chris_laskey

December 16, 2009

Thanks Keith and Shun for your quick responses. It's always good to know your exposure to potential issues. From now on I think I'll leave the full serial number for private conversations only.

December 16, 2009

In the past I've made no attempts to hide or obscure serial numbers on my lenses when I put them up for sale. And I've always replied with the serial numbers when asked by a potential buyer. But now that I'm once again swapping some gear around and lenses are being sold, it occurred to me this may be a bad practice. On one hand I want sellers to be able to verify the general date of production from websites like http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/serialno.html. But on the other hand I don't want to be opening myself to some unseen problems by revealing too much information to the public at large. So my fellow photo.net members, are there potential hazards are there in revealing the serial number? Is there any value to the serial number other than vague production dating?

I should mention I take pictures of all my gear upon purchase, including pictures of serial numbers. I am aware technically someone could make a claim to the authorities of ownership if they know the serial number, but I'm confident I could prove rightful ownership in any court of law.

August 17, 2009

If you want an incredibly light weight camera, the Nikon FG is hard to beat. Combined with any of the Series E lenses (particularly the 50mm f/1.8 Series E) it's a combination made in light-weight heaven. And the current prices for them are incredibly low; I recently bought a Nikon FG and the 50mm Series E for $50 off flea bay.

I was still thinking about the FG/FE/FA because of the whole feel of a manual focus camera, with the focusing and film advance lever and such.

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But if you're looking for a great manual camera, spend the extra cash on a Nikon F3 or FM2/FM3. There's simply no comparison between the a flagship Nikon F Series F3 and the bottom of the barrel consumer Nikon FG. My Nikon F3 is hands down my favorite Nikon to shoot. Compared to what they used to cost, F3's can be bought for a song.

August 12, 2009

It's happened to me too. I've had a couple people approach me while shooting with an M3 to ask me about it. But the camera that gets the most comments is by far the Hasselblad 500c/m. What can you say, there's a mutual respect amongst people for quality :)

July 29, 2009

The answer depends a lot on how you're planning on using the scanned images. If its for personal use (to show family, friends, and make some prints to frame) then you'll probably be happy with a dual purpose, flatbed scanner. There's a number of brands out there, though I'd suggest choosing a Canonscan series (8800F, 9950F as JDM von Weinburg already suggested), or the Epson series (v500/v700/v750). These start at around $150 and can go all the way up to $800+ depending on the feature set you need.

If you're planning on doing a lot of color scans (either print or slide), then buy one that has infrared scanning. Canon calls this FARE, Epson calls it Digital ICE, but it's the same technology either way - using infrared light in addition to the visible spectrum of light to differentiate what's dust and whats film. It works very well, and can save a lot of time post processing to remove dust spots. It won't eliminate it completely, but then again nothing's perfect. Unfortunately the infrared scanning doesn't help you with B&W film, so keep that in mind.

If a dual purpose flat bed scanner sounds like it'll fit your needs, you can find some more specific posts on photo.net about the differences between the Epson v500 / v700, canonscan 8800F / 9950F, etc. You'll learn about DMax values, how many frames you can scan at a time, and how long they roughly take. I personally own the Epson v500 and think it does a phenomenal job for the price. But read around a bit more and find what suits your needs.

If on the other hand you need to do more with your scanned film, it's probably worth looking into a dedicated film scanner like the Nikon Coolscan series. They'll run you around $750+ to get started, and depending on the feature set needed, can cost thousands.

The third option is to pay a professional scanning house to drum scan your film. It isn't cheap (drum scans around here cost $50-100 per frame), but they offer some of the highest quality you can find. If you're planning on making a very large prints then the quality of a drum scan is hard to beat.

July 28, 2009

O that suck, I was planning to buy a used Nikon F3

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I'd still recommend getting the F3, it's a spectacular camera. A possible solution is to buy the older generation zooms that still have dedicated aperture rings. I own the 17-35mm f/2.8, 28-70mm f/2.8 and the 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D and they work superbly on my F3HP. Without the motor drive on the F3, I do find the pro zooms to be rather lopsided on the body. So I tend to use MF primes on the F3 and keep the bag light. But I really do appreciate being able to use the expensive glass I bought on more than my D80 and F100. It's definitely a bummer that Nikon's moving past dedicated aperture rings.

