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#21
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
(East Bay) Phil wrote:
I'd avoid the E-500 due to the noise issues. Also, there is no upgrade path with Olympus, nor is there a good selection of lenses. With Nikon, you have huge availability of lenses, both new, used, and third-party. In the course of investigating the Nikon, upgrade path has been something I've begun to explore. I've read posts about the d70(s) vs d50. I'm not experienced enough with the high-end to properly assess feature differences. That said, if I'm looking at the d50 w/ 18-70 vs the d70 w/ 18-70 at a similar price should I be looking to the d70? No. By the time you go to the D70s, you're almost at the cost of a Canon Rebel XT, which is better than the D70s in many ways. The D50 is perfect for what you're looking for. I'm going to take a spin over the local camera shop today to get a feel for both of these models. It's very bad manners to try out cameras at a local shop, then buy online. |
#22
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
From Nikon, I am only considering the d50 and d70.
Thanks for pointing this out. Phil |
#23
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
On Wed, 03 May 2006 10:56:08 -0700
SMS wrote: (East Bay) Phil wrote: I'd avoid the E-500 due to the noise issues. Also, there is no upgrade path with Olympus, nor is there a good selection of lenses. With Nikon, you have huge availability of lenses, both new, used, and third-party. In the course of investigating the Nikon, upgrade path has been something I've begun to explore. I've read posts about the d70(s) vs d50. I'm not experienced enough with the high-end to properly assess feature differences. That said, if I'm looking at the d50 w/ 18-70 vs the d70 w/ 18-70 at a similar price should I be looking to the d70? No. By the time you go to the D70s, you're almost at the cost of a Canon Rebel XT, which is better than the D70s in many ways. The D50 is perfect for what you're looking for. Hrmm. I found a refurb d70 + 18-70 for $699 at one of the recommended online stores. That's what sparked my query. This is contrasted with $399 for a d50 body + $2-300 for an 18-70 lens. I'm going to take a spin over the local camera shop today to get a feel for both of these models. It's very bad manners to try out cameras at a local shop, then buy online. Point taken. As a rule, if a local shop sells or can sell within a reasonable margin of the 'best deal' I will support the local merchant. Rest assured that they do get business from me. |
#24
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
From Nikon, I am only considering the d50 and d70.
If interested in a D70, not D70s, e-mail me off-line supplying an address which can handle a 5 x 1.3 = 6.7 MB attachment. Actually, d70s as well. Oops. |
#25
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
According to (East Bay) Phil :
Slightly off-topic. Can someone with a nikon email me a raw image. I use linux and would like to know if my system and photo gallery will properly recognize their format. Not without a de-munged e-mail address. :-) I *think* that I know what is obvious to do, but nothing more. My e-mail address as it appears in the headers is valid. If you don't want to post a de-munged e-mail, send me an e-mail with valid address and I can return an image. I don't know photo gallery, so I don't know what it will do. I use several other unix-based image manipulation programs, with "the GIMP" being the most powerful. For processing almost *anybody's* RAW, you can download and compile dcraw (for free) -- and it can be used stand-alone, or it can even be integrated into "the GIMP" as a plugin. And, of course, "the GIMP" is free for the download with source if you so wish, so it should fit into your linux operation as well as it does into my various other flavors of unix. FWIW, I have the Nikon D70, but it uses the same sensor and the same RAW format as the D50. Enjoy, DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
#26
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
On Wed, 03 May 2006 10:30:22 -0700, Phil wrote:
Slightly off-topic. Can someone with a nikon email me a raw image. I use linux and would like to know if my system and photo gallery will properly recognize their format. Thanks! Phil Phil, Just a couple of questions - 1. Have you got the 'Gimp installed? 2. If you have then make sure that you also have 'ufraw' or 'dcraw' or rawphoto installed. -- Neil Delete 'l' to reply |
#27
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
(East Bay) Phil wrote:
