hal_c1

<p>Hi all. Just got back and had a chance to swap out with some of my other batteries.<br>

You all absolutely called it. Popped in one of my old D70 EN-EL3's and the metering auto-off worked again. Popped in a third EN-EL3 and it worked as well.<br>

Then I put the one that came with the D700 back in, the one that was giving me problems on the trip, and the auto-off on the metering works again. Turns off exactly when it's supposed to as it's set in the menus. No recharging or anything between them. It was out of the camera for maybe a minute, tops.<br>

I don't have a single guess as to why that happened, but there you go. <br>

(and the battery, after fully discharging, recharging, reads a 0 (best) on the battery-life-o-menu).<br>

Thanks all for the pointer. Much appreciated.</p>

<p>I've got a couple extra batteries at home I can try out so I'll give that a spin in a few days.<br>

(the extra batteries were left out of the bag accidentally when things were being rearranged... nuts...)<br>

The battery-life-o-meter in the menu says it's a 0 of 0-4, which from the scale shown there I interpret to be 0 good, 4 goner...<br>

What I'm referring to is the LCD display at the top of the camera or in the viewfinder, when you tap the shutter it starts metering and after a few seconds it "turns off" only displaying the remaining shots and a few other things maybe, but no metering information...<br>

Why would the battery, goner or not, prevent the metering from turning off?</p>

<p>Hi all, as luck would have it I'm on a trip to Spain at the moment and I think something's gone wrong with the D700. The first day I was here I noticed that I was getting rotten battery life, literally under 200 shots and probably less than a half day on the battery. <br>

Noticed shortly thereafter that the battery was not going into "sleep mode" where it would stop light metering after a period of time. I went into the menus and everything looked OK (C2: Auto meter-off delay, set to 6 seconds - default). Changed it to something else, changed it back, with no effect. <br>

Decided to reset the menus to factory and the issue remains. The camera doesn't stop metering, with or without the lens cap on.<br>

In the short term I've resigned myself to turning the camera on and off between every single shot (terribly annoying) after turning off sensor cleaning (so I don't burn off battery or the cleaning motor by power cycling 500 times a day). This gets me through the day for the moment. I've not noticed anything else awry with the camera.<br>

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I might check or change, or is this a trip to the repair shop after I return?<br>

If it's a repair, anyone have any Sydney recommendations?<br>

Thanks.</p>

<p>Holy moly. This has grown into quite a thread with heaps of useful information. Thanks all for the points. I've added a few new locations to my hope-I-can-get-there list...<br>

I've managed to secure the 24-85mm, so I'll bring that with the 20mm, my nifty-50, and decide on the 70-300 when I see how much space I've got in the backpack - but that'll probably be staying home. <br>

Anything with Lowepro or Nikon on the outside is staying at home and I'll be keeping my kit in a well beaten backpack. I've got a single camera case (Lowepro TLZ) that I can fit in there for protection and the two lenses should be easy. The tripod is coming along but that'll be going into by other bags where it's survived baggage handling before, and play it by ear when I bring it out. <br>

Thanks all. Hope to share some shots when I get back.</p>

<p>James, thanks for the tips. Looking forward to seeing if I can get to any of those spots. And after flying into Madrid we'll be taking trains to get around - definitely looking forward to that as an alternative to more tin-can flying...<br>

We've already got tix to Alhambra, definitely looking to spend some time there.<br>

I've got the 50mm f/1.8 that I could toss in there, wondering if that will be too long for most museums. I barely ever use the thing, might be worth pressing back into service?</p>

<p>So in addition to the 24-85, anything that I'm going to wish that I had when I'm there?<br>

And thanks to all for that suggestion - likely would have been kicking myself at some point.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I can scare up a 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 for the trip pretty easy. Shot with it before, it seems an easily portable lens. Seems a sane decision.<br>

The itinerary for Spain includes Madrid, Granada and Barcelona.</p>

<p>Hi all. I'm leaving in a few days for Spain and I'm having second thoughts about my lens selection...<br>

Starting with a D700 as a base (because that's all I've got...), I wanted to focus on lighter weight items as we'll be doing a good amount of walking and getting around. I'm less a street photographer and more of a landscape kind of guy...<br>

I'd planned on bringing my trusty 20mm f/2.8 and my 70-300mm f/4-5.6 for anything that might be on the longer end of things. And my tripod for night stuff (lightweight enough for hikes).<br>

Recently I've been batting around the idea of picking up the 16-35mm f/4 for the trip. I know it's a big lens, and a heavy one at that, and I love shooting wide, but wondering from people with experience with it regarding it's size and heft tradeoffs to the advantages of it over a fixed 20mm 2.8...<br>

My other consideration is a big camera with a bigger lens makes one a bigger target - particularly in Barcelona where we'll be spending some time.<br>