July 24, 2009

One big constant in life is that people will always be people. There's some good ones, there's some bad ones, and there's some really bad ones. No community, or amount of history will necessarily change that fact of life. Like Jack said, trust your gut. If it doesn't feel right then don't do it. But I don't believe putting restrictions on new users would make it any safer. A forum history doesn't weigh heavily when there's money being exchanged.

July 24, 2009

On the Hasselblad 500c/m, 80mm f/2.8.

On the Nikon D80, Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8. My favorite AF glass, by leaps and bounds.

On the Nikon F100, Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8. I shoot landscapes with slide film most of the time on the F100.

On the Nikon F3, currently the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 Macro AIS, but only because it's my new toy. Normally it's a mid range prime.

July 23, 2009

My entire firm uses Mac's exclusively for work (web design & web development). At home I use a PC and a 24" Samsung monitor for photo editing (with Lightroom 2.1 & Photoshop CS3). I have mutual respect for both platforms, but honestly I prefer photo editing on a Mac. When the time comes to replace the PC at home, it'll be swapped out to a Mac.

Anytime you bring up this question you'll bring out the enthusiates for both sides. Almost as if you asked which is better, Canon or Nikon. The truth is they are both great, with their fair share of strengths and weaknesses. The key is to find what works for you personally. If you're sick of a PC, its time to try to test out a Mac and see if it works better for you. Hopefully your brother in law doesn't live too far away.

July 22, 2009

I do not understand what all the fuss is about battery life My D1x can shoot 5-600 images before needing a battery change.

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This does raise some eyebrows. My father owns a D1X too and loves it. But he'll readily admit the battery life is the worst part of the D1x. I've watched him carry a small army of batteries with him, only to see him fussing and changing them with frequency. We've tried a number of things, quick charging, cycling, full charging, buying new batteries, etc. But no matter what we do we can't get them to hold a charge. He's not a professional photographer, so it may be an issue of discharge when they're not in use. But a battery shouldn't lose that much charge within 3 days! Any suggestions or tricks to try? That said, I agree with what everyone else has posted. If it works for you, then don't listen to the trolls out there. For some people photography is about photography, sadly for others it's about the equipment.

July 14, 2009

Shun, you buy primes basically to shoot at wide apertures, not at f8 as your posting shows. At that aperture, primes cannot be any different from a zoom.

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Primes are generally faster than zooms. Of that, you're correct. But you're vastly overgeneralizing (to put it nicely) to say that photographers buy primes just to shoot them wide open. Control of DoF and an extra stop or two of speed is nice, but let's not forget about the size difference, weight difference, distortion correction and price difference, to name a few.

At f/8 most lenses should perform about the same. Whether they are fast or slow, zoom or prime. In that sense, you're right. A test at f/8 won't show a darn thing! But it does. The quality between the three is noticeably different (if you can't see it right away, look for color fringing and sharpness). Tests like this are important to remind us, myself included, that a prime does not necessarily outperform a zoom lens.

July 14, 2009

I'll go ahead and admit it, I like to collect camera equipment. I read endlessly before I buy, and am quick to trade out equipment I no longer need. But still, I'm a collector. I have a dSLR setup, complete with a set of pro grade zooms. I have 35mm film auto focus cameras setup (F100), manual focus SLR (F3), as well as rangefinders (Leica M3, Voigtlander Vitessa L). And I have a couple of medium format setups to boot (Hasselblad 500c/m, and a Rolleiflex 2.8 Xenotar TLR). In my mind I know I already have more than I'd ever need. But I know a month or two from now I'll get an itch for something, be it a 4 x 5, 8 x 10, MF rangefinder, etc. I may trade some systems in for it, or I may not. But I at least know the nature of the beast, I'll always keep collecting.

With that said, I do travel lightly in the field. I like to choose one system at a time and leave the rest at home. It frees me to focus on photography, not questions about which camera to use or which lens to put on.

And there's that satisfying "Click" when taking a picture.

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Click? I'd call it more of a KLA-DOOMP :). And yes, I whole heartedly agree it's one of the most satisfying noises in photography.

July 14, 2009

My budget tops out at $200.00.

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That's going to be a problem if you're trying to choose between those three lenses. At reputable dealers the Tamron runs around $650-700 , the Sigma $750-$800, Nikon Push Pull ($400+), Nikon Two Ring ($700+). An alternative that is within your price budget is the Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6D (the earlier version without VR). It'll give you great reach for shooting sports, especially with the crop factor of the D200. It's not going to be fast enough to perform well during night games, but would be perfect for a daytime game. See Andrew's post below for the 3rd party alternatives.

