glenjo

<p>Leo and Edward have a good idea with the F100. It's a great camera. </p>

<p>Costco or at home on an HP Photosmart C7180.</p>

<p>Check your white balance settings. Make sure this is set to A (auto) which gets pretty close most of the time.</p>

<p>John,<br>

I am lusting after a 28 or 35 PC. A 24 PC-E is just a bit too expensive.<br>

The 50 f/1.4 and the 200 f/2.8 FD lenses I had were fantastic. I never thought to look into adapters between the FD and F mount. There were (are still, I guess,) some killer FD lenses out there that I could never afford way back when. Now, I'm going to have to go over to KEH and look at prices just to satisfy my curiosity.</p>

<p>70-300 VR for now, and possibly upgrade to an AFS version later, or never.</p>

<p>The 70-300 VR is AF-S so no worries about upgrading. The 70-300 VR AF-S is small and it's possible to handhold shots. I would use a tripod for all the rest.</p>

<p>Wow, some fantastic bird shots! I don't have any as nice as those. Here's a heron at 200mm with the 18-200 and heavily cropped.</p><div></div>

<p>Yes, I had an A-1 and some great lenses. Once I decided to get a Nikon DSLR, it just made more sense to sell the Canon and get a Nikon film camera. I got an F100 (would love an F6, but they're pricey). This way, my film and digital cameras use the same lenses and for the most part accessories.</p>

<p>Oh, I'm aware of why Canon did it, it just didn't do much for me. But I'm curious, why didn't you sell all of your Nikon lenses?</p>

<p>Well, I had Canon FD camera and lenses, but it became a dead end when Canon went EOS. So if you had bought Nikon back then, your lenses would still work on the current cameras. I've got a fourty year old Nikkor 55 mm f/3.5 AI'd that works just fine on my D200. I sold all of my Canon FD cameras and lenses and switched to Nikon and one of the reasons is because there is a whole lot of older Nikon lenses that still are useable.</p>

<p>For those with newer lenses:<br>

Landscape: AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8<br>

Macro: AF-S 60mm f/2.8<br>

Portrait: AF 85mm f/1.4</p>

 

<p>For those of us with older lenses:<br>

Landscape: 20mm f/4<br>

Macro: 55mm f/3.5 or 105mm f/4<br>

Portrait: 105mm f/2.5</p>

<p>Here's another recommendation for the 18-200 and the 50/1.8. The 18-200 will get almost anything done when there is enough light, and the 50/1.8 gets you going with a good fast prime. Use the 18-200, keep track of the focal length you use and use that data to help pick your next lens.</p>

<p>HN-28 is available at KEH.</p>

 

<p>SB800 adds A and AA modes and SU-4 remote mode. Does not support high speed sync on F100.</p>

<p>Max flash sync is 250 which is the max camera synch. SB600 does TTL, BL, M, GN and RPT modes on F100. SB600 high speed synch will not work on the F100, only on iTTL cameras. Some older Nikon speedlights had an equivalent high speed sync mode for F100 (and other Group I cameras). SB80DX is one, I cannot remember how many others had this mode.</p>

<p>Bernard, I'm not trying to pry, but exact what monitor/operating system do you have? The first monitor I calibrated was a five year old 19 inch Samsung CRT. It was getting pretty tired by the time I calibrated it. It pretty much did a poor sRGB gamut.</p>

<p>Unfortunately good monitors cost at least $600 and then can go dramatically up from there. My current monitor is a compromise of sorts: it's a 24 inch TN type LCD, but it's got wide gamut CCFL so it's supposed to get about 92% of the NTSC gamut, and that's about what I saw after calibration. It's almost able to do Adobe RGB. It has bad viewing angles and color bleeding top to bottom, but it was cheap at $350.</p>

<p>This is a good question since I tend to buy used lenses (mostly from KEH), I'd like to know if there is a quick and reliable way to tell if a lenses has been knocked out of alignment. I do tend to buy less expensive lenses new if I can afford them just because you assume that used lenses may have been dropped a couple of times.<br>

This also gets back to your earlier question about differences between the 55-200 VR and the 70-300 VR. It's just my opinion, but I think the 70-300 would stand up to a couple of drops better than the 55-200 even though both are consumer grade lenses.</p>

<p>Here's several:<br>

http://www.dpnotes.com/nikon/nikond700/nefsamples.php<br>

I just downloaded then and opened them up in Bibblepro. That was a dumb, dumb thing to do.<br>

They look great.</p>

 

<p>1. No, monitor calibration only makes the monitor display accurate. You would need to calibrate your printer separately. This is unfortunately a short answer to a rather long subject. It would help to know the exact monitor and printer that you have so as to make a better judgment as to exactly how much can be gained by calibration. You may find that you do not have a monitor or printer worth hardware calibration. There are a couple of ways of doing a soft calibration (with the old Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball):<br>

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm<br>

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#Monitorsetup<br>

Both Dry Creek Photo and Norman Koren have lots more of information on color management.<br>

2. I use a DTP-94 to calibrate my monitor (Dell E248WFP), and don't calibrate my printer. I have not used the X-Rite Eye One Display LT. There are products which can calibrate both your display and your printer, but these would cost more than just calibrating the display.</p>

<p>I mostly buy used. DO you think this will drive up the price of used lenses?</p>

<p>I picked up the 70-300 VR a while back, but it was for an F100 (so I needed FF). Honestly, unless you really need that extra 100mm of reach, you will not notice a significant difference between a 70-300 and a 55-200. Neither is pro grade glass. If, as Shun asks, you can use a monopod or tripod, go for a used 80-200 f2.8.</p>

<p>Since you have a body which can only focus AF-S lenses, have you considered buying used AI/AIS lenses? I think you can use these in M mode without metering. Or have you considered renting a lens from a pro shop to see if you like it?<br>

You can get a used 50mm f/1.8 from KEH for less than $100.</p>

<p>Even the 55mm f/3.5 is pretty sharp. I've read the new 60 is even better.</p><div></div>

<p>I have the 105mm f/4 and it is a nice lens. I also have the 55mm f/3.5 Auto AI'd which is also quite nice. I use them on my D200 (and F100). It is difficult at times to focus, but not impossible. I have not used the newer versions.</p><div></div>

<p>Nice shot Matt. How did you know what power levels to set those flashes at? Just a lot of experience?</p>

<p>I'm embarassed to show you the shots I took with a D200 and an SB800. I seriously need to learn more about flash.</p>

I use the AFS 24-85 f/3.5-4.5 G ED as the walk around lens for my F100. I'm not sure if this is wide enough for you, but a 24mm FX is equivalent to 16mm DX.