craig_bridge

You didn't mention what your work flow is. If you aren't having to adjust the white balance and can live without the Adobe gamut the 1905FP (and the 20xxFP and 21xxFP ) are usable for middle tones. Highlights and shadows in some hues are off and you will soon learn when not to trust WYSIWYG but these are problems for most high volume color printing processes as well.

You are experiencing a phenomenon called adaptation where the eye sees an in focus image in front of or behind the focus screen. Near sighted people with bright screens designed for autofocus tend to experience this more often.

 

Use whatever technique works for you to over come this: look away and back, DOF preview to darken image, squint, use the other eye, adjust the eyepeice diopter, etc.

Process it and see what you get. If it went through one of the high power units, it will be exposed and you will see why they warn you not to check unprocessed film. Not everything goes through the high power units at some airports as evidenced by undamaged film.

The meter coupling is that external pin that is captured by the fork on the lens and probably isn't where your problems come from. There are several things to cross check:

 

1) After attaching the lens and rotating the aperture ring from end to end, what does the maximum aperature on the FT2 show (it is on the ring attached to the pin on the rewind crank side).

 

2) With the lens off the body, do the aperture blades follow the aperture ring setting?

 

3) With the lens off the body and aperture ring set to f/5.6, does the stop down lever on the rear of the lens change the aperture blade position?

 

4) With the lens on the FT2 and the aperture ring set to minimum (f/16??), does the DOF preview button close the aperture blades?

 

Based on your update, the aperture stop down linkage is in question and answers to the above should provide more insight.

Any optical quality difference is down in the sample to sample differences.

How are you sharpening? It makes a difference.

 

It would also help to know more about your resize step. I'm assuming that your 5400dpi scan has fewer pixels than your 300dpi output scaled to your print size otherwise you wouldn't need much sharpening.

 

Of the simplest sharpening methods, unsharp mask adjusting the diameter, percentage, and threshold should be able to enhance edges without over doing it.

One way to look at it is that a 2x TC is effectively cropping and then magnifying the crop from what the image would be without the TC. The circle of confusion is also magnified.

 

This means you can do your DOF calculations based on the orignal lens focal length and aperture but with a smaller circle of confusion so when it is magnified it stays below the unacceptable limits. Using the effective FOV focal length effectively accomplishes the use of a smaller circle of confusion.

 

1/750 isn't fast enough to freeze a jet so you probably want to use faster film unless you are after motion blur or you can pan and are good at it.

If you want a fully manual new SLR body, an FM10 is a good choice. The 35-70 zoom kit lens is ok. I bought one a few years back for my oldest daughter to learn on and keep. Others have mentioned used FE/FE2/etc and a 50mm which are also good used choices. None of these are guaranteed to survive a 5 foot drop test without damage.

 

If you go with the Pentax ZX-M and your son gets really serious about 35mm, the Pentax system may become limiting. This usually means starting over with Nikon or Canon. The problem with Canon is they no longer make fully manual bodies and their older ones don't take the current lenses. The Nikon line is the only one where there is greater than 20 years of interoperability with most pieces.

I'd compare at all your autofocus settings and also make sure you are using only the central AF sensor. Sounds like you are in some low light continuous AF mode and the camera/lens isn't finding a high enough contrast edge to declare focus quickly.

You have to have an awful lot of dust to degrade an image so best not to clean too often!

 

Get yourself a puffer to blow off the lens. They often come with a brush attachment that is best taken off and discarded or used for other purposes. Canned air is best for blowing off other things where leaving some oily residue behind isn't a problem. Not the thing for lenses.

 

The problem with a lenspen is that once you use it once, you really need to throw it away. Same goes with all cleaning materials that come in contact with what you are trying to get rid of.

 

Even using disposables like Kodak lens tissue with alcohol (or other lens cleaning solution) requires care and a crumple technique so as to not apply too much pressure and cause scratches. You also need to use lots of sheets so you are constantly using a non-contaminated surface to avoid the possibility of damaging the coating with what you have picked up in the lens tissue or micro fiber cloth.

 

Many people buy a high quality 1A or 1X filter to keep dust off the front objective. That way if you scratch the filter in cleaning, you spend $40 to $70 depending on size to replace it instead of living with scratches and their effects.

The wide angle diffuser on the SB-28 is good for 20mm on film. It won't cover the 18mm FOV 12mm end of the 12-24DX on a 1.5x crop DSLR.

 

You'll have to read the manual on the SB-600.

 

Keep in mind that the distance from the flash to subject is closer in the center than on the edges so even when the flash covers, you will see a light fall off with wide angle lenses. Run your own test by setting up perpendicular to a large plain wall in a large room. For a 90 degree FOV it is one stop difference between center and edge based just on the distance difference.

