paul_garland

<p>Most of us use our CPL to make the sky a deeper blue, or occasionally to reduce reflected glare on water or glass.</p>

<p>I just shot this indoors, using ambient light. The CPL can really be a powerful tool at reducing reflections.</p>

<p>Unfortunately I can't seem to post the pic, so sorry about wasting anyone's time.</p>

<p>An f/1.2 lens is certainly an interesting oddity. I would love to have one to play around with.</p>

<p>I find that in much of what I do, I am trying to increase depth-of-field. So I end up stopping down the aperture significantly. And the relatively good performance of modern digital cameras at high ISOs makes low light lenses like this less necessary. Still, I'm jealous!</p>

<p>I have a D40X, a D300, and some fairly good lenses.</p>

<p>The D40X can take really good pictures. The D300 is a wonderful camera. But with either one the quality of your pictures is going to be limited by the quality of your lens. </p>

<p>Why don't you buy one nice new lens while you are making up your mind?</p>

<p>It is really a shame, but telephoto extenders were more useful back in the old film days than now. The resolution degrades slightly and you get less light, so in most cases just digital enlarging will do as good (or better) job than a telextender.</p>

<p>The best bet it to buy a longer lens. And a good STURDY tripod.</p>

<p>Yes Jay "Mountain Light" is my favorite of all his books. In it Galen Rowell gives a lot of good suggestions. Such as when photographing mountains and landscapes depth of field is normally important, so an f/1.4 or f/1.8 lens is generally not required. Also, whenever you can always use a tripod.</p>

<p>Most of the problems that he encountered back in the bad old days of emulsion and chemicals are the exact same things that digital photographers have to deal with. Quality of light, the much wider tonal range of the human eye than film (and even more so with a CCD or a CMOS), compositon, etc. </p>

<p>Lex, it might be rude to say this on a Nikon site, but I've owned several Olympus 35mm SLRs and also several digtials including two Olympus DSLRs. </p>

<p>My brother in law is travelling in China right now, and rather than bring along his D80 or D40X he opted for an Olympus point and shoot which fits in his shirt pocket. He has been emailing back the pics each day and they don't look at all bad.</p>

<p>Sorry about your back and neck Lex!</p>

<p>Recently I have been reading several books by Galen Rowell and also one by his wife Barbara Cushman Rowell.</p>

<p>One of the things that hits me square in the face is that the Nikon 35mm camera/lens combination that Galen usually carried with him on his wilderness travels weighed much less than my D300, which has the MB-D10 second battery. I find that many times when I am going out hiking in the wilds I leave the D300 at home and bring along the D40 with a prime lens mounted on it. There are many things that the D40 won't do quite as well as the D300, including using a GPS, but the D40 is so much lighter that I really do notice the difference.</p>

<p>The Op/Tech camera strap I recently added helps greatly on the D300, but with a good lens mounted on it the combination is still really heavy. I have several old Nikon 35mm film SLRs that I could use, but I vastly prefer digital (RAW) primarily because of its immediacy and the vast range of opportunities that you get through good software like Photoshop and Capture NX. It is just too bad that all the really good cameras, which approach the resolution and color depth of 35mm film, are so darn<em> HEAVY!</em><br>

<em><br /></em></p><div></div>

<p>That is why you to do not want to shoot perpendicular to the chart. By shooting at a roughly 45 degree angle to the chart it is obvious whether the lens is focusing in front of the desired location (what I call short), or behind it (which I call long). </p>

<p>Most of my Nikon lenses were right on the nose, but two were off. One slightly, and the other a whole lot. Both were focusing long, i.e. behind the intended location. </p>

<p>Negative on the D300 moves the focus point towards you and positive moves it further away.</p>

<p>I found that two of my more favorite Nikon lenses needed a bit of fine tuning. All the others were spot on with the D300, but two of them were focusing slightly long - one much worse than the other. </p>

<p>I am so glad that I went to the trouble. I did not print the pics, I just looked at them on the screen and then adjusted a little more until I had gone too far, then backed off. It is the most productive 1 or 2 hours I have spent in a long time. I did all the shooting with the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod, shooting at roughly 45 degrees to the chart.</p>

<p>One lens was my new 35mm f/1.8 prime where in aperture priority mode I shot with it wide open to minimize the depth of field. The other was a new and relatively expensive Nikon zoom lens (some people who rate it call it overpriced). To minimize depth of field I shot with the aperture wide open, and with the lens fully zoomed out to telephoto.</p>

<p>My homemade method seems to have worked fine for me. It is so nice that the D300 lets one fine tune the autofocus by lens. This is a great feature!</p>

<p>The Nikon 105mm AF-S VR micro (say macro) lens is superb! I have used mine with a D40, D40X, D80, and the D300.</p>

<p>This lens is good at other things too, but for macro work it is nothing but wonderful.</p>

<p>I have tried several different after market brands of the EN-EL3 and have been very dissatisfied with all of them. It is a shame too, because Nikon's pricing on batteries is absurd. Borderline price gouging.</p>

<p>One option is to buy a grip like the Jenis J-ND70S-P-B which allows you to use rchargeable AA batteries.<br>

