The NIKON Thread (Talk About Nikon Stuff here)

[dj_mocok]

How much can you get the D50 for in Sydney? This is probably the last chance before you jump, but if it's not so much different from D70s, get the D70s IMO.

About UV filter:

I think your 18-135 comes with a lens hood right? Just use the hood everytime you take picture, don't worry so much about UV filter, waste of money IMO.

Last time I was considering to use it because I didn't have the lens cap that could fit into my hood, plus what I have is Nikon L37c filter, which is not cheap at all, that's why I was considering to use it.
But now since I already found a hood and lens cap to go with it, I'm not using the filter anymore.

About 50mm, again, try to get a retractable rubber lens hood for it, so you also don't need to use UV filter. You can buy 52mm retractable rubber lens hood (for 50mm 1.8) everywhere and they're cheap. If you camera falls lens firts on the ground, if the hood is on, the rubber hood will take the hit, therefore preventing a dent on your lens (hopefully)

If you worry about dust on your lens, instead of buying UV filter, buy a Giotto lens cleaning pack for AUS$ 29.95. It comes with the rocket blower, microfibre cloth, the solution to clean lens, and 10X pointy cotton swabs.
The blower can be used to blow your sensor too if it got dust inside.

If you always use the hood on, and not overly clumsy, I think you won't even need a lenspen and can just use the blower to clean the occassional dust spots on your lenses.

PS: If you're planning to buy lens hood, or filter or whatever and wanna try it on your camera first, please don't let the shopkeeper try it for you. Refer to my earlier post. I speak from experience

PS #2: I forgot to say, since your dad is involved, why don't you persuade him to buy a D80 instead (ask him to chip in or something)? If you're having a hard time persuading him, you can use this quick method: (provided he's a camera guy)

1. Easy way to do is bring him to the shop that has both D50 and D80 on display (on the way there, mention how glad you are to have such a nice daddy), also bring your 50mm lens, mount on the D50 first, let him play with it (look through the viewfinder, the LCD screen on the back,etc..), and then mount your 50mm to D80, and let him look through the viewfinder. By this time he's probably realised how different the viewfinder and the LCD screen are.

2. Remove lens, put it back to D50 again, and ask him to take some pictures using different apertures. You'll notice that he will frame, shoot, put down the camera, look at the top LCD screen, and change the aperture by holding one finger on the tiny, semi-recessed EXP comp. button and rotating the back dial at the same time, and bring the camera up to his face again, and take another picture, and then for next aperture, same thing again. By this time he also gets a reminder that D50's viewfinder is small.
Put the 50mm back to D80 again, ask him to take pictures with different apertures. When he looks through the camera, he'll notice that again, it's freakin' bigger and everything looks clearer, and guess what, when he wanna take pictures with different aperture, he doesn't even need to put down the camera to check aperture, he can just keep sticking his eye on the viewfinder, and use his finger to rotate the front wheel to change aperture. This way he doesn't need to lose the composition and recompose.

3. Ask him to take pictures with ISO 100 and ISO 3200 on D50.

Well, apart from those 3, study the other differences between the two and overload his brains with all the cons. I'm sure he will let you buy D80.

[av98m2]

I'm going to give me 2-cents on UV filters.

Unless you are willing to clean the front element of your lens directly on a regular basis, slap a decent filter on every lens you own (Hoya HMC, B+W MRC etc)

A suprising amount of dirt/smut can accumulate on the lens element within a short time. And I'd rather clean the filter, which is a lot easier since its flat, than the curved front element of my lens anyday.

And depending on where you're taking your pictures, water, mud, etc can also end up on your front element, through no fault fo your own! (I have also shot events where beer/wine stains, bits of cream etc ended up on my filter)

So a lenspen and good blower are must-haves for me.

Most people who wear glasses can also identify with this, I think. I need to quite literally wash my glasses daily! And I work in an air conditioned office!

[dj_mocok]

If you put filter on, doesn't mean that you don't need to clean the filter anyway, but then if it's only a matter of dust, curved or not, blower will get rid most dust easily.

Of course if you're going to take the camera to extreme environment, filter is preferred, just to be safe. But for everyday general purpose, I don't think you need that much protection.

When I sold my 2 yrs+ old digital camera, the lens was still mint, and this was a camera I used a lot and went out a lot with it. I think as long as you are careful with your camera, you won't get finger prints/dirt? /or whatnot on it. Of course you can't predict some unfortunate freak accident. But then, what are the chances?

I remember I think I only got fingerprint on my camera twice for that course of 2 years and more, and that was because I thought I had put the lens cap on, but didn't. But they were easily cleaned with lenspen. Oh yeah, and once I got a twig touched my lens while I was doing macro, lol (focused too close). But it didn't leave any scratch.

[av98m2]

Ah well, I guess it depends on what your doing with the camera.

