The NIKON Thread (Talk About Nikon Stuff here)

[fureshi]

Originally Posted by milkpowder

Thanks guys. A "consumer lens" indeed - 18-70. I'm using a lens hood, but they're obviously useless if you're shooting straight into the sun.

Now I need some other advice:
I'm going to a friend's birthday party tonight. It's probably going to be quite dim, but I don't have, won't be able to obtain and don't know how to use an external flash. The whole event is very casual and just a typical university piss-up/get-together, but I don't want to miss any notable moments. I'm particularly worried about the lack of lighting and most likely me over-compensating with the pop-up flash. I'm not a great fan of flash as I find it very anti-social. Any suggestions? Methinks high ISO 800-1600, shutter faster than 1/60 and flash when needed... Meanwhile I'm going to read the camera manual's "Flash Photography" section

You can always dial down the power of the pop up flash so that it won't be too strong. You'll have to play with the amount of power reduction to get the right amount for light for the distance that you'll be shooting your subject at.

[GTRacer]

Drag the shutter. Use ISO800 and a slow shutter speed like 1/30... It'll balance the light form the flash with the ambient light.

[bigshot]

Adorama has shipped my new Tokina 11-16 ultra wide zoom. I should get it Tuesday. I can't wait to play with it. I love wide angles.

See ya
Steve

[flashnolan]

I bit the bullet and recently purchased a D40 with two lenses. I took over 1200 pictures when I went to Austria. Is there an especially good site to post some of these hq pictures on? I know of some of the major ones, but it seems some of my friends would never upload to some of them. Any recommendations?

p.s. This is quite a leap from my previous camera. My last one was a super cheap 4.0MP HP camera that I purchased for my brother refurbished. He dropped it in the ocean and immediately tried to use it. When I purchased it off of him the camera was dead. I managed to resurrect it to the point where I had no flash, but the rest "worked". Now I have an SLR D40 and it takes "slightly" better photos then the HP one

[Iron_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Adorama has shipped my new Tokina 11-16 ultra wide zoom. I should get it Tuesday. I can't wait to play with it. I love wide angles.

Don't forget to report back! I might have given this lens a spin, but I like my Sigma 10-20 too much to bother changing.

[darkninja67]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Adorama has shipped my new Tokina 11-16 ultra wide zoom. I should get it Tuesday. I can't wait to play with it. I love wide angles.

See ya
Steve

please post impressions as I am looking at this lens to handle the wide end on my Canon.

[milkpowder]

Went to camera store today and tried the following:

Nikon 70-300VR
Nikon AFS 60/2.8
Sigma 100-300/4



I had already made my mind up to get the 70-300VR even before I tried it having read good reviews so I left with one bolted onto my camera. It's very solid and makes my rattly 18-70 feel like a toy I haven't really had the opportunity to use it much but here are some I snapped an hour ago.

70mm, F4.5:

(a tad soft, but that's because of my unsteady hands at 1/15 It really doesn't work that well indoors.)

300mm, F5.6:

(just a tad soft, but perfectly usable if resampled to smaller resolution)

Again, very pleased with how the AFS 60/2.8 performs. Here's a picture I took with it @ F3.5:

It searches a little but still locks on fairly quickly. Build quality is superb. As you can see, it is very sharp too. This will almost definitely be my next lens. I love taking photos of food so it'll be perfect!!! Now I need to save for it...




Then the Sigma 100-300/4 caught my eye. Boy is it large. I don't think it is as heavy as the 70-200, but it looks every bit the part. Build quality is probably just as good. The zoom ring is on the stiff side. Very sharp, but horrendously difficult to shoot hand-held at 300mm. I apologise for the boring subjects, but these were all that I had to work with

100mm, F4, ISO 1000:


300mm, F4:


100% crop of same picture:

[bigshot]

Are the corners soft on that Sigma? It looks like the sign is in focus up high, but in the corner it mushes up a bit.

See ya
Steve

[milkpowder]

Hmm.. everything is quite blurry to me. This lens needs to be used on a tripod If anything, I think this lens has a bit of off-centre focus? Why is the lower centre crop so soft?

left corner crop


right corner crop


upper centre crop


lower centre crop

[lan]

Auto ISO. AF fine tune. Do you use them?

If you are not totally flat with the subject and/or the object isn't flat, how can you judge the lens if things are potentially at slightly different depths?

Also stop looking at 100% crop.