clive_murray_white

<p>I think the best way to approach this is searching on the net for D200 images, you'll soon notice that the kind of result that appeals to you is taken with a few different lenses, so then narrow your search to D200 + a particular lens, this will probably confirm your thoughts.</p> <p>I got my Voigtlander 58/1.4 for my D800 this way, a good alternative to a genuine petzval is Lensbaby composer with 50mm double optic, personally I don't like 50 1.8g much, 85g is a winner for me, 75-150 interesting but a bit harsh for my taste - but as you see it really gets down to personal taste of a particular lens on a particular body.</p>

<p>I've just checked mine and its just like yours, which may mean that it's normal for this lens, though a sample of 2 isn't enough to make that claim - and I'm very happy with mine too, <em>I'm bowled over with the superb sharpness combined with a very full bodied rendering</em> - I agree, that's a very good description of this little beauty.<br> <br> Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here - I think we are just assuming that symmetry is necessary.</p>

<p>The AF-S 24-85 3.5/4.5 G corrected in Lightroom was my solution with D800, I don't and won't do weddings but a regular part of my work is indoor functions in poor light conditions.<br> It is light, small, cheap and annoyingly good.</p>

<p>NAS is bad enough Mike, but GAS is worse, coming here from Leica M and Fourthirds with adapters for Leica R, M42, CY and Minolta meant that you could be tempted to try and buy just about anything..... </p> <p>In all seriousness I think my D800 with a bunch of Nikon lenses has saved me a great deal of money :-) these guys do give good advice</p>

<p><em>Another lens that I can recommend is the 75-150mm f/3.5 series E</em>. x 2<br> <br> Rodeo Joe probably recommended this one when I was a Nikon newbie too - It is very sharp, fun to use, cheap, nicnamed "the street sweeper" and has an interesting character which I'd call hard, contrasty or tough, in keeping with the aesthetics of its era - though a little longer I find I use my AF 180mm 2.8 more, also sharp but renders more generously</p>

<p>Yes welcome too Michael, same story for me too with the SB -22 I often use it in conjunction with another oldie, an SB-27 all linked up off camera to some Yongnuo wireless gear. In truth I'm much more of a natural light kind of person augmented occasionally a bit more light here and there provided by the old SBs - I love their obvious analogue controls.</p>

<p>I too enjoy my SB 22.</p>

<p>Hi, of course it depends on what you need the lens for, I automatically thought that I needed a wide zoom for my D800, wider than the 24mm on my mid range zoom, but my genuine use for it is very limited - so I bought a used Sigma 15-30mm f/3.5-4.5 ex dg if, OK, very sharp most of the time but had horrible lens flare whenever it got tangled up with any kind of light source. I sold it. </p> <p>Still needing something wider than 24mm I got an AF Nikkor 20mm 2.8D and am completely happy with it</p>

<p><em>The OP has a d7000 and sigma 17-50. how would you suggest achieving better results with that gear setup?</em><br /> <br /> I'd go looking for the sweet spot here's a chat about it -<br> https://www.flickr.com/groups/1449225@N25/discuss/72157634326021804/<br /><br /><br> sorry link didn't seem to connect properly</p>

