Greetings from the UK (Sheffield/Peak District)

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Bonky

New member
HI, many years ago I was a member of a local group shooting mainly B&W and colour slides. I seem to recall winning a few competitions with my trusty, lovely Contax camera. Since then I have moved up(?) to a Nikon D5500 and various lenses - but I'm now only doing 'snaps'. However, yesterday I pulled the trigger on a Z5 (pronounced ZED-five), a converter/adaptor and a Nikon Z 24-70mm f4 lens and fancy becoming more of an enthusiastic amateur. I've just made an enquiry about a local U3A (University of the Third Age -in the UK) group, so it'll be interesting to see and hear how much I've forgotten and how much things have moved on. I may consider Lightroom or one of the free -or cheaper- alternatives. I do miss my darkroom - all those evocative smells.

A 15-day trip to India ('the Jewel In The Crown') beckons for the third time in April so I expect to have lots of photo opportunities.

Anyone in Sheffield (UK) please get in touch.

Thanks.
 
Clovishound

Clovishound

Senior Member
Welcome. Sounds a lot like my journey. I shot a lot of B&W and slides back in the day before I got disillusioned with my results. I recently picked the hobby back up. I got a hand me down D3400 and two years ago moved up to the Z (pronounced ZEE;)) 5 with the 24-70 F4. I then ended up adding a 200-500 F5.6 with an FTZ and a Z 105 micro. I've been having a lot of fun taking pictures with my daughter and am taking much better pictures digitally than I ever did with film.

Enjoy the ride.
 
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Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard, Bonky, enjoy the ride. We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

You might also want to consider introducing yourself on New Member Introductions.
 
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Bonky

New member
Thanks for the warm welcome; much appreciated


The reason why ‘Z’ is pronounced as’Zed’ in the majority of the English-speaking world is that in the fields of aircraft and ship nav, not to mention airtraffic control, every vowel and consonant must sound different to any other, and the problem with 'Zee' is that it sounds very, very close to how the letter ‘C’ is pronounced. If the two are confused then a major catastrophe may ensue.


Not worth arguing about. I know that a UK pop group called the SpiceGirls used ‘zee’ in their lyrics to complete a rhyme. That’s almost unheard of over here.

Thanks again,

Richard

Sent from my iPhone
 
Clovishound

Clovishound

Senior Member
Bonky said:
Thanks for the warm welcome; much appreciated


The reason why ‘Z’ is pronounced as’Zed’ in the majority of the English-speaking world is that in the fields of aircraft and ship nav, not to mention airtraffic control, every vowel and consonant must sound different to any other, and the problem with 'Zee' is that it sounds very, very close to how the letter ‘C’ is pronounced. If the two are confused then a major catastrophe may ensue.


Not worth arguing about. I know that a UK pop group called the SpiceGirls used ‘zee’ in their lyrics to complete a rhyme. That’s almost unheard of over here.

Thanks again,

Richard

Sent from my iPhone
Click to expand...
I hope you don't think I was arguing with you. I read your reference to pronunciation as humor and responded in humor. The large pond between our two countries has resulted in a lot of differences in language. Heck, we have lots of differences in usage and pronunciation between geographical areas here within our own country.

I look forward to seeing your work, and hope the forum will be an asset to your growth and enjoyment of photography. I know it has been so for me.
 
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Bonky

New member
Hi Clovishound. It's fine - I took it as you intended and agree with your comments completely.

The Z5 has just arrived 5 mins ago and the 24-70 -lens - so am looking forward to opening both parcels and getting to know how the camera works.

The differences in dialect between even small areas in the UK can be quite baffling to us as well as overseas tourists.
too!

Best Wishes,

R
 
Clovishound

Clovishound

Senior Member
There is definitely a learning curve with the Z5, if you want to use a lot of it's features. There are a ton of different options. After 2 years there are still features I am just now learning about. It takes a little while to get used to the EVF. I have found that now I hate to go back to an optical viewfinder. I'm sold on the mirrorless cameras.
 
nikonbill

nikonbill

Senior Member
Contributor
Welcome enjoy your camera, and the site!

