paradoxbox

short answer: CLS is cheap if you already have the flashes.

 

but if you want something even better and that lets you use cheaper flashes at much longer ranges and reliability, go with pocket wizards or clones of pocket wizards. you can get chinese / taiwanese made ones for 20 bucks a pair and they're just as good. you can also use vivitar flashes with that setup.

 

as the above poster mentioned studio strobes are the best solution if you're staying indoors but they are not very mobile and set up can be a big pain until you get a system set up for putting up and taking down lights and positioning them.

i have even used my point and shoot's strobe to fire my sb800 before - for those times when you don't want to drag the dslr out to take a portrait, just set your sb800 up on a stand behind your guests, turn off red-eye reduction on your p&s and fire away. lots of light for everyone!

nowadays it's really just down to preference. nikon's and canon's full frame cameras basically make images that have no discernable difference to most people.

 

big reasons to change: autofocus system, build quality, menus and user interface/camera controls

bad reasons to change: high iso performance (they're all the same by now), lens selection (both brands offer excellent lenses covering every realistic focal length), more "pros" use x brand vs y brand (duhh)

sb400 is a nice flash. i have used one as a commander with some sb 800's using my d2x.

however as many have mentioned it's not a good flash for serious flash photography - it's too small (not enough power for bouncing) and can only be bounced up.

 

you'll see the limitations pretty quickly if you want to bounce off a wall because the ceiling is a dark color or the ceilings are 20 feet high (mega light loss).

 

the sb400 works well if you don't mind an underexposed background or a bunch of bright reflections in people's glasses..

he's talking about the difference in size of the photosites on the camera's sensor.

 

yes it is true that on some of the newer cameras, certain lenses that were a bit softer can sharpen up. but it depends on the situation the photo was taken in. i think thom hogan has a page on his site explaining that in greater detail.

hell, i usually just breathe on it and wipe it off with the cotton t-shirt i'm wearing. never had a problem. maybe the lens coating will fail after a few years of doing that. big deal send it back to nikon to be recoated for 30$

if you can find a used 70-300 AF with the ED glass I recommend it. If not the AF-G is a good lens except when used at f4 - then you get a lot of blue fringing around contrasty subjects, and it's kind of soft. both lenses are soft past 200mm. both lenses can be had around or under 200$

 

if your budget is bigger you may want to consider the newer 70-300VR lens which is around 450$. if you have lots of money the best tele lens for dx sensors nikon has is the 70-200vr but costs 1400$

 

if you have about 700$ to spend, the next best telephoto zoom lens nikon ever made is the 80-200mm f2.8 - fantastic lens, and available used everywhere. great great lens.

okay folks, i know you're all going to jump all over me for this question.

 

but i'm having a hard time finding subjects worthwhile to photograph in tokyo. (i live here).

 

the problem is all the obvious things such as asakusa or the temples etc.. are boring and have been done a

million times before.

 

i've done lots of architecture shots but another problem is that i don't have a tilt/shift lens, and my widest

lens is 18mm. panorama shots in the city are dicey because tripods are not allowed and i don't need the police

chasing me and trying to deport me or something.

 

people shots are also a bit dicey because privacy laws here are very different compared to those in canada and

the US.

also obtaining a model release is basically impossible for random street photography for obvious reasons.

 

where does that leave me? what should i be photographing?!

 

a quick look at my portfolio here on photo.net shows the kind of shots i like to take, but i'm looking for

something that's a bit different from that too.

 

my equipment is a d2x, some lenses from 18 up to 300mm, an sb 800, good tripod, and a couple filters. thinking of

adding a second or third flash and some reflectors to the equipment roster in the near future.

check inside your battery compartment. if it has a nikon usa it's covered by warranty. if it says anything else or there is no sticker you've got a grey market camera that's not covered by warranty in the US.

the downside to on camera long exposure NR is that the NR operation takes as long as the exposure lasted which can be a pain if you're taking 2 minute long exposures

personally i haven't seen a lot of difference between the on camera NR and the NR achieved using something like noise ninja, plus noise ninja completes the operation in 5 seconds where the camera takes as long as the original exposure.

i do a lot of night photography. in fact almost all of my photography is done at night with long exposures and tripods, and a d2x at iso 100.

 

just my opinion though!

i don't think it makes any difference at all. it's just a coincidence

even if you shoot in jpeg you should leave everything set to off, no noise reduction, no sharpening, no color saturation, etc. do all of that stuff in your post processing software on your computer. the computer software can handle it much better and gives you complete control over the image. only use the noise reduction on camera if your workflow dictates that your images go right from the camera to the printer or web with no post processing work.

definitely the lens. the d200 is not that much better than the d50. the lens will let you do stuff you can't do with the d200.

bh photo's website is strange and i think they're kind of dumb for posting that message that they aren't taking orders every time the store closes for the night.. it just means their store is closed til the next day.

 

i don't recommend getting the kit lens with the d80 when you can buy a better quality used lens for the same price.

you will never miss the gap between 50 and 80. At 50mm you take a few steps forward and you've made up all the missing mm's, hell, even leaning forward probably gets you 10mm of reach.

 

As to whether you should switch lenses, I don't know. Are you happy with the color and sharpness of your current lens?

 

The 80-200mm is considered one of the best telephotos Nikon has ever produced. It's a pro lens used by many photographers even today for sports shooting. You can also find them under 800$ frequently on ebay or in used camera shops.

 

It is a heavy lens. Be aware of that.

 

I'd buy it if you're not currently satisfied with your existing lens.

