Salvaged an old Lens

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mikeh32217

Senior Member
Had an old Nikon N6006 that I gave my son several years back and he just gave it back the other day and it had
an old Sigma DL Zoom 35-80mm 1:4-5.6 lens on it. I cleaned it up, put it on my D5000 and played with it for a while
and although auto won't work with my D5000 it looks like a pretty decent lens. Think I'll take it out later and see if
I can't do some damage!

Anyone have anything like this?, any tips or tricks?

Thanks,
Mike
 
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Eye-level

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I like old Sigma stuff...set the D5000 on M and flip through the menus until you find the electronic rangefinder and turn it on...then look through the viewfinder and try and focus on something...in the viewfinder on the lower left you'll see a little green dot light up...this tells you the object you are looking at is in focus. You can also use the live view and magnify the object in question and turn the focus ring until it looks sharp and then shoot. If you are in manual you will probably have to chimp ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimping ) your shots until you get good exposure...sometimes it is hard to tell good exposure on the reticulating screen so it is better to shoot the subject at various shutterspeeds then pick the best one...

Good luck using the Sigma show us some of your pictures when you make some!
 
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I think you will discover that the lens will work beautifully in the Florida sunlight...I would recommend starting at f16, ISO 200, and a shutterspeed around 200 to get your bearings on the exposure.
 
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mikeh32217

Senior Member
Thanks Jeff I'll try that. The next week is supposed to be fantastic weather so will have no excuses to get out and snap.
Will post results.

Thanks again for the tips,
Mike

BTW Where abouts in OK do you live? Went through there a few times on my road trip. The driver (my ex-brother-in-law's truck yard is in Sapuilpa) but we went all over OK..
 
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Mike I live in Sapulpa...small world...LOL

If sunny 16 at 200 and 200 gets you decent exposure then you can try f11 at 400 shutter speed and 200 iso, f8 at 800 shutter speed and 200 iso, and 5.6 at 1600 and 200...I like shooting around f5.6 and f8 myself...

You'll have to get used to manually focusing so prepare to fire off lots of snaps making minor adjustments with each one...a bunch of them are going to be blurry probably but if you keep at it you will get the hang of it...you may even find yourself using the M setting more and more...
 
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mikeh32217

Senior Member
Jeff,

Ain't it though. He drives for John Christner trucking.

I've snapped quite a few already here around the house just to get the hang of it and most are either dark and/or blurry but as you say I will get the hang of it. Be good for me to learn to shoot on Manual, I was setting on Aperture and autoing the rest. Is that only half cheating? :)

Mike
 
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Eye-level

Banned
When you are in the house set the camera white balance to incandescent...open her up as wide as she will go...set the iso about 400-800...set the shutter speed about 1/60...shoot a couple and see what happens...no flash that is cheating.... :)

See what your CSF is...your camera shake factor...see how slow you can go until shake sets in and blurs your images...handheld...indoors I can get down pretty slow...it's fairly easy for me to handhold a 1/15 shot...

Try what I told you above and see what you think...
 
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mikeh32217

Senior Member
I think I'm really going to like this lens, had to reduce quality to get it to upload but here's the Raw cropped shot.

Smokey.jpg

ISO800, 35mm, f/4.0, 1/10sec and White Balance set to Incandescent.

Sometimes can do alright at longer exposures if I lean against something can get down to about 1/4sec but shaking is getting worse with age.

Thanks,
Mike
 
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mikeh32217

Senior Member
OK Here is a shot taken today with the setting you gave me and you were spot on.

Museum.jpg

ISO200, 82mm, f/16 1/200sec
The old lens is looking pretty good.

Thanks,
 
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Eye-level

Banned
That is the good old sunny 16 rule Mike! Train yourself to use it till you get so good you can call out the proper exposure for almost any given kind of light...many situations can be tricky but the more you rely on it and your eyes and brain instead of your camera the better you will get at it...the more you will understand how the light works on things...the better your photographs will become...it's a tough row to hoe when it is just so easy to set it at auto...

Now it is a pretty nice snap but I must ask you...Did you change the white balance off of incandescent and into another setting? I always shoot with the flash white balance setting outside because it imparts nice golden hour type tones to things...from the look of your snap above it looks like you shot that with the white balance still on incandescent because of all the cool tones...

When using manual you have to stay on top of 4 things...aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance...train yourself to check those four things for every shot nearly!
 
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mikeh32217

Senior Member
Jeff,

Yeah when I got outside I put WB on Daylight and used the salvaged lens My brother has also been telling me a lot of what you are telling me. He's a semi-pro photographer in Phoenix so between the two of you am getting some really good advice. I appreciate you're help!

Tonight I shot with a 55-200mm w/o VR lens and when on tripod it did real good and clear but towards dark I was waiting for my daughter-in-law so didn't bother with tripod and they all came out distorted, not bad but can't do anything with them. Lesson learned if you don't have time to set up tripod with this lens don't bother. At least in my case. :) I hate getting old!

I have put my camera on M and intend to leave it there unless need it for a quick shot.
 
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Eye-level

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I really need to study the white balance settings a bit more myself...particulary in regard to how the D5000 works...typically I use only the flash setting or the incandescent setting. I know there are a ton more...
 
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mikeh32217

Senior Member
There aren't really that many; Auto, Incandescent, Florescent, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Cloudy, Shade and Preset Manual which I'm assuming is the Gray Card setup.

I had never used WB before, my brother said he used it all the time but he's used D200 and D300 but has a D3100 at the moment which he hates and is going to take back. I started to buy the D3100 but had also looked at the D5000 and when I got to the store the sales lady talked me into the D5000 and I'm glad she did. The main selling point at the time was bracketing but there are so many other features. If I ever hit the lotto would love to have the D800 that's coming out but right now can't spare a kidney. :)
 
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Eye-level

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The D5000 is an anachronism...for some reason Nikon decided they wanted to put the D90 sensor in this small plastic body with it's fancy little reticulating screen (which is the bomb IMO) and sell it for a lot cheaper than the D90...marketing genius! LOL

They upped the ante and rolled out the D5100 and the D7000 which correlate to the old D5000/D90 family...the D3000 and the D3100 are the entry models...

I love my D5000...I can't imagine what it would be like to shoot a D700 or D800 or D3 or D4...I still want a digital back that works with my F2 though... :)
 
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