Greetings from the Isle of Man

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Bill16

Senior Member
Hi, welcome to Nikonites! I think the D7100 is a great choice for a DX Nikon and should fit your needs very well from what I've heard about that model! For your bird shots, the better lenses will be heavy from what I'm learning, and I believe you'll want something that gets good shots in the 300mm or bigger, unless your very good at creeping up on them. I also understand a fast lens is a serious plus too when considering a lens for birds. I just bought a good lens for range a Nikkor 80-400mm but it's f/4.5-5.6 so I need to catch birds perched and use a tripod.
Also I've heard the af-s 35mm works awesome and is not too expensive. I hope to get one myself sometime later down the road. :)

Anyway I hope you'll love getting back into photography, and if you do I believe you'll love it here with us! This has been an awesome place to learn for me, just full of awesome people! :D
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
I've just been clambering around in my loft. I wanted to find my old Canon A1 to remind myself of the weight of the body & lenses. Out of interest, my old lenses where (all Canon USM) 24mm, 35-135mm & 100-300. Camera & lens weights are 879g, 1074g & 1161g (without battery or film). The A1 body does feel a little wide, the zoom lenses feel a little cheap. :(

Thanks for all the tips, they are all very useful to me as I'm not able to visit a proper camera store without spending a good slice of my budget. I'm currently thinking of leaving wildlife work for a phase 2 as I don't want to compromise my lens choices for the main stuff.

I also found my old tripod & a Kodak box brownie - my first ever camera!

Several have mentioned getting a flash. As the camera has an inbuilt flash for occasional fill-in, would I need one straight away?
 
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gqtuazon

Gear Head
Biscuit said:
Several have mentioned getting a flash. As the camera has an inbuilt flash for occasional fill-in, would I need one straight away?
Click to expand...

Fill flash works for short range fill flash and with shorter lenses such as the 35 and 50mm prime lens.

If you mount a longer lens, it will cast a shadow at the bottom center of the image due to the length of the lens barrel. It is best to use bounce flash and minimize red eyes.
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
Wasn't sure where to post this question, but as it is probably a painfully noob question, I'll ask it here....

I used to always put a Hoya skylight filter on each of my 35mm lenses. I understand that Skylight may not be necessary on digital lenses. What is the current recommendation with filters for protection on DX lenses?
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
300-400mm confirmed Mike. I'll leave it for phase 2.

Clear filter confirmed. Circular Polariser for the landscape lens?

I found my old Billingham camera bag! :)
 
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gqtuazon

Gear Head
Biscuit said:
300-400mm confirmed Mike. I'll leave it for phase 2.

Clear filter confirmed. Circular Polariser for the landscape lens?

I found my old Billingham camera bag! :)
Click to expand...

Cp filter is used more for cutting out glare and it also cuts some light out similar to nd filters.
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
Thanks Glenn.

I was assuming that a polarising filter could add some contrast to landscapes (deeper blue skies, clear water), unless I should do that with exposure bracketing instead?
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
Sorry to re-open my Intro thread, but I think it's a useful note for me in the future on how my initial thoughts & plans developed.

A week or so of intensive learning curves, checking weights & lengths of lenses, reading every review I can find & reading forum posts.

I started not even knowing that there was FX & DX to choose. Heading down the DX route due to cost, I noticed after a while, that many DX owners were thinking or or actively planning to move to FX. This got me thinking very carefully & I've now decided to jump in with FX equipment. I like the idea of better quality & instead of a high end DX camera (D7100), I feel that a low end FX (D610) makes more sense medium to long term. It was also getting tiring for me to constantly convert focal lengths into DX mode. I have a good idea in my mind what a given shot taken with a 24mm (for example) will look like. I'm just more comfortable thinking in terms of full frame. I think that someone mentioned to me that full frame was close to the 35mm that I grew-up with. Thanks for that thought.

So, still not definite, still open for argument & advice, I'm thinking along these lines for my (all Nikon) new kit.
Body: D610
Landscapes: 16-35mm f4.0 zoom
Walkabout/Portrait/Wildlife/Macro: 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 zoom
Flash: Not sure
Tripod for Landscape/Macro: Not sure

Phase 2
Macro/Portrait: 105mm f2.8 micro
Walkabout: 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 zoom

I feel that the 16-35mm is an obvious choice for landscapes. The 28-300mm is much more difficult as I was aiming towards the 70-300mm instead. However the 28-300mm has a close focus ability which works for me as a temporary macro lens, also the zoom range gives me a (bulky) walkaround too. The zoom also gives me some wildlife options & I may use DX crop for birds.

