williamting

<p>I'm flying to Japan pretty soon and my lens is already packed. Once I land I'll take some more test pics and inspect the mount. I bought the lens used (understating the obvious :P) but it already came with the non-optical F-mount adapter.</p>

<p>@Harry: Yes the high voltage is focused, but the kids are not parallel due to image compression from using a long lens.</p>

<p>@Jim: My guesses are way off. I remeasured using Google satellite maps. For reference, I've attached a second pic below from a different lens and I've circled the two points of reference. The bus stop is ~220m away. The high voltage pole is ~130m away.</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks Andrew. The lens does have a 3rd party adapter that might be the cause of the problem.</p>

<p>I have an old Heinz Kilfitt mounted on my Nikon D300. It's a great lens as long as I stop it down, but it seems that I can't focus to infinity. When I took the photo below, I had the lens focus mark on infinity. The "High Voltage" sign is in focus (~100m away) while the bus stop / kids are out of focus (~200m away). Is there anything wrong with my lens or am I doing something wrong? I don't use manual focus very often.</p><div></div>

<p>I think this <a href="http://i.imgur.com/b2feF.png">chart</a> is pretty accurate. I feel that my photography progress has plateaued over the last year until I compare photos from 12 months ago, 24 months ago, etc.</p>

<p>I've also realized a lot of what I need to work on is post processing and studio lighting for the type of shots I want to take.</p>

<p>There's the Sigma 30/1.4 (DX) or Nikon 35/2 AF-D (FX). Are you worried about the 20/2.8 AF-D or 24/2.8 AF-D MTF scores?</p>

<p>On drives only storing files, there's no problem with using it up to 100%. The closer you get to limit the more fragmentation will occur, but as this is a storage drive it's not an issue.</p>

<p>Like Bob said, all drives will fail, it's just a matter of when. I used to work doing university tech support and it's unbelievable how many graduate students would come in with only a 1.44MB corrupted floppy with their semester's worth of work.</p>

<p>Keep a backup and an offsite backup of your photos. Storage is cheap, photos and memories are not.</p>

<p>I think it depends on what you work with.</p>

 

<ul>

<li>Sigma 30/1.4 or Nikon 35/1.8 for carry around</li>

<li>60/2.8 for portraiture, static macro</li>

<li>85/1.4 for portraiture, headshots</li>

<li>105/2.8 for macro</li>

<li>135/2 DC for portraiture, headshots</li>

<li>Nikon 300/2.8 or 400/2.8 or Sigma 800/5.6 for nature, sports</li>

</ul>

<p>If I had to choose 3 I'd go with the 30/1.4, 85/1.4, 300/2.8.</p>

<p>Please use the <a href="../travel-photography-forum/">Travel Photography</a> or <a href="../beginner-photography-questions-forum/">Beginner</a> forums.</p>

<p>I'm in the always camp, but like Scott said I realizes it degrades glass quality. I try to help alleviate the situation somewhat by always using high quality multi-coated filters.</p>

<p>I always remove filters in a studio setting or when shooting into the sun since they're pretty prone to flaring.</p>

<p>I do what John does, copy to computer, back up, leave the files on CF cards until I need to use the card at which point I reformat in camera. Since I rotate through 6x 32GB CF cards depending on my shooting history files may be backed up for a little bit on the cards as well.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Well, yes and no. The number of read/writes operations on solid state storage devices is limited. Eventually they will fail but the limit's so high you'll first run out of camera, computer and card reader.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Emilio, actually formatting these days are typically quick format as opposed to low level formats. Quick formats essentially only erase the "table of contents" of where files are located on the drive and leave the files themselves untouched. Therefore there is no limit to how many times you can format a CF card.</p>

<p>Because quick formats do not actually delete files, undelete programs can scan each sector on the disk and try to piece together files. Any format that takes ~1 minute or less is a quick format.</p>

<p>Also, flash based storage devices will fail gracefully by not using blocks that are unable to be read / write and storage will decrease over time vs a traditional hard drive dying with no warning.</p>

<p>Yup it looks like a pretty good drive, MLC and Trim support as well as good benchmarks.</p>

