tom_boston1

<p>I like Mike R's viewpoint. I might flinch at the initial cost of the Nikon product but I never regret it later.<br /><br />I've already got a collection of SB-800 and 900's. But I might consider the Yongnuo YN-568EX only for use as tertiary emergency backups.<br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>If you haven't already bought one, you might be able to find the WU-1a refurbished for half the usual price. ($30 instead of $60)<br /><br />iPad apps generally work on most iPads. Pretty sure I tried the WU-1a with my D7100 and iPad 4 and didn't have any problems with it. Also ran the Android app. <br /><br />It didn't particularly impress me. More of a toy than anything else. Something like the CamRanger is probably more robust. But if it's such a great deal, just go ahead and buy it.<br /><br />If you don't want to take a risk, buy it from some place with return privileges.</p>

<p>I'll second what Jim says. I also have the Vello ShutterBoss wireless. The transmitter can also function as a wired trigger if the receiver battery dies.<br /><br />It costs $100 and regularly goes on sale at B&H for $80. I got the version for Nikon's 10 pin cable to use with my D800. For another $10, I got the cable that lets it work with my D7100. You can get some simpler wired versions for even less money if you are on a budget.<br> If you need to put something else on the hot shoe, the receiver is light enough to let it dangle on the cord.<br /><br />The one minor place I'll disagree with Jim is on the build-quality. Build is somewhat on the light side. I lost the battery cover for the receiver - the cover comes off too easily - and now I use a piece gaffer tape to hold the battery in place.</p> <p> </p>

<p>So what part of "Get It Digital is not Nikon USA authorized dealer." on the URL he gave didn't the original poster understand?<br /><br />And this policy sounds less than generous: "Manufacture defective items (or DOA) must be reported within 4 days of the date of delivery."<br> Personally, I feel that when businesses say things like "3 Year USA warranty" they are deliberately misleading the customer and don't deserve our business.<br> </p>

<p>I'm not arguing so much about what rear curtain does (or with the results of your fantastic train photo) as to some fine details about when it's actually necessary.</p> <p>In that diving photo, rear curtain versus front curtain would be a drastic change. Clearly needed to get the desired effect.</p> <p>In the train shot, you mention something I had never thought of before. For a very slow shutter, if the flash goes off on the front curtain, the humans in the photo might think the shot is finished and they'll move at the beginning of the exposure and be blurred by the ambient light.</p> <p>Just to be sure, it looks like the flash is sitting on the floor in front of them and the only thing the flash is illuminating is the humans. Is this correct?</p> <p>I marvel that you were able to get a steady shot for three seconds between two connected cars while hanging the camera out a window with one hand.</p> <p>But the usual thoughts about when rear curtain is necessary are modified in this train scenario because the subject and the camera are fixed relative to each other. The background is moving instead. Normally, the camera and the background are still while the subject moves.</p> <p>In this special case, there will be no background light streaking over the subjects faces because the faces are always on the same spot of the sensor. The background streaks never touch that part of the sensor because the background streaks do not shine through the heads. (The light streaks will _not_ overwrite the image.)</p> <p>If you did the thought experiment of using the 3 second exposure and rear curtain flash, you'd end up with exactly the same result as using the 3 second exposure and and front curtain flash and moving the train backwards. In neither case, would you get light streaks over the faces because the faces and the camera are moving together.</p> <p>I feel like there should be a shorter way of saying all of this. Sorry.</p> <p>How many tries with the handheld camera did it take to get this sharp image?</p> <p> </p>

<p>Norbert, cool shot. How is the camera mounted? Was the train car actually moving? What were the exposure settings?</p> <p>This is a good example of a motion shot where rear curtain shutter isn't necessary.</p> <p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Paul, the short answer to your specific question is: <br /><br />Yes, the first flash you see is the pre-flash used by the iTTL system to calculate exposure and the 2nd flash is the actual exposure itself. Without rear curtain, these will happen almost simultaneously.<br /><br />Why the image looks overexposed depends. You'd really have to show the image. 0.5 secs, f/3.5 at ISO 500 sounds like it might be too long for a nighttime city shot. And iTTL isn't real consistent and isn't always perfect at reading your mind about what you want it to expose for. <br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>Paul, yes, if someone is trying to show movement (of the main subject) then the rear curtain is necessary <em>where the direction of the movement is important.</em> </p> <p>Not "everyone" uses it that way. Every once in a while someone thinks they <em>have</em> to use rear curtain flash to do those shots where the background is nicely illuminated by ambient light and the main subject is illuminated by the on-camera flash. (For example, a night time shot of someone in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background.)</p> <p>In any event, Norbert's system gets you into the ballpark. Manually set the camera to get the desired exposure for the background via ambient light. Then set the the flash exposure to get the main foreground subject lit as desired. Whether or not rear curtain gets used is relevant only to showing motion in a particular direction.<br> <br> Manual flash exposure is recommended for consistent results. If the moving subject shifts a lot, the scene that the pre-flash evaluates could be quite a bit different. There's a lot of vaguely explained calculations that the iTTL/CLS system uses to decide how much flash exposure to use. Focus distance, selected AF sensor, and the position of objects in your scene can all affect the flash exposure, especially if your main subject does not fill out a large portion of the scene.<br> <br />By the way, for this rear curtain and slow shutter stuff, the ambient light should usually be underexposed. If the camera is set to expose for ambient light, the main subject gets lit properly by ambient light (resulting in a blur) and the addition of the flash light results in overexposure of the subject.<br /><br /><br> </p>

<p>Why is your wife using rear curtain flash? It is not needed for night time flash photography.<br> <br />And with respect to Rodeo Joe's comment above, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using TTL flash together with manual ambient exposure. Set the camera exposure to get the desired ambient/background lighting and the Nikon system is very good at giving accurate flash exposure of the main foreground subject, especially if used in direct flash mode (i.e. not bouncing)<br /><br /></p>

