Brother EE fancies himself an amature photographer..

by elderelite 75 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Soldier77

  CuriousButterfly, just keep practicing! I took a class that taught me how to shoot in Manual mode, that is all I shoot in for the most part now. Other than when you need to be quick. I used to shoot in A mode before manual, loved that too and I learned a lot in that mode. See about taking a class if you can, definitely worth it!

  SBCheezits, the noise is almost non-existant on the Nikon D700. I've cranked that baby up to 6400 to test and it was very crisp without much grain.

  HintOfLime, my first dSLR was the D40x. Great first camera and fun to shoot. It is sitting in the closet now. It makes a great backup if I need to go somewhere that will be raining or near water.
• 

  Soldier77

  MMXIV - got your pm, sent you a reply.

  I asked MMXIV this in a pm but I thought I'll throw it out there with everyone too.

  I'm looking for a new lens for portraits. Preferrably a prime lens, like 85mm or 105mm, any recommendations? Your experiences with a particular lens etc would be great!
• 

  MMXIV

  Hi Soldier77 got the PM thanks,

  Both prime lenses you suggest have great reviews. The depth of field with them is wonderful and that bit lighter to use if you're doing a long portrait session.

  I'm assuming your Nikon has 1.5x magnification so the 85mm would become 128mm and the 105mm would become 158mm. This would be a serious factor for me. I own the somewhat cheaper but not significantly inferior 85mm F1.8 as an 85mm and more recently at 128mm on digital.

  I find portraits are really good between 75mm and about 130mm so it slots nicely into that range. I haven't used the 105mm but would question if at 158mm it's too long? Just my opinion.

  Sigma. The best Sigma lenses are good, sometimes actually surpass nikon, often not too far behind although maybe don't have as good a feel as the nikon which can affect how you use them. I've owned middle of the road Sigma which were worse than cheap nikon. Both broke very easily. Sigma is a good alternative because kits cost a lot of money - if you can stretch for nikon you won't be disappointed, will have them for many years and get back good money for trade ins.

  Maybe put them both on the birthday wish list??

  MMXIV
• 

  Soldier77

  Thanks MMXIV! My Nikon D700 is an FX sensor, so there is no magnification, 85mm is 85mm etc.

  Guess I need to put that on the birthday list!
• 

  CuriousButterfly

  www.kenrockwell.com is a great source for nikon reviews.
• 

  Leolaia

  I mainly have been using a bridge camera in traveling because I want to travel light and I cannot switch between lenses on the fly when I have a travel partner constantly on the go (my Lumix ranges between what would be 27-486mm in a real 35mm, so I can quickly go from wide angle to telephoto), and when I bought the camera in 2006 it had better video capabilities than most DSLRs that I saw (now of course video in DSLRs is bloody fantastic), and I liked being able to toggle quickly between photo and video. So for instance I found a kangaroo in the bush and it spent a minute staring at me and so I got some photos and then switched to video and got video of it doing this and then turning and hopping/running away. Also when I went to the Australian Open, they specifically banned telephoto lenses and would search your belongings for them. My bridge camera didn't look like what they were looking for so I got a clean pass on every day except for the women's final. There the security person saw the "486mm" written on the side and told me I had to lock up my camera. Luckily I went around to the other entrance and no one raised a stink there, so I was able to take my photos as I originally intended.

  Anyway, I think it's time to switch to a DSLR, although I worry about losing some of the versatility I have had with my Lumix. And such a camera would be no good if I wanted to go back to the Australian Open. But I have certain things I am looking for that I haven't seen yet in the models I've looked at. My Lumix has a swing LCD display that has 1.5 degrees of freedom and which can even close in on itself. This is really nice when I have to raise the camera up high and I can tip the display down. Anyway, I really want an ungrade in picture quality, and especially to have a better aperture range.
• 

  Soldier77

  Leolaia, check out the Nikon dSLR's. I think it's the D5000 that has the LCD that can move around. Might be what you're looking for. They are 12 mega pixel too.

  Nikon D5000 dSLR link
• 

  Leolaia

  Ah nice, that sounds like the kind of LCD I like. I have a bunch of Nikon lenses from my old film SLR. Does anyone know if these are compatible with Nikon DSLRs?
• 

  SixofNine

  Does anyone know if these are compatible with Nikon DSLRs?

  Yes. But I'm not going to tell you.

  Actually just yes. :)
• 

  Soldier77

  Leolaia, yup, they should be compatible, what you can do is take a few of your lenses with you to the store and they should allow you to mount it to the demo one or they can confirm by looking.