truman_le_sueur

<p>Todd says "What about freedom of speech issues." Todd, you have no freedom of speech or right to express yourself on this website. First, you (like me) are not even a subscriber or member. You are only able to post here because of the good will of the owners of this site (Josh Root etc.). They own this site and it is their private property, like a home. They can filter, censor or delete anything you say without reason or justification. Moderators here are very forgiving. But maybe they need to toss out (or at least suspend) more of the bullies than they have in the past? </p>

<p>I agree the IQ with the 17-35mm is top notch, but it's mechanics are not. I have owned two of them and on both they started to squeek worse and worse when auto-focusing. I understand that this is an early sign of future AFS failure. For those who hope to keep a lens for a long time, you might want to consider this mechanical problem that seems inherent with many of the 17-35mm s.</p>

<p>Tony, you are absolutely correct and what you say is true throughout all forums here at photo.net. It's gotten to the point where I will no longer ask a question and even think twice about making a constructive comment. I believe that as you suspect, this is an internet phenominon because on the internet people are anonymous and will therefore say things they would not dare to in public face to face meetings. Another related observation I have about this community is that they are mostly male. Looking at the first names of those who commented on this thread I found that most (if not all) are males. I find it very interesting and sickeningly obvious that whenever a female asks a question in any forum on photo.net the males in this community are sickeningly sweet, accomodating and flattering in their comments. I have considered opening a new account with a female's name, asking a legitimate question using the female name and then later asking the same question using a male name. I am absolutely certain that the responses to the female question will be caring, helpfull and loving - while the responses to the male question will be curt, hurtfull and mean-spirited. Maybe we should all go with female names on this website??? If we did, it would likely clear up all of Tony's concerns about civility immediately? </p>

<p>Hummmm... You want cheap, lightweight, more than 300mm, and a terrific image quality. If you can live with manual focus consider the 400mm f/5.6 non-IF ED Nikkor. Very hand-holdable, $400 or $500 used, and image quality rated extemely high. Only problem is it's extemely rare - available only 4 or 5 times a year on the big auction site. I do have one but you couldn't pry it from my cold dead hands ;) </p>

<p>Great question! First, Hitech's are a great GND filter. I would recommend that you start with just the .6 shade. That is by far the most popular one. Buy a soft one if you use a wide angle lens. Buy a hard one if you will use it on a telephoto lens. I prefer to shoot without the holder, just holding it in front of the lens with my hand - if the exposure is longer you can gentle move the filter up and down which will help to hide the transition point. Be careful not to touch the filter against the front of the lens as it will scratch it. The 85mm is fine for most lenses, but for the larger lenses that take a 77mm filter you might prefer the larger sized filter.</p>

<p>Great comments guys. I place the highest value in Kent's and Brien's comments for each of them had actually owned both lenses at the same time and shot them extensively. For Kent, the Sigma was preferred, for Brien the Nikkor was preferred. These are both good lenses, with very different strengths and weaknesses. For example, I use one 50mm lens for my stitched panos, and another 50mm lens for portraits, and a third one for fast action. I personally don't care for the 30/35mm focal length, but if I did, I might very well purchase each of these lenses. I'd buy the Sigma for night photography and for those instances when I want to shoot wide open and get the best possible bokeh (like for portrature or when you want to isolate an object). I'd buy the Nikkor for fast action, landscapes, panos, and those times when I wanted to shoot at f/8 or f/11. One can argue which lens is best FOR YOUR particular application, but please don't try to sell me on buying something that may be right for you, but not for me.</p>

<p>Like you I am a serious amature. I used to travel with a backup digital SLR body, but honestly, I've never had one case of my main camera failing. Like one of the other posters, I currently carry an 8mp point and shoot camera as a backup to my D300. In a year or two I intend to fly to a very special foreign location and will want a back up that's better than my current point and shoot. I sure don't want to spend the money on another D300 (especially with a rummored upgrade coming out in the future). Ideally, I love to also have a D700 and use it with my wide lenses, and just use the D300 for the telephoto shots - but I will not be able to afford a D700 by the time I make that trip. What I am considering is getting a decent used Nikon film body and shoot 35mm film as a back up. I could use my current lenses on it. I would not want to carry any film with me as the film body would only be used as a last resort. This would only work if the country where I'm going would have low ASA 35mm slide film readily available. </p>

<p>I give no mind to how I store my lenses (some on side, some on one end, some on other end). Many are 20 plus year old Nikkors - never had any problems with them related to the position in which they've been stored. The one exception might be if you've got a giant Sigmonster, which I don't - my biggest is only 400mm. I feel more important than position are: store them in a dry place to prevent mold, and store them with the aperture set to the highest number (e.g. f/22) to take the pressure off of the aperture spring. </p>

<p>I only work on older lenses that are worth less than $100 US. My better lens are sent in to the manufacturer/dealer. I have usually had pretty good luck when doing home made fixes, and I'm sure that I've have saved allot more more than I've lost over the years. I've had only one bad experience - I squeezed some cardboard under a loose zoom ring on an old Nikkor. Well, it did make the zoom ring nicely tight, but after limited use, the inside of the zoom lens got lots of cardboard fibers inside. </p>

