stephen_doldric

April 6, 2014

I bought a Zeikos for my D700. Works great, but I'm sure the Nikon brand would have been even higher quality though I personally can't tell. It nice in that it takes AA's or a spare Camera battery as an alternate source of power via two trays that were included with the D700 version. It also has place to store the rubber gaskit that comes off your camera (in between the camera and grip). Well thought out, probably taken from the Nikon grips. :-)

I'm generally very gentile on equipment and I only use the grip occasionally and have had no problems. If I were going to leave it on full time, I would probably go with Nikon, but not due to any major issues I have encountered. One thing I "think" I might see is that the grip even when the camera is turned off draws a small amount of power. I would buy another Zeikos again.

April 4, 2014

I'm a huge fan of Black Rapid straps as they are the first straps that actually fit my lifestyle and shooting habits. Some people are opposed to them because of the tripod mount being the only place they connect to. But the reality is if you use the camera strap mounts and you loose either one, the camera falls on the ground the same way. So no matter what a single failure will cause you pain and anguish. Just get in the habbit of checking the tightness of the black rapid connector when you start out. The only other thing to think about is if you add in a cheap vertical grip like I did, you are relying on cheap plastic on the mount to hold your camera. I tend not to use the Black Rapid mounted to the grip like this as I think thats risky.

The thing I really love about it is you can have a conversation with a person or walk through a crows and push the camera just behind you slightly. Its a really comfortable position. I too mount my 70-200 directly to the strap and it works great.

However all that said, I think straps are a bit like camera bags. I don't think the perfect bag exists, especially for all occasions.

February 10, 2014

Thanks all. Sorry for the late reply. I don't use live view. I just want a decent size image review to an iPad. Camera ranger

looks good and I'll check out the other options. What about an eye-if card with nef raw and jpg written to the same card. I

suspect you get what you pay for....

February 9, 2014

I'm posting this in Nikon form vs Digital darkroom since I need Nikon specific advice.

What is everyone using to tether? I've seen in videos of shoots that people have a small LCD monitor next to their camera. Then I've heard of others using an eye-fi card and somehow seeing it on an IPad (I shoot RAW). Followed by my own experience where I have tried tethering via HDMI to a TV and also computer Monitor. My TV and Monitor both produced retched results using the video out on the camera. Could just be the wrong monitor or crappy TV.

The only success I have had is tethering is to a laptop using Lightroom, but on Nikon it won't also write it to my flash card, which I would like. Also I don't want to lug around a laptop just to see the images on a larger screen during a shoot even if they end up in Lightroom later.

I shoot RAW and use a D700 and a D7100. The ideal solution for me would be an external monitor about the size of an iPad or smaller where the images still get written to the flash cards in the camera. "Pretending" price isn't an issue, what options do I have?

February 2, 2014

Wow! I'm with everyone else, she is amazing! The site says she started in 2012. Some people are blessed with the photographic eye. I wish I had the eye, instead, I just plug away making sure I can get consistent and reliable results, but nothing like that.

February 1, 2014

Use 1/500th and up. I also find that VR past 1/500th isn't helpful and "might" even be a bit detrimental. Though I'm still deciding on that. VR won't help motion blur, so get that shutter speed up until the blur goes away. You will of course pay for it with higher ISO since you are already wide open at f2.8.

1/500th ISO3200 f2.8 is the same exposure as you mentioned above. With a D7000 going over 3200 starts to really strain things, but personally would prefer ISO 6400 over motion blur.

BTW Nice job Tim!

January 26, 2014

I have the 70-200 f2.8 and the 18-200 Vr1. I use the 18-200 all the time for family, around the house and vacations. Believe it or not the 18-200 mounted to a D40, it works wonderfully for that purpose and at 6mp with that resolution its just magic.

I use the 70-200 only for pro-type things. I tried using it as a general purpose lens around the house and around town, but the reality the f2.8 is too big and heavy and you never have the focal range you want. The F4 won't be nearly as big or heavy. Mounted to my D700 or D7100 the 70-200 takes amazing photos and I have little problems with sharpness or focus. Its simply an amazing lens and the difference compared to the 18-200 is significant. For sports you will also really get a lot out of the constant aperture. With the 18-200 or 70-300 and sports if you want constant aperture you have to go to 5.6. The 2.8 will focus better than the f4 version in low light even if you are shooting at f4 because it uses the wide open aperture during focus. But you pay for it in weight, size and cost.

I guess my point is don't let your NAS fool you that the 70-200 replaces the 18-200. Its another tool in your arsenal. It does completely however replace the 70-300 as the quality is significant. Keep the 18-200 on your D200, get as much 70-200 as you can afford and dump the 70-300.

January 5, 2014

Sell both and use the money for something you will use. I sold off a D7000 and a D90 a while back and it felt really good to get that equipment out of my mental inventory. You'll feel better once you do. You already have a plan for backup equipment if you need it.