Many "meter" problems are dirty contacts on battery, aperture sensor, and shutter speed sensor. Rotate the aperture and shutter speed through their full range multiple times will usually clean their wiper contact. Battery contacts are an inspection issue for contamination and depending on what you find, anything from cleaning with a soft eraser to replacing them and many steps in between.

You didn't say what body you are using and P* mode with flash is one area where it matters. Aperture priority mode has always worked for me with flash as long as there isn't too much light for the max sync speed (ambient over exposure). If you are in one of these situations, Variable Program mode will be limted as to the combinations. If you want to control the aperture and the ambient to flash lighting balance, use Manual mode and make sure to stay below the max sync speed.

Yes, there is something seriously wrong with the lens. It isn't made by Canon or some third party so the focus ring rotates in a proper Nikkor direction (opposite most other lenses).

 

On any lens (no matter which way it rotates), if you rotate it from near toward infinity and stop when the infinity marker comes to the first DOF marker for the desired aperture, you have the hyperfocal setting and the distance opposite the other DOF marker is the near focal distance.

If you are into big heavy long telephoto lenses you found a good one (will handle up to 8kg). If you want something light and compact there are better choices like the 676B and many in between.

A working SB-24 won't hurt your 8700, but controlling the exposure will be a challenge as the camera and flash won't talk to each other except to trigger the flash. If you aren't familiar with how to take full control of the 8700 exposure (aperture and shutter speed), that is where you need to start. You can put the flash in manual and adjust the power level or you can set the ISO and exposure compensation and use the flashes' sensor in auto mode. In other words you have 1970's flash technology with a far less forgiving "film". The only good thing is you don't have to wait for development to see how it came out.

Many years ago, Nikon used to ship mirrors locked up but they had more problems with people not unlocking them properly so they stopped the practice. Given you ran a test roll, if you shipped it with a body cap that stayed in place and it happened in shipping, I wouldn't want that body as there are more fragile components than the mirror linkage. Most Nikon mirror linkage issues are caused by human factors or the few lenses that interfere with mirror operation. If it was caused in shipping, you aren't likely to get the shipper to pay the bill unless damage to the box was noted on the receiving paperwork.

It is a setting that directs the firmware (in camera software) conversion from the raw 12 bit channels to the 8bit JPEG or TIFF output format channels. This setting also is saved in some of the NEF formats (not sure on the D70) for use by Nikon Capture.

At 1:2 magnification with most flowers the 60mm has enough working distance. At 1:1 the extra working distance that a 90mm (Nikkor 105mm AFD at 1:1 is about 85mm) has is significant. At 1.5:1 or more you'll want more working distance than even the 90mm on your F100 but still have enough on the D70.

 

I used a 55mm for years as a single lens low weight hiking setup and borrowed a 200mm for serious macro. With the 1.5x crop factor a 105mm is now a very portable contender and I rarely go to the 200mm.

2Km isn't infinity so results is expected. Try focusing on the moon (still not infinity but it is about as distance an object as the 105mm will have details to focus on).

The 80-200 AFD f/2.8 is the best in that price range ever made; however, it doesn't meet the relatively light critereon.

Read up on DOF and hyperfocal distance. Sufficiently freezing a moving subject is just a matter of using a fast enough shutter speed. The real problem is one of composition and finding a place where you can get back far enough from the main subject that you have enough DOF at a fast enough shutter speed without introducing unwanted foreground elements.

Besides the Nikon 14mm f/2.8, there is the Tamron 14mm SPAF f/2.8. Both of these take rear filters and are full frame. I bought the Tamron before the 12-24 DX f/4 existed. Forget polarizers on lenses this wide. Holding a large ND in front works for 1.5x crop DSLR. Image quality wise, the 12-24 DX is every bit as good as either 14mm prime stopped down to f/4.

Cades cove loop road is closed to motor traffic Wed and Sat mornings.

 

Roaring Fork Motor nature trail usually isn't as crowded as Cades Cove and offers some restored cabins, barns, and a mill and is close to Gattlinburg.

 

I prefer to stay in Gattlinburg or Townsend rather than Pigeon Forge to reduce travel time, but you need to make reservations. Gattlinburg traffic is painful even for the locals during this peak season. Don't expect to go anywhere in Gattlinburg or the park quickly.

Any USA duplex outlet device made after 1975 for home use is rated for at least 12A; however, they aren't made to plug in an unswitched lamp (or switched on lamp).

 

Without knowing what else is on a given circuit, plugging in even an extra 500w load can trip a breaker so be careful.