In other news, compact digicams are getting faster and better I'm actually thinking of going back to them and selling off my entire nikon dslr system (except for my sb800, which i can still use with compacts)

[dj_mocok]

Yeah, I was just trying to save some of his money by not getting the unnecessary stuff. A proper filter isn't cheap, and add that to the fact that here in Australia everything is more expensive.

About compact camera, well, not really compact, but the one that I am highly interested is the new Olympus 18X zoom. It looks so nice and man, 18X optical. But I know if I buy it, that's just because. And image quality will be far better using DSLR.
But then again, it all comes down to what you wanna shoot with your camera, and how important is image quality or certain aspect of picture is to you. I'm sure some people are just equally as happy with a proper compact like Canon G series or something.

[av98m2]

I'm eyeing the G7 and the Ricoh GRD. So far the Ricoh GRD is calling my name a lot louder (it has no zoom lens, but i'm used to shooting wide primes so...........plus its a lovely old fashioned design!!!)

[fureshi]

Originally Posted by dj_mocok

Met quite a few hobbyists too. First was this guy with his Canon and a large lens with red ring attached to it (I know nothing about Canon gears, but as far as I know, red ring = premium lens in general?), and he used it to shoot whatever he could point his camera at. Infinity, then medium range, and then did some flower macros, back and forth.

Then met a bunch of students, I asked one of them, it was shooting day for their photography tuition. It's quite a sight to see a group of people with their DSLRs out.

Then I bumped into the previous Canon guy, and this time he changed his lens to this 30cm-ish white lens, and still used it to shoot flower macros. Looks like he brought all his arsenals with him.

Walked past him and he kept staring at my camera. I think he was trying to figure out what lens I got. From a quick glance when I passed him, it looked like he got this "my lens is bigger than yours and what the hell are you doing with that old looking lens" on his face. Can't stand smug with big lens thinking that just because he got a big lens then he's suddenly a pro or something.

Or maybe he's really a super duper pro, looks like he pretty much "point and shoot" the hell out of everything he saw, came accross one flower, pointed, shot it. The resumed walking around (and holding his camera uphold like a soldier holding his AK-47), looked around, another flower, pointed, shot again. Either that he's a tard who don't have a concept of composition or he's so good at composition, didn't even need to think and just shoot everything right away and all come up perfect.

Not jealous or anything, but it's a bit annoying when you see a guy who thinks he's better than you because his gears are better than yours.

sorry if this is kinda late but i haven't had as much time to follow this thread lately.

i've ran into a bunch of those guys before also. there was one guy that i could never forget while shooting in some of the hills above golden gate bridge. while walking by, i complemented him on his pair of canon mark2's that he had in the back of his pick up.

i struck up a conversation with him, telling that i had a lot of fun with my D50 and kit lens and said that he had good taste in cameras and lenses. the next thing he said really annoyed me. he said that nikons were okay for amateurs but canon are for serious photographers and really had better lenses. that's why he chose canon and only shoots with "L" lenses. here i was happy with my new D50 and he burst my bubble.

after that, i got really annoyed and ended the conversation. it was obvious to me that he only cared about the equipment instead of taking pictures. it was the middle of the day and on top of the fact that he had two of the exact same lenses on both of his mark2s but they also had a flash attached to the camera. why would he need his flashes during the middle of the day with such huge zooms attached to his cameras? and all he was doing was hanging out on the back of his truck!!! sheesh...

by the way, this was not meant as anything derogatory towards canon users. i think either canons or nikons are great and both make really good lenses.

[dj_mocok]

When he says something like that, that is obvious he himself was an amateur, probably a die-hard Canon fan that tries to make up his lack of skill with the best equipments he can afford.

If I were you, I'd ask him to let me see the images he's taken so far, and see whether he puts his money where his mouth is. When he said that only pros use Canon and that's why he only used L-lenses, you should've told him that a real pro can get nice pictures regardless it's L-lenses or not. Either that or ask him that since he got 2 MarkIIs with similar L-lenses so suddenly he's a pro now?

Seriously, you don't have to worry about other people's equipments, as long as you're happy with yours, that's the main thing.
But yeah, that's one hell of a w@nker you met there.

[fureshi]

no way, i'm really quite happy with my D50. his equipment was impressive but at the end of the day, it's the nut behind the camera that makes a picture good, not the camera.

[WhatMACHI]

Ok, got the D50 today. Couldnt get the D80 dad was pretty against it $$$ wise. If i grow out of the D50 which will be fair enough for me for a long time, i can consider upgrading

I got a HOYA UV filter for 135, and ill try get a rubber hood for the 50mm sometime :P

Just another note, with all the electronics ive had, ive charged the battery for 24hrs prior to the first use (to properly condition the battery) should i do the same with my Camera battery? Otherwise ill probably keep it on the charger at least overnight.