why not,,, a blog

[stmv]

well, this is a new experience. I suppose, I should remember periods, but sorry to those sticklers of English Majors.

Tomorrow is Zoo day! I am going to bring my niece/nephews to one of those drive thru zoos. I prefer this type of zoo for the cage free animal shots. I'll be driving with the window down, and telephoto ready.

Another section, has you walking over the more dangerous animals and the Monkeys. Another great fence free photo ops.

I'll be bringing my D800 and 80-200 2.8 zoom lens. This is a tank of a lens, but since I'll have my car, should be ok. Once I swap to the walking part, I switch over to Prime lens.

While zoos are not the real McCoy, they give us opportunities to photograph some beautiful animals.

 

[Rick M]

We'll be waiting to see some great pics!

 

[stmv]

ok,, I have posted a couple of shots from my safari in the exotic land of Canada. Please take a look. One is a closeup of an elephant's eye, and the other is a shot of a lion.

 

[stmv]

well, I got my 24-85 lens, trying it out, and yes, almost the perfect range for the D800 or any FX camera. Very light, so form factor is great. I purchased the used version, and not the latest. Decided to try the used first, before committing 600 dollars for the new.

Why new, well the VR feature would be nice when hand holding. I prefer to to keep the ISO down and slow the exposure rate. I'll have to compare the lens someday at a camera store to my current lens for quality comparisons. The older one is prettty cheesy, but based upon the lens reviews, one of the all time bargain/quality lens.

The verdict will be out for a bit on whether or not this lens holds the quality and can hold up to the D800 pixel count.

 

[Ruidoso Bill]

"Decided to try the used first, before committing 600 dollars for the new"

Why didn't you just rent the one you are interested in?

 

[stmv]

at 200 dollars used, better to buy, and resell if you don't like. They hold their value, and it takes more than just a few days to decide. so really cheaper to buy used, and resell if you don't like.

 

[stmv]

I was speaking to a lady at a photo gallery yesterday, and she wanted to step up to a SLR for more serious efforts. I am always surprised how people advoid the use camera market, but when on a cost conscious market, I would so consider the older Nikons. For example, a D200 is a wonderful solid camera for cheap cheap cheap, that is a great bridge to future semipro cameras. For a bit more, a used D300 can be found now for around 500-700 dollars, again, awesome starter SLR for the serious budding photographer.

Yes, the 3100, etc are great starter cameras, but if one has the desire eventually to reach the D700/800 type of cameras, I would propose that a used D300 would provide that bridge better from a look/feel/feature point of view.

Heck, I would even argue that staying used now is the best path for many, say use the D300 a couple of years, and than upgrade to the next generation used camera. I bet in 2 years, D700s will drop below a 1000 dollars. Chasing the newest highend cameras is expensive with limited gains.

On the otherhand, if you have the money, getting the latest camera, and then selling every 3 years is also a great option. I am not convinced that holding onto high end SLRs is the most cost effective way. If you sell when the new model comes out, than the cost delta is not that much. I sold my D700 for 300 dollars less than I paid for it. So, it comes down to a 100 dollar depreciation per year. If on the otherhand you wait too long, boom, the price falls off. I personally waited too long to sell the D300. The D300 collected dust, and once I put it on the market, it had depreciated another 700 dollars,, ouch.

Anyway, some thoughts, oh, and wait another years, D90s are going to be cheap, they sold so so many, and many of those owners are already drooling over the higher megapixels.

 

[stmv]

A friend of mine went out and we both photographed the same stream with the same settings. She used a Canon Mark III, and I had my D800, so it was good to compare the two, both did great, but she commented on how my water looked more silky, which is a bit odd, but yes, the D800 was a bit more silky in the water area than the Canon (less noise?) both were on ISO 200, F20, 3 seconds.

 

[stmv]

Print Weekend,, so behind in printing, I am still a firm believer in the final product as a print, and better yet, nicely framed. so, this weekend, vow to print some shots, just ordered some 13x19 paper, so that size will have to wait. I used to print just about all my keepers, but now only the ones, I might want to display or sell.

 

[stmv]

ah the weekend beakons, a hike to the deep woods, the camera strapped to the back, focus on the climb, but.... the subconscious going,,, looking here, looking there,,, what image begins to form... should one stop,, or maybe around the corner.

 

[stmv]

most of the time spent scampering up rocks and working up mountains, but did manage to take out the camera a few times. I posted a shot up on the gallery for those that might want to look. When I am hiking, I used the 24-85 lens for the all in one package, and than kept a 75-150 ancient zoom, an oldie but small good zoom lens. The zoom I keep in a side pocket (did not find a need today to even take it out), and the camera I keep in a converted water backpack.

 

[stmv]

well, after a weekend os shooting with the 24-85, I am getting mixed results, overall, not a bad lens, but as expected, it is not holding up to the sharpness of the 35-70 F2.8 zoom. Of course, the 35-70 has the reputation of being one of the all time sharpest zooms, so, guess to be expected.