get the Olympus Evolt-500 kit. I agree. Check out the E-500 before you make your purchase. I have done my homework and this is the one I am getting. I'll look into this. The only concern I've read of so far was that there are some noise issues. Given that the E-500 costs more, what sold you on it (over the nikon, if that was in consideration)? P Noise "might" be an issue if you like to shoot ISO 1600 frequently. On the up side noise can be cleaned up somewhat with programs like Neatimage etc. My reasons: 2 lens kit covers most of my situations, the Ultra Sonic CCD filter reducing the dreaded dust-on-CCD issue was an attraction, the overall feel/comfort of the camera and the very vivid 2.5" LCD display. Olympus has a good range of lenses as well (perhaps not as extensive as N&C) that are designed for the digital camera. I bought the camera yesterday and I am very pleased with the purchase. Note: I have found this NG is heavily biased towards Nikon-Canon and often these folks can't see beyond their blinders. Ron -- And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right Where I belong I'm right Where I belong. Lennon & McCartney |
#28
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
Freedom55 wrote:
Note: I have found this NG is heavily biased towards Nikon-Canon and often these folks can't see beyond their blinders. That's because at least one of the groups you posted to, rec.photo.equipment.35mm is heavily biased twoard 35mm. Olympus had good offerings and good lenses, but no real exotic ones until Nikon took their two year "vacation" to retool for autofocus around 1986-1988. At that time, Olympus tried to fill the void with some really excelent and exotic lenses (oh, for that 24mm tilt/shift) and professional support equivalent to Nikon's. It never really caught on and Olympus limped along until they started making digital cameras. Their only new SLR product was the OM-30 which was an OEM'ed piece of junk, which was also OEM'ed as the Nikon FM-10, and two FE versions I've forgotten the numbers of (FE-10, FE-20?) and sold as a bunch of under $200 kits with lens by several large companies. They did produce some interesting point and shoot cameras. They are producing digital cameras that are well rated, but to most of us here, that's irrelevant. Here we discuss 35mm cameras. Because of that bias there really is nothing to discuss about Olympus cameras except old ones. It's also important to note that Olympus is not a camera company. Olympus is an OPTICAL company that makes among many other things DIGITAL cameras. They no longer make film cameras and it was never their primary business. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ |
#29
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
Just a couple of questions - 1. Have you got the 'Gimp installed?
certainly. 2. If you have then make sure that you also have 'ufraw' or 'dcraw' or rawphoto installed. I have dcraw installed in order to increase the functionality of gallery 2.x. That said, I wasn't and am still not certain that this handles the decryption necessary for Nikon raw images. If it does this automagically, I'm set. I'll take images as raw, save to DVD, and upload to gallery for jpeg viewing. P |
#30
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Question about buying a d50 cheaply
(East Bay) Phil wrote:
Just a couple of questions - 1. Have you got the 'Gimp installed? certainly. 2. If you have then make sure that you also have 'ufraw' or 'dcraw' or rawphoto installed. I have dcraw installed in order to increase the functionality of gallery 2.x. That said, I wasn't and am still not certain that this handles the decryption necessary for Nikon raw images. It does. If it does this automagically, I'm set. I'm not sure what "automagically" means to you. What /dcraw/ does is produce a PPM format file from a "raw" format. It works for just about any raw format known to exist. Command line parameters allow manipulation of anything reasonable, such as color correction, gamma, etc. Basically /dcraw/ is excellent for batch processing, but can also be used to decode image files one at a time too. I'll take images as raw, save to DVD, and upload to gallery for jpeg viewing. Note that /dcraw/ does *not* decode jpeg image files! To convert from raw, or from the PPM files that /dcraw/ produces, to jpeg requires another utility (and there are several, but /convert/ from /Imagemagik/ is a good one for batch processing). The other program you'll want is /ufraw/, which is normally a GUI standalone or front end to the GIMP, but can also be invoked as a batch process. /ufraw/ is based on /dcraw/, and is *very* much worth your time to install. My typical work flow for a batch of images that are all similar is to do one image with /ufraw/ as a standalone process, and generate a configuration file as part of the output. Then I invoke /ufraw/ as a batch process, using that configuration file, to do the entire list of files all in the same way. The commands look like this: ufraw dsc_1234.nef mv dsc_1234.ufraw IC ufraw-batch --conf=IC *.nef -- Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) |
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