January 2, 2014

If you have the Google NIK suite, use the link to the installer that google supplied you via email and not the demo download. The keys are somehow baked into the installer. You can't take the demo version and get it to work by applying keys to it after the fact.

December 19, 2013

That is very ambiguous. It clearly states after the year you'll be charged the current price.

If you look elsewhere though and they say "its not an introductory price", but that doesn't mean it will stay.

http://blogs.adobe.com/creativelayer/introducing-the-photoshop-photography-program/

So basically you have to trust they will do the right thing. Hummm... Well I'm in for now. We'll see what happens later in the year.

December 19, 2013

Great conversation on this as I'm getting a lot out of it. Lightroom has been doing a great job on each new "major" version, so its been well worth my while to upgrade each time. Lets see if that continues, so I'm pretty sure I would buy 6 when it comes out.

Photoshop on the other hand is so sophisticated that I only scratch the surface of what it can be used for, so I'm generally good for a several versions before I need to upgrade. CS5 to CC is not compelling enough for me to normally upgrade to, but maybe CC2 or whatever they call it, will be. But for not a lot more than a lightroom upgrade I get to stay current. So thats my thinking.

""Indefinitely" doesn't mean "forever"" - thats a little scarey. But my CS5 and LR5 disks and license won't go away with CC, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon and can go back if I had to.

This is such a mental game. I'm having a hard time making the jump, but I'm going to power through it and hope the Adobe doesn't screw us later on. They could easily just spin off a Photoshop "Extra Pro CC" version that costs more and give all the $9.99 people a re-branded PhotoShop Elements.

December 18, 2013

My personal thoughts on moving to the $9.99/month ($120/year) creative cloud. Comments or other thoughts are welcome.

I've been very resistant to the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription vs owning the software. I have a really hard time getting my head around adding yet one more $10/month subscription. I currently own CS5 and Lightroom 5 and I'm fairly happy with the way things are right now.

However... When I look back at what I've been paying and what I'm getting for it, Adobe CC at $10/month isn't as bad as it sounds. I started with Lightroom 3 *($150), paid to upgrade to 4 ($80), then paid again $80 to upgrade to LR 5 - all in about a 3 year time frame. Then I have Photoshop CS5, that I paid for, but didn't upgrade due to the high cost. Now I'm two versions behind in PhotoShop, but happy. If there were no such thing as Creative Cloud I would be pulling the trigger ever three years or so for a PhotoShop upgrade (think every third version or so).

All of a sudden I'm realizing $120 a year is actually going to save me a little money. Even if it doesn't feel right. The only issue is I can't get of the train once I'm on board.

https://creative.adobe.com/plans/offer/photoshop+lightroom

December 6, 2013

Thanks Kent. I figured it wouldn't harm anything, but I figured they might have called local authorities about it being suspicious, which lead me to think you might have told them in advance.

December 5, 2013

I'm posting a question to Kent Satubus aka Kent in SD. I love your work on trains and I find it really interesting. I also figure other people might want to know. Not sure if you read the Lighting forums so its going under Nikon SLR's.

When you shoot trains and set of the flash (ie this last Wed with x3 White Lightenings @ 100%). Do you give them advanced notice? Or do they just not care? Or are you such a regular its pretty much accepted that it happens in the area? This is more out of curiosity as I'm not personally planing on doing anything similar.

Keep up the great work!

October 28, 2013

@ Joe... Stephen wrote WRT his charger "It will charge it, then give a full discharge and tell you what your battery's capacity is before recharging it one final time."

I might not have been clear. Thats only when you want to run your batteries through a test. The rest of the time it just charges them like a regular charger. It defaults to 200ma for a charge rate, which I believe for NiMH batteries, slow charging is better, but you can crank it up to higher rates if you are in a hurry.

October 27, 2013

Amaze Screen Saver works well on Windows 7. There a lot of transistion effects, but you can disable those. It also displays title with path and allows you to use arrow keys to go back to the last few photos so you can get back to the photos that were just displayed.

http://www.xequte.com/amaze/

October 27, 2013

I have the LaCross brand BC-900 and its amazing. Not only does it charge each cell individually, you can also select the rate of charge and do some things like test your cells. It will charge it, then give a full discharge and tell you what your battery's capacity is before recharging it one final time. Its great for weeding out bad cells. It won't however tell you how much time you have to go before its fully charged. I don't think you can do that with AA batteries with no electronics in the battery.

I've never used the PowerMax Maha, but it doesn't look like you get numeric data in terms of voltage and total capacity, the LaCross does. If you want 8 cells just by two LaCross BC-700's, which on Amazon looks like cost wise it adds up to 1 Powermax.

October 13, 2013

FX lets you get closer (to fill the frame) for the same focal length which allows you to achieve narrow DOF. I'm loving my D7100, but the ISO is not nearly as good as my D700. I moved to the D7100 from the D7000 because of the AF module.