July 14, 2009

I don't know much about either lens, but I can tell you from a practical standpoint you'll be much happier with a one lens solution. What happens when you want to bring a Telephoto along? Or a low light prime? The amount of lenses you're going to be carrying will quickly add up. Nothing beats having just one lens to worry about when traveling; less time spent thinking about which lens to use, more time spent on the important stuff like subject and composition.

I'm not familiar with the Tamron 17mm, but if its like other ultra wide primes out there, it too will suffer from some distortion that will need correcting in Photoshop to get truly straight lines. So don't let the distortion be a reason for going with a prime over the zoom. Remember, by f/8 - f/11 most wide angle lenses (zoom or prime) are going to perform about the same. So if you're going to be using the wide end of the zoom for architecture I wouldn't worry too much about softness wide open. That said, I'm not an architectural shooter, so you folks out there feel free to correct me.

July 13, 2009

William, Andrew, thank you both for clarifying. I've proven myself to be quite the rube!

Recently I've been spending a lot of time shooting film again. Be it with a Leica, Hasselblad or Nikon, I frequently reference the DoF lines on the lenses to confirm my focus (particularly when I'm trying to prefocus for street shooting). Since it's been a while away from my newer zooms (I prefer primes with film), I was imagining in my mind DoF lines below the distance markings. Sure enough when I look at them now, all I see are the distance markings. Quite a saddening revelation!

July 13, 2009

It is quite likely that the OP has lens(es) which do not have any DoF scales, on the lens.

WW

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Pardon the ignorance, but which lenses these days do not have a DoF scale on them? My oldest lens, a 50mm f/1.2 Non-AI has one, all the way up the most recent Nikon DX lenses I've handled. The only exception I've personally seen is the new Nikon 35mm f/1.8. What am I missing?

July 13, 2009

I actually used the DOF Preview button for the first time I can remember. I was shooting with a Nikon F3, and wanted to ensure both a railing and a metal sign were in focus. Since I was shooting film, I didn't have the ability to simply bump the ISO up a bit and hedge my bets with a large DOF. Without the preview button I would have guessed f/5.6 would have covered me, but after using the preview button I realized I in fact needed to bump it up to f/8. Did it help? Yes, but its hardly an earth shattering, make it or break it feature. A little experience, and a quick look at the built in DOF chart on the lens is all that's needed 99% of the time.

July 13, 2009

As others have already said, if you're buying lenses to use on the F3, stick with AI and AI-S. I agree with Lex, the differences between AI and AI-S lenses are generally overstated. In practice I find very little difference between the two. Either will suit your needs.

The older, Non-AI, lenses require you to use stop down metering. Some people don't mind doing it, but others (myself included) find stop down metering frustrating to do everytime you want to check the meter. And if you have any plans on buying more Nikons, keep in mind that many newer Nikon bodies do not support Non-AI lenses. In some cases a Non-AI lens can actually damage some of the newer bodies.

Auto focus lenses will also work, though I wouldn't recommend them if you're only shooting the F3. The focus rings tend to be smaller and looser, so precise focusing requires a bit more care. But if you plan on buying an auto focus camera body in the future, it may make sense to buy an AF lens that will work on both. I shoot an F3, F100 and D80, and prefer to share one auto focus 50mm f/1.4 between the three of them. It just makes more logistical sense for me. But I'll admit, if I were only shooting an F3 I'd prefer an AI/AI-S 50mm.

July 10, 2009

Sally Mack hit the nail right on the head. Like her, I tend to do as much as I can in camera to try to get the best possible result. Once I scan the film, it usually stays exactly how it was shot. Not because post processing couldn't improve it - what Seth said it true, no matter how good the shot is on film, it can usually be improved however slightly with some post processing tweaks. But because I already work hours a day in front of a computer screen, the last thing I want to do is spend time 'fixing it in post'. I'd rather spend that time out in the field, experiencing life and taking shots.

To post process or not is a personal decision, one I'm not about to look down on others for doing it. We all have our reasons.

July 9, 2009

Congratulations, you've just learned the perils of pixel peeping.

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Couldn't say it any better myself. For what its worth, these are about the same as what I get out of my D80 and 50mm f/1.4. In fact, it might even be sharper if your particular lens sample beats mine. Viewing an image at 100% was a very discouraging event for me the first time I did it. In the cases where the camera settings and subject are optimal, I expected (hoped) everything to be razor sharp.