<p>Ah Rodeo Joe there's always one game enough to hop head first into the hoary Lieca vs the rest debate - "blind" most certainly was an apposite word. All I suggested was that Dima should go looking at what is claimed to be the Leica look. Maybe you should do it too because it actually exists. Check out Ziess too for same reason.</p> <p>To put things straight, I sold all my Leica (and Olympus) gear and moved over to Nikon (D800), long story not needed here, so clearly I was able to forsake Leica magic for an infinitely more usable system.</p> <p>The key to this whole question is about learning to notice how different lenses from different companies "render" subjects - what is even more interesting is that often lens designers have slightly different ideas about what characteristics a great lens should have - even ideas about bokeh differ, just as they should. The mistake is to think that all camera co's are trying to do exactly the same thing, they are not, they are putting forward their own philosophies about photographic ideals. Similarly, and much more relevant to this thread, lenses, as we all know, rarely maintain a consistent "rendering" through all apertures, hence the concept of a lens having "sweet spot", the setting where it comes closest to producing magic results, in a way the best advice for Dima is to go looking for the "sweet spot" on the lens he finds a bit flat.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Hi Dima, As you have probably noticed your thread has engaged quite a few of us - there are 2 more things that have popped into my mind, this one should really be ignored, it'll send you broke. In the pantheon of photographic equipment one brand stands out in relation to being able to produce really "juicy" pictures and that's Leica, it's worth taking a look at as many examples of Leica pictures as you can just so you know what the thing they call the Leica "pop" is all about - and then check the prices of the gear to get a reality check.</p> <p>On a much more practical and reasonable level, the easiest way to improve your chances of getting the kind of results that you seek is to go into serious training by setting yourself tasks. Sure you can't go to concerts everyday so you have to think of a scenario that in some way duplicates the issues involved. Then experiment fairly objectively by taking many versions of the same picture at different apertures, zooms and focus points, you'll quickly start to see things that you find exciting, you should note the camera settings and then take more pictures with the camera set up that way just to see if, in line with your own taste, you are getting closer to what you really like. </p>

<p>I should add - I've never had much call to explore adding pixelation in Photoshop to make a picture look as if it was taken just beyond a camera's ISO reach, I chose "add noise", a better option would have been "mosaic", of course the best result would have been to take the original picture on the widest aperture possible.</p>

<p><img src="https://halfa.smugmug.com/photos/i-8H7jSgs/0/O/i-8H7jSgs.jpg" alt="" width="428" height="374" /></p> <p>I also had a very quick play with this image - some obvious laziness/casualness in the masking and clumsiness in adding noise to equal what was in the original but the general idea is there, crop to make the best of the original, mask what needed to be blurred, change a few tones here and there to help get some 3D, mess up the blur with some noise - my view is that there is a much better picture to be had in your original file.</p>

<p>I think the guitarist/drummer picture is particularly instructive and Jeff's example of the same kind of scene shows what you should or could be looking for - before I go on, I'm also a strong advocate for assuming that post processing must always be seen as a integral component in almost every photograph we may take.</p> <p>Back to the comparison of the 2 pictures the compositions are remarkably similar, in both our eye first lands in the first third (left to right) of the story, this is always where the brain goes looking and expects to be led nicely over to the main attraction, shown very well in in Jeff's pic. Jeff has seen the compositional usefulness of the bass player and the angle of the bass itself, aiming conveniently towards the main subject helps immensely.</p> <p>In yours the in-focus drummer/kit doesn't quite lead the eye to your guitarist, your drummer actually occupies one of the strongest compositional zones, the Golden Section (google too much to include here) and because he's very much in focus he fights with the guitarist - personally I don't mind pictures were parts argue with each other, but its very hard to pull off effectively and must be part of the intention of the picture. The simplest way that I know is to explain composition in terms of the functions of the various elements in a picture and how each part contributes to "telling" the intended story. If you can name what each part is doing it is most likely the picture will be successful.</p>

<p><img src="https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/11218897_990659877633394_5408449118881333653_n.jpg?oh=cab398bb0f51843efaff7707b2b805d6&oe=571AE681" alt="" width="850" height="567" /></p> <p>And now the lensbaby edge 80</p>

<p><img src="https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10850077_875346235831426_6371361541582719614_n.jpg?oh=fb20b62a59f2ba88aaaac51832df7c07&oe=571A27E2" alt="" width="850" height="567" /></p> <p>thought I'd join in with a pic from the Lensbaby 50 double optic transforming a fairly ordinary scene into something quite exciting</p>

<p>No Dan, you're not going to get an argument from me, as a retired academic I should have been much more thoughtful with my choice of words. I wouldn't mind a dollar for every time I had to point that kind of sweeping generalisation out in student art history papers and higher degree proposals.</p> <p> </p>