<p>Following up on prior poster's comment: Picture Control under the Shooting Menu has adjustments for Saturation and Contrast. You'll also want to set these appropriately.</p>

<p>How much did you pay for the D7000?</p> <p>How did you find out it's grey market?</p> <p>Authorized Photo Service in Morton Grove, Illinois will service it.</p>

<p>I guess what I'm really trying to ask is what underlying cause of imperfection in an AF system allows or requires a fine tuning adjustment to be made for a lens. </p> <p>It would make sense to me if the AF motor in the lens had some random error plus or minus some small amount. But I don't know anything about the construction of the AF motor in a lens. So what makes sense to me might not have any bearing on the electromechanical facts.<br /><br />If someone could definitely state that the design of ring motors is such that there is always a consistent error in the same direction, it might make a little more sense to me. But I'd still wonder why the camera wouldn't recognize that the image is out of focus that slight bit and move the lens to compensate. I'd also want to understand that underlying design of ring motors.<br /><br />I might be obtuse about this because I just don't get it. But I'm not trying to be rhetorical at all. <br> </p>

<p>Aaron, that doesn't quite answer the question. </p> <p>If you 80-400 has a consistent focus error, you could correct it by manually tweaking the focus, right? And if you can manually tweak the focus, why can't the AF system recognize the same tweak.</p>

<p>I'm in search of why fine tuning a lens does anything. <br> As long as the three light paths inside the camera body are consistent with each other (lens to primary mirror to ground glass, lens to secondary mirror to AF sensors, and lens to image sensor) why wouldn't the AF system automatically adjust the lens for best focus on the selected AF point?<br /><br />If the focus is too close, turn the lens one way, if the focus is too far, turn the lens the other way. I don't see what is in the lens that might need fine tuning.</p>

<p>Hi Shun. My difficulty was that I didn't try the D300. Not sure why.<br> I tried a simple product like the 50mm f/1.8D. No one is authorized to repair that. <br> In fact, it seems like no one is authorized to repair any of the lenses.<br> </p>

Every time I visit this page I see an ad from 42nd Street Photo for a D7100 body at the too good to be true price of $850. But 42nd Street isn't even on the Nikon authorized dealer list. http://cdn-6.nikon-cdn.com/where-to-buy/nikon_img_auth_dealers.pdf And their web site makes no mention that these are grey market goods without USA warranties. I think they are being deliberately misleading. Couldn't photo.net have some kind of advertising standards so it doesn't gain from this seemingly unethical behavior? This maybe belongs in another forum, but alerting other people who might see the same ad is worth while too.

Adriano, When set to overflow, displaying the amount remaining on card 1 makes sense because that lets you know how soon you might want to put a new card in the camera.

<p>By the way, if the camera seems to be gradually hunting more, maybe it's only dust that has been accumulating on the autofocus sensor which is on the bottom of the mirror box. I haven't seen as much written about cleaning AF arrays, but perhaps blowing it out with a bulb blower with the usual precautions will fix your issue.</p>

<p>Shun, there must be something broken on Nikon's list because practically no one is authorized to fix anything on that search form. <a href="http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Service-And-Support/Nikon-Authorized-Repair-List.page">http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Service-And-Support/Nikon-Authorized-Repair-List.page</a> - Am I doing something wrong?</p>

<p>The last time I had a lens serviced at Sanford, to replace a lens flange damaged in a drop, I paid $25 extra for priority service on a 17-35/2.8. It took two weeks to get the part. (This was a long time ago, maybe it was only a week for them to service it.) But then they told me they could fix it but there was a squeak. So I could have the lens back with the squeak or I could wait for them to get another part. Except the technician was going on vacation the next day so I'd have to wait until after the technician came back from vacation.<br /><br />I was not a happy camper. I would have had faster turn around if I had shipped it to <a href="http://www.nikoncamerarepair.com/">Authorized Photo Service</a> in Morton Grove, Illinois where I've had prior good experiences. I figured I'd go local and save myself shipping. But two days shipping out, one day turn around on the repair, and two days shipping back and I'd have had had it back at the end of the week.</p>

<p>Eric - It's silly to keep pressing the AF-On button while taking the photo. The OP already said the subject isn't moving.<br /><br />Mark - Have you changed custom setting a5 to "AF-ON Only"? This is strongly recommended if you are going to focus with the AF-On button instead of the shutter button. (This is what Erik means when he refers to "Nothing on the shutter button")<br /><br />Assuming you have set a5 to "AF-ON Only", when you release the AF-On button, the camera will behave as if it is in AF-S in that the focus will not change as long as you don't press the AF-On button again. But you can instantly go back to AF-C behavior by simply pressing and AF-On button.<br /><br />This ability to switch instantly switch between AF-S and AF-C type behavior by either pressing and releasing or pressing and holding the AF-On button is part of the appeal of using the AF-On button for focusing.<br /><br />Note that the even though you are getting both AF-S and AF-C behavior at the press or release of a button, the camera itself is still in AF-C mode as indicated by the S/C/M switch on the body. There are occasionally a few subtle differences that may or may not affect you. In particular, the AF assist light on a speed light will not activate when the body switch is on AF-C.</p>

<p>Has anyone seen anything like this?</p> <p>I am sometimes getting these strange parallel lines in shadow areas of my images. I only see them in dark areas. In this instance, I've artificially raised the levels to make the issue more visible. Frames immediately before and after this shot with the same camera settings show silky smooth blackness in similar regions of the photos.</p> <p>Poorly seated memory card perhaps? I'm completely befuddled.</p> <p> </p><div></div>