<p>Second Shun's suggestion, I own and love my D200 but cannot recommend it over a D90 for OP. It's either a D90 now, or wait a year for a possible D90 replacement at MSRP $1300+.</p>

<p>I know you didn't bring this up, but why not look at the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8?</p>

<p>The 18-55 VR is fine wide open, but better stopped down. I'm guessing that 18-55mm@28mm is around f/4 vs the prime.</p>

<p>With the prime you'll have a stop or stop and a half advantage, faster focus, and less vignetting but I don't remember my 18-55 having strong vignetting problems either. I'm guessing here, but 28mm f/4 is probably marginally sharper than the 18-55 VR or it's a toss-up.</p>

<p>Honestly I'd just shelve the 28mm for a FF camera for the convenience of the 18-55 AF-S VR.</p>

<p>@Gary: Fast lens isn't going to help in this scenario since Erika's going to need depth.</p>

<p>Camera (with aperture control) + tripod will be best, cheapest option,</p>

<p>When I was house shopping I never saw a real estate agent put photos bigger than 1024x768 online, in which case the difference between a DSLR and P&S are minimal. Then again, I wasn't shopping in the high end real estate market so I don't know what's the norm.</p>

<p>Are you going to be putting 10MP images online at full size? Will these photos be printed bigger than a 5"x7"? If not, you might be able to get away with a high end P&S set to f/8, ISO 64, and a tripod.</p>

<p>If you're set on the Canon Rebel T2 it will do just fine. The kit lens will be good enough for most, but you might want to look into getting a wide angle lens as well. It's important that you get a tripod though, as it will allow you to take sharp photos with a large depth of field so that everything stays in focus.</p>

<p>The alternative to a tripod is to get a bounce flash (e.g. Canon 430 EXII), but as a result your photos may not accurately represent built-in lighting and there's a slight learning curve to using flash properly and it's more expensive than a cheap tripod.</p>

<p>@Josh: If not from DVDs, then probably <a href="http://www.fox.com/24/">online</a>. You can find more shows on <a href="http://www.hulu.com/">Hulu</a>.</p>

<p>Who knows, you might even learn to enjoy the ergonomics of a Nikon camera. :P</p>

<p>My only concern is the CPU, the i3 is the low end processor of Intel's current generation (with i5 being mainstream, and i7 being high end).</p>

<p>I'd move up to an i7, extra 2GB RAM, and go with dual 19" monitors.</p>

<p>To be honest, if you can find money in your budget I'd go for ~64GB MLC SSD for your OS drive, and use the 250GB for your media files. You might free up some money by going with a single 19" monitor.</p>

<p>Besides, you can always add RAM or a second monitor later if necessary. OTOH reinstalling your OS is a bit of a pain.</p>

<p>Also, I'm simply comparing to Dell for prices but for $900 you can get a nicely decked out <a href="http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desktops/desktop-studio-xps-9000/pd.aspx?refid=desktop-studio-xps-9000&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~desktop-studio-xps-9000_cto_1~~">desktop</a>.</p>

<p>Ditto on healing brush, it's a tool available in Photoshop / Lightroom / Gimp.</p>

<p>Are you shooting these handheld or on tripod?</p>

<p>If you're shooting these shots on tripod at f/4+, then you're better off getting the f/4 version (plus you save a little bit of cash and weight).</p>

<p>It'll mount with the D5000 but with the small viewfinder it will be hard to manually focus.</p>

<p>Also, I'm not sure if the D5000 can meter properly with that lens.</p>

<p>Guys do this because there's this inner geeky / gearhead inside of each of us that likes to compare tech specs and numbers. I know I'm terribly guilty of this and wish I concentrated on the art aspect of photography more.</p>

<p>You ever notice it's guys who are usually gadget freaks?</p>

<p>I second <a href="http://www.smugmug.com">Smugmug</a>, good product and great service.</p>

<p>The Samsung NX-10 also has an APS-C sensor with micro 4/3 lenses.</p>

<p>Most camera companies (and pretty much all of the popular ones) are Japanese companies and given the weak dollar they've re-adjusted prices on many cameras to match.</p>

<p>As a result I've managed to sell two lenses as used I bought last year new for more than I've paid.</p>