I still need lots of advice please. Particularly which Nikon flash unit for outdoors macro. There seems a huge range of tripods available which seems very confusing especially the Manfrotto website! I like the Giottos YTL range which looks good for macro. The 28-300mm looks the most difficult to decide on. It's heavy, but not too long physically. Although sharp, there seems to be some distortion issues, which I understand could be fixed in-camera (somehow)? The main plus is that the 28-300mm replaces 3 lenses for me & allows me to try different aspects of photography that I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford - at least for the first phase.

Camera, glass & flash-wise, I'd like to stick with Nikon only.

More advice please!
 
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Englischdude

Senior Member
welcome, looking forward to the bike shots. a group of friends from here in austria was over at the IOMTT this year, I could'nt make it though!

I have the 18-200 which has pretty much replaced my 18-55. i only then resort to my primes when I am really doing quality portraiture for example. As a general walkaround lens it is hard to beat!
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
Hi Martin

Thanks for the lens tips, I may try the FX 28-300mm for a walkaround lens. I can then use that for portraits, along with the 105mm micro.

I'll be taking landscapes & Macro, but no bike shots. I'm a TT marshal, so too busy to take photos during racing. :eek:
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
Update:

Body: D610
Landscapes: 16-35mm f4.0 zoom
Walkabout/Portrait/Wildlife/Macro: 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 zoom
Macro: 105mm f2.8 micro
Flash: Speedlight Remote kit R1
Tripod for Landscape/Macro: Manfrotto 055 (not sure on head)
 
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Fortkentdad

Senior Member
Welcome

Sounds like you've done your homework.

The D7100 is definitely one of the best "Bang for the Buck" err Pound, on the block.

I recently was in that market and went back and forth between the D7100 and the D610. My FX bug got me and I went for the D610. But at almost double the price. I love my D610, not sure it is double the camera of the D7100 though. And FX lenses tend to cost more. I've taken to buying old lenses for now as my budget it toast after that purchase.

I do also have a D5100. Your list of lenses for the D7100 will serve you very well. I really like my 35mm prime. Great price for a fabulous lens. I hardily recommend that one.

The D7100 can also use old lenses bought from on-line vendors or eBay. (See recent discussion on buyer beware on eBay - but it can save you a bundle). Being a crop frame it gets you extra reach from old FX lenses. I'd recommend you explore the used lens marked - can get some great buys there if you are careful.

And yes, I too was eyeing the potential for a big announcement in the fall regarding the next rendition of the 7000 series. May be worth the wait. Either get the latest and greatest if the upgrades are worth it to you - OR take the deal behind the other door and save a bundle on clearance prices on a D7100. I see D7000 now being cleared out by a major vendor in Canada for $600 or something like that. (The upgrade from 7000 to 7100 is a no-brainer, just too much more camera in the D7100).

Do post your decision.
 
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Deleted

Senior Member
Thanks for your post Fortkentdad.

I've eventually decided to go for the D610, although I will wait until the Photokina show in case a D620 is announced. It was a difficult decision between the D7100 & D610, mainly due to cost, but eventually I decided that I didn't want a "what-if" thought if I had gone with DX. Coming from 35mm 25 years ago, it was a tough learning curve!

Therefore FX it is & I've funded that by deciding not to buy a new laptop (MacBook Pro) & will instead put some additional storage into my pc & struggle along with my old Windows laptop when travelling.

I'd appreciate any tips on how much storage I'm likely to need on the pc for file storage. I'd be shooting RAW on full frame. I'm also not sure I understand why I'd want to shoot RAW + JPG as that is an option with the 2 card slots.
 
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Fortkentdad

Senior Member
I faced exactly that same choice - I was in the camera store holding a D7100 when my dear wife said "Don't settle for the cheaper one - get the one you really want" - love my wife. It was almost my 60th birthday and she decided to buy the 60mm Micro lens at the same time - a 60 for my 60th sounded great to me. It is my only new FX lens. All the rest are from my 35mm days of ol' or bought used. The D610 does detect DX lenses and can auto-crop to compensate for them easily to still get some mileage out of those lenses too.

As for storage - a lot has to do with how well you cull your pictures - keeping JPG and NEF of every pic will eat up hard disk space. But HD space is cheap nowadays. I have a 2T in my windows desktop, it also has two SSD's for programs. I have a 4th HD - a 3T which serves as a backup to the other three which don't add up to 3T combined.

Want to add an external 3T (or maybe 4T) to back up my backup. Currently only have one 300mb external which is too small. I now have 367 GB of images on my 2T drive - mind you that dates back to 2003. But files are now much bigger and I take many more of them.

Trick is to not keep every single picture (at least not in duplicate).

As for Windows - I'm using Windows 8 and doing fine. Tried Mac - not for me. Also have a Window 7 laptop for when I travel but prefer my desktop for serious processing. I use Corel Paintshop Pro X6 for most processing now. Gave up on Adobe, won't "rent" my software and it is way overpriced.
 
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