Check out NX-Studio (free from Nikon) Darktable/GIMP are free and open source they are a blast and all free you will not miss your darkroom long. Users here are great sources of info whatever editor you wind up trying and your equipment too
 
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Bonky

New member
Hi NikonBill,

Many thanks.

I do have NX-S downloaded but have yet to look at it in anger. What little I've seen of it doesn't seem so easy to use as 'Photo' on my Apple Silicon Mac. (But I'll try....!)

'Lightroom' seems to be very popular.


I now wonder what to do with my D5500 and 3 lenses (inc a prime). I bought the Nikon adaptor for £149 and have experimented with it and two of my DX lenses. They work OK (Prime will only do manual focusing), ...but is it worth it...?

I'm off (again) to India in two months and wonder if I should take the D5500/DX system one last time - if only for the weight advantage.- or is IQ more important? Mmm.........

Thanks everyone for your warm welcome.

R (UK)
 
Clovishound

Clovishound

Senior Member
I have the FTZ and it works great with FX lenses. Keep in mind that with DX lenses, the camera will automatically go into crop frame mode and only use a portion of the sensor, limiting your resolution. As far as I know there is no way to get the camera into full frame mode with a DX lens mounted, and even if you did, it would likely be severely vignetted, and require the final image to be cropped to half frame anyway. If you end up replacing some of your DX lenses with full frame, consider the Z lenses, if you can afford them. They have a reputation for being sharper and having better AF than the FX counterparts. That has been my experience as well. The 24-70 F4, and Z105 micro never cease to impress me with image quality, and if I ever move up to a high resolution sensor camera, theses lenses will be up to the task. Quite a few of the older FX lenses were designed for lower resolution sensors and throttle resolution on some of the newer sensors like the Z7 and up have. If you have some good FX lenses, the FTZ works well, and makes sense. It also makes sense if the lens you need is prohibitively expensive, or not available in a Z version.

In your shoes, I would take the D5500 with me. It may stay in your bag the whole trip, but it's always good to have a backup. In the long run, you might want to look at trading in the 5500 and DX lenses for something you need. It all depends on how much you can get for them, and how badly you want something else.

I was a little disappointed when I first got my Z5. I was expecting a big jump in resolution compared to the D3400. There wasn't much difference when used at lower ISOs. After using the Z5 for a while I began to appreciate a lot of what it brings to the table. At this point, I hate to bring out the D3400 to use.
 
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Bonky

New member
Thanks Clovishound (interesting name!) for such a full response. I too was thinking on much the same lines. I was thinking of taking the Z5 with the FTZ and the DX35 mm (as well as the Z 24-70 f4)-if only for the better IQ at low light .
However, given the crop etc I wonder if it's worth the bother, and to eventually sell the D5500 and 3 lenses. The Z35mm prime seems exorbitant at present, however. I don't have any FX lenses.

Any advice re a good FX lens to use withe Z5 as an interim?

Thanks again,

R
 
TwistedThrottle

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
@Bonky
Keep in mind that your 35mm on your D5500 has the effective focal length of a 50mm on full frame. If you like that look, you might want to consider the 50mm f1.8S, (or Z mount 40mm f2 Plastic Fantastic if you want to keep the cost down) for your low light lens on the Z5. For a day time telephoto lens, check out the AF-P 70-300 f4.5-5.6E lens to be used with the FTZ adapter. I still have that lens even though I've upgraded to the 70-200 f2.8 for shooting volleyball in junky gym lighting. The 70-300 AF-P f4.5-5.6E is such a sleeper lens, it's much better than you'd think but you gotta be sure to get that particular one, theres a bunch of them that arent as good and the AF-P means its as quiet as the Z mount lenses. For wide angle, its hard to beat the 14-30mm f4 but its not cheap. That combo gives you 14-300 and a low light lens, perfect for just about any scenario and small/light enough to carry around anywhere.
 
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