Part of it might just be the quality of the D800 is really stressing the 24-85 lens. I do like the range and the way it feels on the D800, but in the end, it is the image quality that wins out, so, I'll use the old lens and carry the 20-35 in a pouch, instead of have a single lens solution.

Verdict is still out, I'll live with the 24-85 a bit longer before giving up on it.

 

[stmv]

yup, I switched back to the venerable 35-70, rather have less range than less quality. I noticed that the 24-85 also produced vignetting on the corners, and well, that kinda defeats the purpose of having a wider range, might as well shoot with the 35-70, and not throw any of the image away, I know you can edit away, but sometimes the editing harms the picture.

On a separate note, I am thinking of renting a 24 tilt and shift lens, I'll wait until the Fall colors. The cost is around 120 for a week. While this not cheap, way less than buying the lens. I really really want to see if I can make the lens produce the quality before investing that much into the lens.

lens investment to me is the real "focus" for photographers over time. the beauty of the D300,700,D3,D800, etc or semi pro/pro cameras is their ability to take advantage of the whole catalog.

So, I have some Pre_AI, and with a 75 dollar conversion, (essentially a grinding off of some metal, which I have personally been tempted to do myself), you have a lens that works fine. Now, I am not saying the preAI lens have any superiority over any AI or modern lens except ... wow... such craftmanship. Yes, some might ghost a bit more easily, but super clear prime examples are out there. One of my favorite is an old 135, or the ancient 55 macro.

But, the point is that these cameras allow a huge access to lens. One effect of the increasing models of cameras that can meter old glass is the effect on price. I have seen the price of used glass rise year by year as more photographers discover the joy of using old hardware on new machines. So, the bargains are harder to find, but still out there.

 

[stmv]

Last night, the 5 * epson paper showed up, Amazon was holding a 40% off sell! yippee

Tonight, I want to catch up a bit with my printing, always good to print up and take a look at the shots. I really don't think I am really ever happy until I have printed and studied the product.

 

[stmv]

for those that have a D300 or FX camera, or really other folks that don't mind checking the historygram, buying old Nikon Primes can be a real bargain.

For a suggestion, seriously consider the Nikon Series E set of lens. These lens were produced when the Nikon EM SLR came out, and Nikon was trying to compete with the lower cost SLR packages. So, they came out with this set of lens mostly based on the pro glass, and by today standards are real gems. So, since many camera folks are so much into chasing the best of the best, these lens often languish on ebay. Often, you can pick them up between 30-50 dollars.

I have a couple of favorites amoung the E series and that is the 100 and 135. The 100 is a feat, so small, sharp, it is barely larger than the 50mm and yet 100mm.

So anyone that wants to build a nice solid Prime lens collections (manual), don't fret buying these series E, you may be very surprised by them.

 

[stmv]

I ended up selling the 600 mm lens to help pay for the D800, It was really cool to have a bazooka lens, and it actually could take reasonable pictures at 600 but not steller shots. Sometimes you have to sell something of value to buy something of value.

 

[stmv]

I bet some of you have done the mental math of seeing a box store camera setup,,, let see a 5100, 18-55 lens, 55-300 lens, at 880 dollars,, ummm, ok,, sell the body for 450, sell the 18-155 for 120, and the 55-300 for 250, laughs,, nope,,, no money making machine,

 

[stmv]

The Canyon is one of thos wonders that does not let one down in person, The day was pretty hazy and cloudy, but hanging around all afternoon, the clouds went away
and the air seemed to become clear. This is a 3 shot merge using a D700.

 

[stmv]

Sometimes shopping local is better than the giant photo stores. I put my name on the list the same day as a friend on a well known photo store. I was 5th on the local list, and the store is fairly small. Well, 6 weeks from the offical launch date, I got my D800, my friend has been notified that his will be arriving this Tuesday, almost 3 months later. Some of the local stores stay below the high volume radar, but still get allotments.

I like to buy my SLRs from the local stores for better service also, if something goes wrong, I drop it off there, and they take care of the sending to Nikon/and communication with the service center, versus, me, the lone person sending the UPS box to that place in the sky.. called Nikon Service.

On the otherhand, after 5 months of waiting, my friend is one excited photographer waiting for his D800 to show up.

 

[stmv]

One of the first tasks a programmer starts to add to an application are Hot Keys, both a blessing and a curse. Don't mistake knowledge with the memorization of all the hot keys, but ....

I am not the best at memorization, so,, I still use the menus quite a bit in PS. I noticed that more and more "lessons" only state the hot keys, and are skipping telling the new user where the Hot key resides. I think this is a mistake. The beginner really needs to know where the base function resides in the menus, and how to alter the settings. The Hot keys are more for the experienced user, that has done it SOO MANY TIMES that the hot keys remove some of the tedium.

Memorizing hot keys is like a true commitment to a tool, once you have memorized the 50 - 100 obtuse combination of cntl +' (show Hide Grid) etc commands, you ae a true PS slave/geek.