john_curlett

<p>As was mentioned above, examples are needed. In generally, Nikon cameras tend to over-expose by 1/3 to 1/2 stop so IMO your experience is unusual.</p>

<p>Those of you that are pleased that the D500 is a large camera should tell Nikon that bigger is better (one reason I shoot FX). It would save them the energy of making the comments shown below which come directly from the their website. They seem to think that the majority of their potential buyers like smaller, lighter cameras. They need your help.</p> <p>"I am condensed power", "Flagship power, DX agility", "contained within a streamlined camera body", "Small yet Powerful", "The sleek and beautiful D500 goes anywhere you go", "Packing a lot of power into a smaller camera body", "when you’re travelling, every ounce counts", "there’s no need to sacrifice image quality to gain portability", "Although compact in size, the D500 certainly packs a punch."<br> <br> </p>

<p>I am sure the D500 is an excellent camera and will attract some buyers. What surprises me is the camera's size. If you read the description on the Nikon website site they mention its compact size in nearly every paragraph trying to lead the reader into believing it.</p> <p>They provide a spec chart that compares the D500 with the D7200 and the D300s. About the only thing that is left out are the sizes of the cameras. There is a reason for this and that is that the D500 is larger than both of the other cameras. For that matter, it is larger in every dimension and heavier than the full frame D750. It is the same width as the D810, .3" shorter and only .1" thinner.</p> <p>Hmmm. I thought that one of the attractions to DX was being able to carry around a smaller camera? I guess Nikon doesn't think so.</p>

<p>Shun - I wish my copy of the 105 VR had been anywhere near as good as yours. I was not exaggerating about how bad mine was. My real point here is that they have produced some very poor copies of that lens and if one has the misfortune of getting a bad copy, Nikon will not do anything about it. This is what leads folks to order three from Amazon and then send two back. Something i refuse to do.</p>

<p>I bought a new 105VR a few years ago and the purple/green LCA was horrendous. A white flower slightly in front of the focus plain would be rendered as a fuzzy purple mess. I immediately returned it to Nikon and the only thing they did was adjust the focusing slightly and said the chromatic distortion was within spec. I talked to a friend in NPS and she confirmed that some of these lenses were as bad as I was describing. I compared its performance to my 105 D version and a Tamron 90mm which were both far superior in this respect.</p> <p>The lens was very sharp and worked well in many situations but it wasn't the general purpose lens I was looking for. I sold it cheap and continue to use my 105 D which overall is a much better lens.</p>

<p>I think the cryptic comment by Vilk Inc above is the correct answer. From my experience and from what I read (DP Review tests), new Nikon cameras slightly overexpose. I don't understand why they are set up that way especially with the huge dynamic range that can pull amazing detail out of the shadows. If you blow out a highlight your done. Menu item b7 allows one to set an exposure correction for each metering mode which is something I have done on my cameras. </p>

<p>I do it for all my lenses and cameras. In some cases it makes a significant improvement. One must remember that applying a single focus adjustment is not generally a perfect solution. Auto focus errors can vary with focus distance, zoom setting and aperture depending on the lens. The shift with aperture is most pronounced on fast lenses as you noted. So don't let the process drive you crazy trying to get the focus perfect everywhere. It just isn't going to happen with many lenses. The final setting is often an average value biased towards where you use the lens most or where focus is most often more critical.</p> <p>I have used various methods with different targets and expensive software. I find that I do as well simply focusing on a ruler with at mark in the center placed at different distances or focusing on a carpet or lawn that has distinct texture. I spend about 5 minutes with each camera / lens combination which is time well spent.</p>

<p>I have the Tamron 24-70mm and am very pleased with it. If compares favorably with the Nikon in IQ and the VC (VR) is very effective. I recommend that you seriously consider this lens.</p>

<p>"If you're looking at an 800 and not an 800e, you might have marginally better moiré resistance than the D750, if you're doing a lot of clothing."<br> <br> Why? The D750 has an optical low pass filter over the sensor like the D800. Are you thinking that the higher pixel density will make a noticeable difference in the moire'?</p>

<p>I had a D7000 and D800 and recently sold the D7000 and bought a D750 since I have only full frame lenses. IMO the differences in ISO performance, focusing and the like between the D800 and the D750 are insignificant for portrait work. To me the differences between the two cameras is more in the size and weight. I tend to use the D800 more for studio work and the D750 more in the field. If I could only have one I think it would be a flip of a coin that made the decision.<br /> The D7000 is still an excellent camera. I agree that your money might be better spent buying high quality glass. I always liked my D7000 but continually got more respect for what it could do as I purchased pro level lenses. Once you have the lenses then think about a new body.</p>

<p>I have the 16-35mm f/4 and am very pleased with it. It is very sharp and the large amount of distortion at 16mm cleans up pretty easily in post-processing.</p>

<p>I would suggest an AF Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 D which are reasonably priced used, very sharp and will work well on the D7100.</p>

<p>The comments that your pictures will be the same with that lens on any camera are incorrect if they are referring to film versus digital. The differences are more pronounced the shorter the focal length of the lens and are most noticeable towards the edges of the images where the light is coming at a significant angle to the surface of the film or sensor. Film has a very thin emulsion so the light simply strikes the surface of the film and makes the exposure. Digital camera sensors have glass over the surface of the sensor which is normally around 2mm thick in the case of Nikon. When the light strikes the glass at an angle it is refracted as it passes through the glass and strikes a different point on the sensor than it would in the case of film. The amount of refraction is affected by the color of the light like with a prism.<br /> A 28mm lens is short enough to start showing this distortion. I have not tried that lens on a D810 so I can't say how noticeable it will be. I just wanted you to be aware of this potential effect with shorter lenses.</p>