<h1 ><br /></h1>

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<p>I have Kenko extension tubes and they allow me to take heavy duty macros. Keep in mind that with extension tubes mounted you focus primarily by moving the camera closer and further away. To get satisfactory results your camera will need to be on a tripod. </p>

<p>And depth of field is razor thin, even if you shoot with really small aperture (a high f/number).</p>

<p>The answer to your question is <em>YES</em>. You certainly can use most old and/or manual focus lenses on the D300.</p>

<p>The D300 has a very loyal following of photographers. It is heavy as a brick (especially with the second battery mounted on it) but is an absoltely wonderful camera.</p>

<p> </p>

<p >Quoting Wikipedia: "The Nikon F75 (sold in <a title="North America" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America">North America</a> as the N75) was the last consumer-level <a title="Autofocus" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofocus">autofocus</a> <a title="35mm" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35mm">35mm</a> SLR <a title="Camera" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera">camera</a> sold by the <a title="Nikon Corporation" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_Corporation">Nikon Corporation</a> beginning in February 2003. The camera replaced the similarly consumer-targeted <a title="Nikon F65" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_F65">Nikon F65</a>.</p>

<p >The Nikon F75 is still sold cheaply on the used market, and is valued because it can drive Nikon's newest lens designs, including those with AF-S and VR.</p>

<p >There was a version, dubbed the F75D (N75D) that featured a date-recording back."</p>

<p > </p>

<p >If it will work on your camera, nothing beats the 105mm AF-S VR f/2.8 prime micro (say macro) lens. And I mean <em>NOTHING.</em> It is a superb lens.</p>

<p>

<p >My condolences. Really. What a horrible experience.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >The D300 is a wonderful DSLR and 99.9% of the people who shoot with it are virtual D300 groupies. Sometimes S% happens, or in less crude language, Sometimes bad things do happen to nice people.</p>

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<p>There is a certain amount of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" here. But here are my ideas.</p>

<p>For macros nothing, and I mean <em>NOTHING</em>, beats the 105mm prime AF-S VR 2.8 micro (say macro) lens. </p>

<p>And for portraits you do not need to waste the money buying an f/1.4 lens. That is just plain silly. If you were that dedicated and/or wealthy you would be shooting with a D3X. The 50mm prime f/1.8 is just perfect for portraits, especially on a DX camera like the D80. It is cheap, light weight, and sharp as a tack.</p>

<p>I do indeed bring my laptop along when I travel. I have teeny tiny one which looks like an internet netbook, but is actually a full fledged laptop which runs Photoshop and NX just fine.</p>

<p>I do download the camera to it by USB, but not normally because my card is full. After my feet have given out for the day, I retire to the hotel room and then go though the pictures I took that day. Using photoshop and sometimes NX I fix or clean up the pics a little, then connecting to the internet wirlessly by WiFi I post a few of the day's neatest things to my blog. I also check my email so that when I get home there isn't a distressing, gigantic pile of unopened messages awaiting me.</p>

<p>Many people are consumed by the "bigger is better" phenomenom, bigger SUV, bigger screen on their latop, etc. So their laptop has this giant screen, is really heavy, and the battery doesn't last long at all. I have one of those too, but it stays at home. </p>

<p>For travel you need a small lap top with good battery life which you can recharge from 100-250 vac 50/60 hz, the appropriate mains converters for the countries you are going to, as well as a charger which plugs into the car's 12 vdc outlet. </p>

<p>So rather than sitting in your hotel room (or your bigger-is-better RV) watching TV, you can re-live the wonders of the day and share some of the best parts with your fiends and family. Immediately. Not several days or weeks later.</p>

<p>Greg Alton: Perfectly articulated! In the past it just didn't seem worth it, but now it does.</p>

<p>I fully agree that "if the picture matters, use raw."</p>

<p>Robert Budding: I'm always up for an argument. Shall we discuss sex, or politics, or religion?</p>

<p>All The Best!! </p>

<p>I own several Nikon 35mm SLRs, and four Nikon DSLRs. Plus several really nice lenses.</p>

<p>But for travel I normally take a good point and shoot which will fit comfortably in my shirt pocket. Heretical, but just to take travel pictures of the Coliseum in Rome, German castles, or Hadrian's Wall in England a quality point and shoot will take wonderful pictures. Really. The main thing I miss with a point and shoot is the GPS I have on the D300.</p>

<p>If you are lugging around even a light weight DSLR like the D40, you are often focusing too much of your attention on getting a good shot, and not enough attention on the wonderful sights that you are experiencing at the moment.</p>

<p>I had a Coolpix 4500 and it was a wonderful camera. I have never owned a camera which made such wonderful super macros...like of ancient coins the size of a dime.</p>

<p>I have a Nikon D300 DSLR now with a variety of macro lenses, but I still miss my old CP 4500.</p>

<p>Most new point and shoot cameras are just fine for general purpose travel photography and snapshots. You may want to look at one of Nikon's camera's which use two AA nicad rechargeable batteries like the L20. Buying proprietary rechargeable batteries is almost always a giant rip off.</p>