are to be shot in low light.</p>

<p>There was an interview with Nikon's Senior Vice President David Lee just recently. You can check it out here: http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1294696074.html. And, David Lee indicated that the price of full frame cameras are coming down. But, it will be a gradual process.<br>

I would love to buy an FX camera and at 2k I would probably jump at it. However, I don't think that I have to worry about jumping in the near future.</p>

<p>You might want to also consider that when you are shooting with a variable aperture lens, you really do not know precisely (ie within a tenth of an fstop) what aperture the lens is set at. You know within an half of an fstop or so. But, that is about it. If I'm shooting professionally under a fixed lighting situation, I definitely want a fixed aperture lens so that as I zoom in or out, I have the same exposure across multiple shots. </p>

<p>Why are we even talking about what Walmart sells or don't sell? Walmart sells only amateur film, not professional. Going to the link that was provided, I see reference to the Kodak’s US marketing manager of pro film, to Porta film and to B&W film. I do not see any reference to amateur film. So, obviously, the resurgence he is talking about must be in the professional film market and not the amateur film market, which is not surprising.<br>

After we went from large format to medium format, all sorts of people predicted that large format was dead. Sorry, it did not die. But, rather we saw a resurgence back to large format. And, when we went from medium format to 35mm, again we saw a resurgence back to medium format. Now that we have gone to digital, it don't surprise me if we see a resurgence going back to film (among professionals and semi-professionals). Now, when I say resurgence, I don't mean a 100% of the business that was lost, came back. But, rather a significant percentage of the lost business came back. <br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>Why are we even talking about what Walmart sells or don't sell? Walmart sells only amateur film, not professional. Going to the link that was provided, I see reference to the Kodak’s US marketing manager of pro film, to Porta film and to B&W film. I do not see any reference to amateur film. So, obviously, the resurgence he is talking about must be in the professional film market and not the amateur film market, which is not surprising.<br>

After we went from large format to medium format, all sorts of people predicted that large format was dead. Sorry, it did not die. But, rather we saw a resurgence back to large format. And, when we went from medium format to 35mm, again we saw a resurgence back to medium format. Now that we have gone to digital, it don't surprise me if we see a resurgence going back to film (among professionals and semi-professionals). Now, when I say resurgence, I don't mean a 100% of the business that was lost, came back. But, rather a significant percentage of the lost business came back. <br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>Michael, I have NX2 installed on my iMac and it runs fine. I would have to assume that something went wrong with your install, as can happen to any install. I would not count NX2 out, just because you have a bad install. I would try re-install and see if it will work for you. If it doesn't, then, uninstall and then re-install. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>If you want to run Lightroom and run it fast, you'll want to get the i7 (quad core processor), along with 8 gig of memory, 2 hard drives in a Raid 0 configuration (for faster I/O) and then you'll need a good monitor. One that you can calibrate, if you plan to edit your images and not trust it to the lab to get the colors right. If so, then you'll need a good one. There aren't too many good calibrateable flat screen monitors out there. Check Shootsmarter.com for their recommendations or any other professional photography web site that you can trust or ask a pro lab for their recommendations. Or, you can just buy a 21" / 27" iMac, which comes with a high quality, calibrateable flat screen monitor and load Windows 7 in dual boot mode so you can have the best of the two worlds.</p>

<p>David, I have a Nikon AF-D 80-200 f2.8 which does a really awesome job on portraits. The f2.8 is also great for weddings. But, on trips, I rarely pack it because I cannot justify all that weight and space for just one lens, not to speak of lugging it around on a hike. An f4 lens would be a lot more practical for my purposes and would be used a lot more.</p>

<p>View NX 1.5.2 is now available for download. And, it runs fine on iMac with Snow Leopard OS.</p>

<p>I tried your solution, Bertram, to improve speed by installing freely downloadable Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition on my 5 year old Dell (3 ghz Pentium 4 with 3 gig of memory with XP). And, the only thing that I can say is WOW! The speed performance has been greatly improved! XP must have some really poor performing dlls that is fixed by the installation of Visual C#. And, all the time some of us have been complaining about how sluggish NX2 was, when all the time it was the OS!</p>

<p>1 gig of memory sounds awful meager when you are talking about a Windows machine running a photo editor program. You can verify if it is to meager by pulling up Task Manager before starting up NX2 and click on the Performance tab. There you will see how much cpu you are using and how much you are using the Page File (ie. how much the system is paging in and out its memory, which really slows down the pc). Then, click on the minimize button. Then start up NX2 and start editing. After you edit a few images and you get your really slow response times, check out the Task Manager and see how much of the Page File that he is using. Also, you might want to check how much disk space you have allocated to the Page File and you may want to defrag your hard drive. Remember, Windows does not perform well with either fragmented hard drive or with low disk space.<br>

I found out from experience that NX2 does not perform well when you are editing a bunch of pictures at the same time. It seems to run the best editing a few or just one picture at a time.</p>

<p>Regards</p>

<p>As you already know, when you trip the shutter, the built-in flash fires a pre-flash (at which time, your studio flash fires while the shutter is still closed) so that the camera can determine a more accurate flash setting and then a second flash fires for the actual exposure (at this point, the studio flash is spent and the shutter is now open). Another work-a-round is to set your camera to manual pre-flash. For my D200, it is <strong>Custom Setting f4: Assign FUNC. Button</strong> (pg. 170), <strong>FV Lock</strong> (If built-in flash or optional CLS-compatible Speedlight is used, flash value locks when FUNC. button is pressed. Press again to cancel FV Lock.) Then, you can manually fire the pre-flash by pushing the FUNC. button. Wait for the studio flash to recycle and then trip the shutter for the real image. Yup, your studio flash will fire twice, once when the shutter is closed and then second time is when the shutter is open. One disclaimer: don't try this when you are doing high speed flash sync.<br>

This technique is quite helpful if I'm shooting "blinkers." Invariably the pre-flash will cause the person to blink and the real flash will get them with their eyes either closed or in the process of closing/opening. So, if I manually pre-flash them, wait a half second or so and then take the image, their eyes should be open.</p>

<p>Since you have the D90, then you have access to the CLS capabilities that are built into your Nikon camera. You can have a sb600/900 remote from the camera and fired by the D90, without cords, assuming that the sensor on your remote flash can "see" your pop-up flash. That is so much nicer than having to to have the flash connected to the camera.<br>

I have bought a Clear Lightsphere but found it useful mostly when you can have the flash somewhat near a white wall or ceiling, since you do lose about 3 or 4 fstops of light when it is attached. I do find it useful in maybe 10% of my shooting. What I found was a lot more useful was using either a 12x16 or 16x20 softbox or 22" umbrella, with the flash mounted to it and then mount the rig on a small but very portable light stand.</p>