<p>Glad to hear you bought a D7000 at that low price. It is still an excellent camera. I think that was one of the best bargains I have seen in recent years. The D7200 is rumored to be announced next month. I expect that the price of the D7100 will slowly drop as did the price of the D7000 so don't expect any significant immediate drop in it price.</p>

<p>I had a 70-300mm and now have a 70-200 f/4.0 and a TC-14EIII and find the combination works very well together and believe the combination is considerably sharper than my 70-300mm was. I can't do a side-by-side comparison since I no longer have the other lens. I also have a TC-20EIII and am impressed how sharp that pair is when properly supported. One can't make a general rule about lenses and teleconverter because the performance is different when paired with different lenses. My experience says that the 70-200mm f/4.0 works exceptionally well with these teleconverters.</p>

<p>The OP's comment had to do with using live view contrast detection focusing as opposed to phase detection focusing. Comparing between the two is a good way to determine if you need to do make any micro focus adjustments. Like I said above, my 35mm Sigma didn't require any.</p>

<p>I recently had the same decision to make and ended up with the Sigma and am very pleased. It is razor sharp and the build quality is excellent. This is my first Sigma lens and was concerned about the problems folks have had with autofocus in the past. I debated about buying the USB cap to program the lens at the same time. That would have been a waste since the focus is dead on with both of my cameras. I think it is hard to justify the additional cost of the Nikon considering the reviews of the lenses and the marginal service I have received from Nikon in the past.</p>

<p>Joe - As I said I wasn't about the SB-800. I did a quick check with my SB-700 with the zoom set at 85mm and got a GN of 30 on FX and 33 on DX so there is a little improvement going to DX. I had never really measured it before.</p>

<p>"...does the flash compensate for the effective 1.6 multiplier for an APS-C sensor camera?" - Nope!</p> <p>I don't know about the SB-800 but the later model Nikon flashes like my SB-700 have FX and DX modes which can be manually selected or the flash can detect the type of camera attached. In the DX mode, the flash zooms to provide a narrower area of illumination for a given focal length than it does in the FX mode. For example with an 85mm lens, in DX mode the angle of illumination is 17 X 24 degrees where it is 23 X 31 degrees in the FX mode. I am referring to page H-20 of the SB-700 manual.<br> Check your manual. The SB-800 may be the same.</p>

<p>"Really a function designed for prime lenses, not zooms."<br> A more correct statement would be that it is designed for all lenses but often works better on prime lenses. Errors in phase detect focus can vary with focal length, focus distance and aperture. The results can be better with primes because one of the variables have been removed. Canon allows micro-focus values to be saved at wide and telephoto settings of zoom lenses which should significantly improve the effectiveness with zoom lenses. </p>

<p>It would also help if you stated what model camera you have and the focus mode settings you are using and that you have the lens and body (as appropriate) set for autofocus.</p>

<p>You should be able to find this information by reading the test reviews. As others have said, it is not necessarily a problem, it is just the way the lens was designed. There are basically two ways to make a lens focus closer. One is to extend the lens away from the sensor and the other is to reduce its focal length. Often manufacturers use a combination in some of their lens designs.</p>

<p>I have the 200mm f/4 and absolutely love it. It is as sharp (some tests say slightly sharper) as the f/2.8 version. It is light and fits in my camera bag instead of in the cabinet at home.<br> I ran some test as others have with my D800 directly on the tripod versus using a RRS lens collar. It is definitely more stable with the camera on the tripod. The set up I normally use has the camera on a RRS rail that is balanced on the tripod. I put an adjustable support between the rail and where the lens collar would go. This setup is rock solid and I can see virtually no difference with or without mirror lock-up.<br> And yes this lens works very well with both of the third generation 1.4 and 2.0 TCs.</p>

<p>"In general you get substantial benefits from FX only if you can fill the frame with your subject with close to the intended composition in the camera"<br> This statement by Ilkka is very important to understand regarding high ISO noise "superiority" of full frame. For example, I have a D7000 and a D800. The pixel size and performance between the two cameras are essentially identical. The noise advantage comes from being able to have the subject fill a larger area on the sensor thereby "collecting more light" given the same aperture. The gain in apparent noise comes when I then down-sample the larger file to make my final image.<br> If the image size is limited by your lens, then there is no advantage. As an example, a couple weeks ago I was taking pictures of the "blood moon" and my max focal length is 400mm so the image of the moon would be the same size on either camera's sensor. So in this case I would get the identical final image out of either camera. There was no advantage in using the D800. You are probably faced with the same situation often in your bird photography.</p>

<p>The lens I had was obviously a very bad copy. The effects are worse the higher the contrast and the wider the f-stop. I would not expect that a lens will change with time as long as it hasn't been dropped or experienced some other sever shock. People use this lens very successfully wide open for portraits which are typically relatively low contrast subjects and there is generally little, if anything, in front of the plane of focus. Mine was so bad that it was very obvious even on things like weathered wood.</p>