I'm hoping to get it eventually, just wondering if I should be sooner than later...</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'll probably be looking at RadioPoppers or other radio units in the future, but for now those peanuts look like a pretty good option. Price is certainly right. Looks like B&H has a 3-pack for $50 - I'll grab that and a couple of sync cables.<br /> Little concerned about the non-fire/failure rate on the peanuts though. Exchanges aren't going to be terribly easy where I'm at.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'm going to show just how new I am to this here... where exactly does the peanut slave plug into the 285HV? Just looking at the thing size/shape wise and I don't see anywhere that it would fit. Are they smaller than they look?<br>

And would I be able to trigger the SB800 with the peanuts as well?<br>

I've never seen these before and they look like a great economic little option. </p>

<p>I've been using a D700 in Commander mode with my SB800 for some macro and food photography. Recently I picked up a Vivitar 285HV which I was planning on using as a small kicker or just for some extra light.<br>

Now I'm looking for the best way to fire it... I was thinking a sync cable since just about everything is shot fairly close to the subject. But I'm not sure if I can use the commander mode *and* a sync cable at the same time (and have everything fire at the same time...)<br>

Radio controls seem much more flexible - but I didn't want to over-engineer this or start duplicating functions that I already have (commander mode). Though they would probably be better long term if I decide to get into anything else, like retail work.<br>

In short - can I use commander mode and a sync cable, or would it be best to move into radio controls?<br>

(was looking at the Elinchrom EL-Skyport Universal Radio Slave Set - seems a bit more economical than a RadioPopper or PocketWizard set...)<br>

I'm also just starting to wrap my head around anything more complicated than a single SB800 fired via Commander mode with the built-in flash - so more straightforward is better...<br>

Thanks.</p>

<p>I shot quite a lot with my 80-200 f/2.8 AF-D on my D70 before I got my D700. Always found it to be quite sharp and was always very happy with the results - even at 2.8. If you want I can dig up some shots that I took using the 80-200 at 2.8 with the D70 if you would like.<br>

FWIW, I don't plan on upgrading it to any of the 70-200mm models.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>If the 60mm f/2.8 is a good option for this type of work, why is the 105mm f/2.8 not a good option? You would/should be able to get a bit farther back for better lighting... Or is there something different about the two lenses?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I popped all three batteries into the D700, unfortunately the battery meter shows all of them as 4 or whatever the "least used" value is. I don't know if they hadn't been tagged yet or however it does it, but it didn't show a difference between the brand new one and the four year old ones (unless Nikon has time-warp engineering capabilities, I'm thinking it's not reading something that it needs)<br>

I like the idea about trying the member site to identify them...<br>

And marking them as to which camera they came from is just too obvious now. :)</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I've got two D70 bodies, and one D700. All three batteries are model EN-EL3e, and recently in an eventful shooting day I managed to mix up which battery went with which camera (I shoot with two bodies but take all three batteries). </p>

<p>I know any of the three will work in any of the bodies, but I like to keep the battery that came with the D700 with the D700. I figure it's the newest so I'll get the most life out of when shooting.</p>

<p>Two of the batteries have an identical "serial" number stamped on them - 5X13A and the third is 8911H. I'm a bit surprised that there would two of the same serials, so I'm guessing they're not serials but perhaps manufacturing runs. </p>

<p>As my D70 batteries were replaced at the same time during the Great Battery Recall Of A Few Years Back, I'm going with the theory that the two identical numbers are from the D70's.</p>

<p>But is there a way to look up these numbers to confirm when they were produced or anything else useful about them?</p>

<p>Thanks much.</p>

<p>A better discussion of stacked single exposures is here:<br>

http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00UD23</p>

<p>For the shot that I was looking to get, 10 seconds was the maximum exposure possible before things got overexposed. By stacking 360 some 10 second exposures I could get the effect of an hour long exposure in an environment where that would have been impossible to do.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>No, haven't played around with that yet. Didn't need it until I found this feature/bug - but I will be giving that a try this evening.<br>

What I'd <strong>really</strong> like to be able to do is continuous exposures with mirror lock-up... that would be fantastic. Whether the mirror stays up or locks up with a short delay before the exposure doesn't matter as long as I can give it that short period to settle down from the mirror movement.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"<em>while you've got the shutter open, just unlock the bulb, release the shutter, and relock it</em> " <br /> What does this mean? are you talking about bulb exposure?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sorry, talking about the remote/cable release. I use the lock on that in continuous mode to take one photo immediately after another. I call the remote release a bulb sometimes - that's what it used to be on my Dad's old Minolta.<br>

Regarding the buffer limits... I'm shooting slow enough that I'm effectively keeping it empty. 10 seconds exposures gives it plenty of time to process - and I certainly get more than 20 shots without a buffer pause.<br>