So it all depends on how and what you shoot. If I had just a D90 and had to pick a replacement, its a tough choice. Both are great upgrades. Don't forget with a D600 you have to have FX glass. So consider that in your cost equation.

I owned a D90 a while back and if it were me, I would be leaning towards the D600 just to get to FX even though I don't care for the AF module. Especially since you are shooting mostly portraits and using your 85 f1.8.

September 24, 2013

I would:

1. Spend a little money to consult a lawyer, you are not litigating, you just need an office visit to discuss this and see what your options are. It won't be that expensive. Just make sure you talk to one who does IP type law.

2. Personally I would just use the photos give the circumstances. I suspect he is just threatening to be a jerk and doesn't have the motivation or means to litigate you. If he doesn't even own equipment, I suspect he can't go forward and take it to court. Not including his travel expenses, etc. He can't go to his local small claims court as the wedding didn't take place there (I'm assuming). The gray area in my mind is that he did give you a digital copy of the images. I'll also assume he knowingly returned the memory cards with the images for your use. He had the option to format them, etc or tell you at the time of the return of equipment that you couldn't use them.

3. Most importantly, I'm just some guy on the internet. So like everyone else said, don't take legal advice off the internet. Spend a couple hundred bucks on option #1. It will go a long way.

September 8, 2013

I occasionally dream of the 70-200 f4. I have a 70-300 and a 70-200 f2.8. I don't use the 70-300 very often. I use the 70-200 f2.8 all the time. Its fantastic!

So why do I dream of the f4 version? The 2.8 is big and heavy - I mean really big and really heavy which limits my use of it to only professional type things, I won't walk around town with it. I do use the tripod collar for sports on a monopod. If I had to redo it, I would probably still have ended up with the 2.8, even though I normally shoot f4 and above. Why? Tripod collar included, and you get f2.8 when you focus regardless of f stop that you are set to. Also for the exact reason I don't also own a f4 version, because I can't justify or afford both. If I can only afford/justify one, I'm going to stretch a little and get the one that will do more for me.

All that said I still dream of also owning the f4 version.

August 26, 2013

5,000 on a refurb is nothing. I would take 5,000 on a refurb over 500 on used any day of the week. As already mentioned you have 90 days to see if its working perfectly. Refurb is not new, thats why its refurb, but you get a short warranty that Nikon stands behind and they go over it to make sure its working.

August 21, 2013

Thanks all. I have not tried a different non-AFS lens yet. But I'm hoping its a tolerance issue with this lens. Another thought is that the screw drive that sticks out might not stick out far enough. Since its spring loaded an AFS lens keeps it held down, I'm thinking there is some sort of switch/indicator at the screw that tells it if it should turn. Not sure if the body just gets the info from the lens from a sensor / switch at the screw.

August 18, 2013

UPDATE: The lens is locked in and I see the screw on the body sticking out prior to putting the lens on, but the motor itself is not dead. If I carefully rotate the focus ring it will eventually just turn on and take off and drive the lens until its in focus, but then I have to repeat again. So no AF-C for this lens... I can't seem to find a pattern as to when it will do that so I'm not sure if the drive is simply sticking or has a different problem, but I think it might be about 50% better than when I first found the problem, so I'm thinking sticking or issues with starting up. When it does drive you can tell its got plenty of power. I would think its the lens, but the D7100 drives it without any issues. I'll have to try it with another lens. Maybe for some reason its just a bad combination.

Thanks for the KEH info. At $230 you are right, might as well just sink that money into an AF-S lens. I don't really use my 50mm that much. So perhaps its time to put that into an 85 1.8.

August 17, 2013

I stuck my nifty 50 on my D700 and the AF motor appears dead. Same lens works on the D7100, so I think its the D700's internal AF motor that has died. I can't think of any setting other than the lever on the side S / C / M that would prevent the motor from actuating. Its the only non-motor lens that I have so I don't have any other way to test.

Has anyone had a repair done in the US and can share what the cost to fix it is? Given thats my only non AF-S lens, I will probably just live with it.

August 13, 2013

D7100 over the D600 due to autofocus. No point in having a great anything if your shot is out of focus. I don't own a D600, but changed out a D7000 (same autofoucs as a D600) to a D7100 as my backup body. The D7100 is preforming much much better than my D7000. I'm very pleased with it. I shoot a lot of running road races and it works well as long as there is enough light (think evening/cloudy days) so I can keep the shutter speed high enough (about 1/800th). For running events I can usually get in real close so I don't need the DX crop as much. For skiing you might need the extra reach and that would be a good thing.

My primary setup is a D700 w/ a 70-200 and that is just awesome. If Nikon would make a D600x with an upgraded autofocus module it would be a no brainer and I would already own one.

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Posts posted by stephen_doldric