">> "..not sure if the 700 is a full frame, but the Sigma 10-20 is very sharp edge to edge."

 

You can't use the Sigma 10-20 on the D700. The lens is a DX lens, but the camera is a FX camera. "

 

Slightly incorrect. You can use that lens on a FF camera. The camera will go into crop mode which will produce a lower resolution, 5mp image. The image will not appear as good as it would if the image were taken by a DX camera, but if you're not blowing the image up to large sizes it is still quite serviceable.

 

Just want to clear that up. Nikon has a few primes in the 20 - 30mm range. I have seen 20 and 24mm primes for under $400. I think the 24mm 2.0 (Or is it a 2.8) got a bad rap for distortion and poor sharpness while the 20mm is considered a good lens.

Someone said the SB-800 is being discontinued - is there any proof of that? I think the SB-800 is far too popular right now for nikon to want to discontinue it. Nikon has a really great lineup of portable flashes, there's no reason for them to discontinue a flash unit..

the 18-55 is a good lens but suffers from chromatic aberration a little easily for my liking. it's also a little bit slow.

 

if i were you i would ask him a bit more about the kind of lens he wants, don't just go out and buy an 18-55 because it's cheap. find out more about what he wants. he may be referring to something completely different than what you're thinking.

 

actually i have a very strong feeling he probably already has this lens or something better. don't buy it until you know exactly what he's looking for. if he mentioned 50mm he's probably referring to a 50mm prime f1.8 or f1.4 lens.

I've handled a D300 fairly extensively, I don't own one though. I never noticed an 11 point AF option, maybe it's buried in the menus somewhere, I didn't see a selector switch position for it though. I'll check it out next time I'm at a Yodobashi Camera store here in Tokyo. I guess it's each to their own. For me the D300's iso performance was not good enough to justify the upgrade. The d3's iso performance is definitely better, but I can wait for the price to come down a bit more personally. For what the original poster is looking for I can't suggest anything less than a D700. In my opinion while the D300's iso performance IS better, it's not good enough for the kind of things many people expect these days. The D3 or D700 will fit the bill perfectly.

I agree with most people here than the D2X is not suitable for low light / night time sports photography unless you are using it for B/W or newspaper printing purposes. Noise above ISO 800 tends to be pretty rough when shooting at night with the D2X. If you shoot at high ISO in the daytime it's not as bad but when there are lots of shadows the noise can get obvious.

 

That being said I don't think I would recommend the D300 either. For me the noise of the D300 is not that much better than the D2X to justify buying it.

 

The D3 or D700 however are a different matter. I would recommend buying a D700 if your funds allow it, or a D3 if you want the pro style body.

 

In regard to the autofocus system, while the D300's AF is more complex, I absolutely disagree that it's faster. I also find that due to having so many autofocus points it can sometimes take longer to do the thing you want to do I.E. select an af point in the bottom left corner of the frame. With the d2x it takes 2 key presses to do. With the D300 you end up holding the arrow key for X number of seconds, readjust if you go too far, etc. While the D300's automated modes are convenient at times I do prefer the interface of the D2X's AF in most scenarios.

 

I'm keeping my D2X until I can justify a D3, or maybe I'll just wait for a D3X or D4 to come out and buy one of those instead.

the d200 and d80 high iso are about the same. the d200's build is better than the d80 but personally i don't think it's that much better built. same goes with the d300.

 

the d2x / d3 build are obviously the benchmark for the industry. i feel they are built better than any canon available. my d2x has seen some rough trips..

 

i would not recommend a d200 because you can get a d300 for a little more and have a much better camera. if build quality / weatherproofing matter to you then get a d2x. also if you like high speed crop mode (which gives a crop factor of 2.0 instead of the normal 1.5) then the d2x is the best choice.

 

if you get a d2x you need to use good lenses to get the most out of it. the d2x is very unforgiving of amateur/beginner technique due to the small photosites. camera shake that you may have gotten away with on a d40 will show up as blur/soft edges on the d2x. but if you use it right the d2x is still one of the best cameras money can buy up to about iso 800.

the fastest way to sort through 2000 photos? set your camera to raw plus small jpeg

 

copy the jpegs to your local hard disk. open up the photos in windows picture viewer or irfanview. hit the right arrow key on your keyboard 2000 times (or just hold it down). you'd be amazed how well this can work. it also lets you focus on the important little sections of photographs i.e. at a race the moments leading up to the finish, etc..

i wouldn't recommend them either because they're 50mm. 50mm on a DX sized sensor = long. you won't be able to use that lens easily indoors because it's too much of a telephoto on dx cameras.

 

i'd recommend a sigma 30mm f1.4 - that's a fantastic lens and gives you enough room to use it indoors. it's a bit pricey but around the same as the nikon 1.4

Hi Steve,

You need to make sure you're set to a low ISO, and then dial the exposure down on the flash. You might try dragging the shutter a bit (i.e. a bit longer exposure than the scene meters for) to get a bit of a nicer blend.

 

For shooting people outdoors in sunlight, dial down the flash exposure by 2/3 or 1 1/3 and see how it looks. It should remove the shadows from their faces without casting strong shadows.

 

The main thing is to use as much natural light as possible and use the flash just to fill. Sometimes it's impossible with a single flash unit - shooting buildings or gardens for example is very tough with only one flash, and if you diffuse the light you may as well not have fired the flash at all.

 

It might be necessary to get a second flash unit depending on what you're trying to do.

It's not expensive to replace the shutter. About $250 at maximum, and if your shutter fails before the rated amount of actuations you can probably have Nikon replace it for free if you pester them nicely.