<p>I too own the new Voigtlander 20mm and shoot it on a Nikon D300. I sold my Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AIS to purchase this new Voigtlander. I am glad that I did. I never really cared much for that Nikkor and in the end, rarely used it. Owning the Voigtlander has gotten me again liking 20mm lenses. I also owned two copies of the Nikkor 17 - 35mm zoom and used them for many years (mostly on Fuji S3 bodies). I really liked that lens and it's images, but I didn't care for it's size (being a nature photographer who carries stuff up and down hills). I'd say that the Voigtlander's images compare favorably to the Nikkor 17-35mm at 20mm, with the Voigtlander having more saturated/vibrant colors and the zoom having more acurate colors. Using an old film analogy, I'd say the Voigtlander 20mm looked like Fuji Velvia and the Nikkor 17-35mm like Kodak Ektachrome . </p>

<p>It would appear that John Crowe has never owned a D300, or used it extensively. I would put much more value in Shun Cheung's opinion. Shun owns both and has considerable experience shooting each one. I just don't see how John Crowe can recommend the D2X over the D300 without having had considerable personal experience with each.</p>

<p>I like to use fairly inexpensive FX prime wide lenses on my D300. My reasoning is that the best part of most lenses is in the middle, while the corners and edges are always the worst. By using an FX on a DX body, you are effectively only using the central part of the lens (sort of like cutting the crusts off of a slice of bread and being left with the soft delicious center). A cheaper wide lens with edge and corner issues on FX will sometimes be much better on DX. Also, wides are usually stopped down more than telephotos which makes them better still. So, consider buying an inexpensive FX wide prime for your DX Nikon D300, and stop it down a bit, and you may get better IQ than that lens would get on an FX body.</p>

<p>It is interesting to see so many people comment on lenses that have not even tried them! The 400mm 5.6 is a wonderful match for the higher pixel density of the D300. I agree that the slow 400mm 5.6 is a longer lens, but it does not need a steady support if you are shooting with the D300 at higher ASAs (thereby enabling you to shoot at faster shutter speeds).</p>

<p>I have a friend who used to be a guide for one of the biggest photo guide services. He quit and now does it freelance on his own. <br>

The main problem he had with the big photo wildlife service was that many of the customers were extremely old folks who had to go to the bathroom very frequently (he had more than one "accident" occur while on safari). </p>

<p>I actually owned the 400mm 3.5 for a number of years and used it extensively. On many newer digital bodies you will have an <strong>extreme</strong> ammount of CA. It was so prevalent on my D300 and Fuji S3 that I sold this lens.<br>

I currently have the 400mm f/5.6 ED (non-IF) lens. Great little lens. Very handholdable. I mostly shoot flying waterfowl with it. I shoot it wide open at ASA 800 or 1000 and get lots of keepers.<br>

It works well with the TC-301 2X teleconverter too, but you will want to shoot only fairly stationary objects (with a tripod) with that combination.</p>

<p>The old Vivitar 135mm 2.8 close focusing lens in a Nikon mount. Pretty hard to find these days. For more see - <a href="http://techtheman.blogspot.com/2008/09/vivitar-135mm-f28-12-macro-from-komine.html">http://techtheman.blogspot.com/2008/09/vivitar-135mm-f28-12-macro-from-komine.html</a></p>

<p>Hi! My experience at Uppper was the same as Walts. You want to be there at mid day when the sun is heighest. It's maybe 6 feet wide or so. Lots of photographers crowed in . Seems like someone is always walking into you shot. It's fairly dark so one usually is shooting a slower shutter speed which makes it easier for folks to walk into your viewfinder from the other direction. Also, to get the "beam of light shot" there has to be dust in the air. There's other photographers regularly throwing handfulls of dust into the air. A couple times some of it landed on me and my camera :( Overall, it was certainly uniquely beautiful, the all of the frantic crowded other photographers running around sort of ruined it for me. If I was to go back again, I wouldn't do upper - select one of the others that's less crowded.</p>

<p>Mr Rodeo, you say "the Nikkor 14-24 is easily better than any wideangle prime that I've seen so far". I believe that - but I expect that you probably have not personally tried either this new Voigtlander 20mm or the new Zeiss ZF 21mm F2.8 lenses.<br>

I for one would love to see a seasoned lens tester compare these three lenses. I expect we'd all learn something. </p>

<p>Here's another photo</p><div></div>

<p>Here's a photo from today (Saturday).</p><div></div>

<p>Unfortunately, I do not have an FX body to test it with. I would be happy to test for flare if someone would tell me how to do it. <br>

Been out doing some further testing this morning. Yesterdays photos were shot hand held at the smallest JPG setting I've got on my D300. Today I'm shooting: tripod, shutter delay, 14 bit RAWs (and it's a sunny day for a change). <br>

1. I can say now that if you've got a bright spot (or a strong) reflection in the image and this lens is at F11 or F16 you will get very nice 18 pointed stars, (because of the 9 blade shutter). I used to have a star filter. These stars are much smaller and less obvious than those garish stars the star filter produced.<br>

2. At arround F13, F14, the sharpness of this lens both in the close foreground and at infinity is nothing short of <strong>spectacular</strong>. I'm still working to find my sweet spot (i.e. what my optimum hyper-focus setting is). What I've found is that everything from about 1 meter in front of the lens to infinity is extremely sharp. I'm taking pictures of two foot signs with 2 inch letters at about 100 yards and every word is readable! Once I've nailed my settings, I'll make another post with what they are and a few sample images. With my old Nikkors, I'd pixel peep at 100%. With this new lens, I'm pixel peeping at 200% and 300%.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Another small jpg test photo at F16</p><div></div>

<p>Test photo at F16</p><div></div>

<p>Photo at F16</p>

<p>Photo of my D300 with the new 20mm lens on it...</p><div></div>