But this is the nature of the beast, how the miniscule sensors on the CCD pick up the data. It may not be razor sharp at 100%, but the large amount of pixels used to capture the image make it rare you'll ever actually use the image at 100%. Instead you'll have the luxury of 'zooming out', allowing the pictures to appear razor sharp.

I found that it's easy to lose perspective on a computer screen. These days resolutions are so high and cameras have so many megapixels to them we don't think twice about an image thousands of pixels aside. But the truth is you'll almost never see the that large and up close in real life. It's quite amazing how much noise and sharpness can drive you bananas on a screen at 100%, and how little it effects a picture printed out on an 8" x 10". This is why you'll hear the biggest advantage of extra megapixels isn't clarity, but the ability to crop (and still print large).

July 9, 2009

If you're new to photography, focus on learning first. So buy a good camera without spending a lot of money (the 20D and 30D are nice cameras, but don't count out the Rebel series as well). Once you're more familiar with photography in general, you'll have a much better idea of what kind of photography you'd like to pursue professionally. There are a lot of different choices, and a lot of different camera setups for each one. Only after you've chosen a path should you start buying 'professional' equipment.

Take everything one step at a time. If you rush into it you'll spend large sums of money on equipment you'll never use. Fair warning.

July 9, 2009

As usual, it depends. I had a Nikkor 12-24mm f/4 AF-S that was primarily used for landscapes. I took some great shots with it, but looking back at them I can't find one instance where the fixed aperture or extra focus speed of the silentwave motor made any difference. But then again I am one of those people that finds the 12-24mm too wide for general use, sticking with the 17-35mm or 28-70mm instead.

That said, you may be in a completely different boat than me. I have a good friend that shoots indoor rock climbing and loves the fast, fixed aperture of the Tokina 11-16mm. And I'm sure there are many photographers who enjoy using an ultra-wide zoom as a general photography lens, where the extra autofocus speed can make a real difference in getting a shot or missing it. If you can be honest with yourself and identify your personal needs, finding the right lens to fit won't be hard.

July 7, 2009

Ah, great! Thanks everyone for confirming that the other diopters will fit the F3HP, I genuinely appreciate it. Going to go ahead and order one tonight.

Rick, thankfully the problem with the new glasses isn't the lack of eye relief. The DE-3's clearance is more than sufficient in that regard. The new glasses are a different shape, sit lower down on my nose, and hurt quite a bit more than the old ones when I bang the camera up against them. The combination of factors leaves me less enthused to pick up and use the F3 than I was before. So if I can fix this with a new diopter, then I'm more than willing to spend the short money on one.

July 7, 2009

I had been looking at a second manual focus body for my F3HP, and took an earnest look at the FM2 and FM3a. I came dangerously close to buying one online after reading all the positive comments about them, but thankfully thought the better of it and waited to handle one in person. That quickly put the debate to rest, for I'm a left eye shooter and as Richard Williams greatly put it:

Personally, when I was in the market for this sort of camera, I was a bit put off by a design that seems actively hostile to left-eyed use (pull out the lever to turn on the meter, and poke yourself in the right eye!).

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As much as I rely on my left eye, I'd like to keep my right eye intact too! Ultimately it's a situation of 'different strokes for different folks'. I don't understand why someone would pay more for the FM3a's with the price of the F3's in the gutter, but if you like it, then you like it. And if you don't... well there's always that great resale value everyone talks about.

July 7, 2009

One thing I've always loved about my Nikon F3HP is the DE-3 'High Point' viewfinder. I had no trouble shooting with my glasses on until this February, when I broke my old frames and had to get new glasses. Unfortunately with the new glasses shooting with the F3HP has turned from a joy to a bit of a burden. I was hoping to find a screw in diopter to allow me to shoot without glasses on, but I've been striking out trying to find one online. This has lead me to the following questions:

1. Did Nikon ever make a -2 screw in diopter for the F3HP? I've found -4 and -5 diopters, but no luck on -2's.

2. Will any of the other screw in diopters fit the F3HP? I've found ones for the FM series, but these appear to have a different thread and diameter.

3. If the answer is not to 1 and 2, what about screw in diopters for the DE-2? I'd consider buying one and a -2 Diopter if it'd allow me to shoot without glasses.

I've searched around at the usual suspects, local shops, B&H, Adorama, and even FleaBay, but I've yet to find a -2 diopter that explicitly says it works with the F3HP. I admit I've been spoiled by the adjustable diopters built into the F100 and D80. But it sure would be nice to have the option to shoot without glasses on.

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Posts posted by chris_laskey