Just found this on dpreview's review of the D700:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Please note that the D700 imposes a maximum 100 frame limit on continuous bursts (you can customize this figure from 1 to 100). Put simply, assuming the CF card is fast enough the camera will shoot continuously until it reaches the set limit (by default 100 frames) and then simply stop unless you lift your finger off the shutter release and re-press. This doesn't appear to be a hard buffer limit, just a soft limit.<br>

[...]<br>

With a fast card the only limit on the number of frames in burst is the D700's own 100 shot cut-off.<br>

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond700/page13.asp</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's depressing. It's not-unworkaround-able, it just means I can't take an extended nap or have to set a timer on a stopwatch intead of letting it run out of juice or space...</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Actually, Nina spot on. <br>

The D700 has a limit of 100 photographs in continuous mode - no matter how quickly the buffer is processed. <br>

I went back and found a single sentence in the manual that alluded to this... page 88: "The camera is equipped with a memory buffer for temporary storage, allowing shooting to continue while photographs are being saved to the memory card. <strong>Up to 100 photographs can be taken in succession</strong> ; note, however, that frame rate will drop when the buffer is full." (Emphasis is mine.)<br>

I was shooting 10 second exposures, more than enough time for the buffer to remain empty. I've recreated this several times now and it appears that even if the buffer remains empty, you can only ever shoot 100 shots with a single press of the shutter. You can drop it to about 4 seconds if you're shooting 14-bit compressed RAW, or probably much faster on JPEG to keep the buffer empty on continuous exposures.<br>

You don't even have to stop shooting for this to be reset - while you've got the shutter open, just unlock the bulb, release the shutter, and relock it. You won't miss a single second or a single shot.<br>

Anyone have any idea why Nikon made this decision?<br>

Anyone care to attempt to recreate with their camera?</p>

<p>When I shoot star trails, I set my D700 up for the exposure time, put it in Continuous mode, and lock the release on my remote cable. As expected, it then sits there taking one photo after another until it runs out of space, juice, or I become thoroughly bored.<br>

Normally when this happens you can see the buffer meter starts at "r12" and pops down to "r11" for a moment as it does its thing, then pops back up to "r12".<br>

Yesterday however, I noticed that it stopped shooting. I went over to check and found the the buffer counter was reading "r00". I released the shutter, it popped back up to "r12", I locked it down and it went on its merry way again.<br>

A while later (maybe 100 shots?) I went back to check on it and coincidentally timed it when the buffer counter was working its way down. It was on "r08" and I watched it get down to "r01". In the middle of "r01" I released the shutter, it popped back up to "r12" and continued shooting without missing a beat.<br>

Battery was about 50% full, and there was plenty of space left on the card. At least a couple hundred shots. Was shooting in compressed RAW.<br>

Anyone have any idea what the deal is?</p>

<p>Sounds like I'm pretty much going to be handholding the filters or looking for a more imaginative solution - unless I buy some of the larger Z (4") filters (the P are 3.3").<br>

Thanks all.</p>

<p>Hi all. I've got a D700, am a pretty heavy filter user and looking to do two things: </p>

<ul>

<li>Go wider, probably 17-35mm f/2.8 </li>

<li>Stack filters.</li>

</ul>

<p>Currently I have a Cokin P slim holder, 77mm adapter ring. I don't see any of the holder on any of my lenses at the moment.<br>

However, as I'm looking at getting the beefier 17-35mm I'm concerned about catching part of the holder in frame since I won't be leveraging the teeny size of my current 20mm f/2.8D to keep the holder out of the photo.<br>

I'm also developing a need to stack filters and was thinking about getting the standard sized Cokin P holder, but that makes me even more concerned that I'll be catching part of the holder in frame.<br>

What are your experiences with Cokin P sized holders (slim or stacked), FX, and wide angles?</p>

<p>I've been using Lightroom 2 to do 99.9% of my photo processing work until now. However, recently I got a copy of the CS4 suite at a price I couldn't say no to (yes, legit). So I've been using PsCS4 more and more to work on stuff after Lightroom.<br>

Since I'm not terribly crash hot with Photoshop, I've been looking for some books to address this - books specifically for photographers. I'm not interested in Photoshop bibles or missing manuals. I'm more interested in how to use it for the types of issues that photographers are typically going to run into.<br>

I found "The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers" by both Scott Kelby and "Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop" by Martin Evening books.<br>

They both look interesting, but the reviews on Amazon all seem to indicate they spend a good amount of space in the book talking about Bridge and ACR - and pretty much just a mention on LR2.<br>

Does anyone know if this doesn't really matter, or if there's a book which effectively combines LR2 and PsCS4 techniques and workflow?<br>

Thanks.<br>

Tim</p>