<p>In truth you get what you pay for and as this thread develops as it is a good topic I can't help but remember that I swapped my Leica (M8) and Olympus (E-3) gear to move into Nikon (D800), for 1 major reason, the usable ISO but I also miss the lenses that were available to me in those systems. </p> <p>If this was the Leica forum people would be arguing to the death over certain versions of each lens and each claiming magic "drawing" ability for their choices, so far I've not seen a Nikon lens that comes remotely close to Leica, or Ziess for that matter but what's the point of having of having something if you can't use it where you need to. So Nikon for me gives the best compromise, good, efficient, fairly characterless lenses on very good bodies that serve me well in all circumstances - even if I have to tweak things in Lightroom and Photoshop more than I'd like. My best, but not favourite, Nikon lens is my 45 PC-E its also my most expensive.</p>

<p>Like most of you my favourite lenses are the ones I consider most appropriate for the task at hand, that said I know that I almost yearn to find a good excuse/reason to drag out the Lensbaby edge 80 and 50 double optic (sadly happens quite rarely). Similarly my little Voigtlander 58/1.4 Nokton.</p> <p>Least favourite Nikon lens 50/1.8 G</p>

<p>I'm sorry but I have to join in with my usual comment, initiated this time by the idea that eBay photography is entry level, sure many sellers have seriously substandard pictures, but as eBay always advises good pictures are very important. There isn't just one kind of suitable picture, but more along the lines of an appropriate picture for the kind of thing you may be selling, which isn't always easy to do.</p> <p>Pretty well any camera if used well can take a good enough picture but I find that Photoshop is always the most useful additional tool, sadly not cheap.</p> <p> </p>

<p>I have the 45mm PC-E for my D800, its a focal length that suits my needs very nicely, it's also a very fine lens.</p> <p>But someone does have to mention, so it might as well be me.... if you haven't played around with "lens correction" in Lightroom or seen what you can do with "distort" in Photoshop before you invest a lot of money in a PC-E you should, I think.</p>

<p>I think we're overlooking the fact the ban was aimed at "freelance" photographers submitting work to Reuters. The definition of Freelance is very important and to me always implies that you are free to offer your work to whoever may wish to use it.</p> <p>I'm never going to try and argue that the client isn't entitled to insist that we deliver our work in whatever file type or size they may want, though no one for any purpose at all has asked me to supply an 18 MB 7360 x 4912 - 62 x 41 cm, 300dpi RGB Jpeg and of course no one has asked for a RAW file either.</p> <p>In terms of news pictures the real issue isn't Jpeg or RAW shooting, it's fabricating an image and pretending it's the truth.</p> <p>And when I think of what I've always got to be prepared to be able to supply my clients, I realise that one image could be a small jpeg for the web, a 300dpi RGB version, a 300dpi CMYK version, PNGs and small and press ready PDFs.............much of my recent work has been for wineries and the most interesting question these days in Australia is the requirement that photographers get permission from people who may be in published images, which in terms of casual shots of people enjoying my client's wine certainly puts a dint in any spontaneity. The way round it is really quite amusing, make sure the wine is in focus but the person who's drinking isn't.</p>

<p>So this goes on - I always heard and probably believed "a (good) picture is worth a thousand words" it was so in analogue days just as it is now, the clever and effective photographer has always known that ramping up or merely presenting what they know to be "in" an image is, and always has been what their trade has always been about, Reuters rules won't change this and armchair experts, as is being slurred are definitely not be the issue as is being claimed.</p>

<p>I cannot see how anyone can associate RAW with art/artistic and Jpegs with some kind of truth/honesty, this kind of polarization simply doesn't make sense to me.</p>

<p>My recent experiences with press media lead me to believe that there is a trend is to avoid paying for as many pictures as possible - my most recent case was a journalist from a local newspaper who kept a good eye out on social media for good looking pictures posted by local businesses or organisations of interesting events or happenings. The journalist would then message the company/org asking for a higher res version, of course they were happy to oblige as it really constituted free advertising for that organisation.</p> <p>As we take pretty good pictures (RAW processed) and are pretty quick at replying we get quite a lot of free advertising. Which I don't mind at all.</p>