Lens recommendations?

According to Ed Ruf (REPLY to E-MAIL IN SIG!) :
On 5 May 2006 05:23:41 GMT, in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems
(DoN. Nichols) wrote:

[ ... ]

This is excellent news, and just what I was hoping to discover.

See pp 93-95 of the manual for telling the body f.l. and max aperture. If
you use a zoom, you need to set the proper values for the specific shot. if
you don't need accurate f.l. that's one thing, but with a non-constant max
aperture, you need to change that as you zoom for metering to work
properly.

No problem here, as the zoom in question is a 80-200mm f4.5 --
fixed maximum aperture. I'm not sure, but I *think* that the variable
maximum aperture zooms did not come out until the lenses were chipped,
because it would confuse the AI-only metering systems, which had no way
to know just what focal length was currently set -- let alone that the
lens changed behavior with focal length.

Thanks,
DoN.

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According to Ed Ruf (REPLY to E-MAIL IN SIG!) :
On 5 May 2006 03:40:32 GMT, in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems
(DoN. Nichols) wrote:

[ ... ]

How noisy is the 3200 ISO? I find the D70 to have rather
reasonable noise levels at 1600 ISO (compared to the grain in film
pushed to the same speed).

Note that anything over 1600 is just pushed using greater amplification. So
you take the noise at 1600 and amplify that with the signal as well. That
said I have used it once or twice when there was no other alterative to
take some long distance shots of two great blue herons doing their mating
dance recently.

O.K. That will do, then.

I've got the downloaded manual (non-printing form, since I don't
have a serial number yet), and will spend more time digging through it
to see what else to expect.

FWIW, if you have ANY SN you can dl any printable manual from the US site
last time I tried. Don't need the SN for the specific camera in question.
Stupid system. But Nikon has always been paranoid about this type of stuff.
Why I can't fathom.

I'll have to try that. Interesting that they did not require a
serial number for the printable version of the D70 manual. And that is
what serial number I will try. :-)

Thanks,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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According to Paul Furman :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Paul Furman :

DoN. Nichols wrote:

[ ... ]

the dial for shooting mode locks

Um, actually it's a button used with the command dial, only AS& P modes.
Took me a while to find that.

Hmm ... the D200 which I examined at the photo store had a small
lever coming out below the mode dial which had to be depressed to allow
the dial to be rotated. While I did not try it at all settings, it
seemed to be required to make any change to the dial.

How noisy is the 3200 ISO? I find the D70 to have rather
reasonable noise levels at 1600 ISO (compared to the grain in film
pushed to the same speed).

Hopefully my D70 can be repaired & I'll do a comparison. I did a little
test in a dark room & the grain looked awful at full zoom in the LCD but
the 1600 shot was badly blurred so I'd still find it useful as I'm not
fond of tripods.

O.K.

[ ... ]

I've got the downloaded manual (non-printing form, since I don't
have a serial number yet)

It comes with a printed manual.

Understood -- but I would like to be able to read a hardcopy
manual (before buying the camera), instead of having to use the PDF
reader (xpdf in my case) as it is a lot easier to bookmark it and pick
it up later to continue from where I left off.

Thanks,
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 ---

DoN. Nichols wrote:

According to Paul Furman :
DoN. Nichols wrote:
According to Paul Furman :
DoN. Nichols wrote:

the dial for shooting mode locks

Um, actually it's a button used with the command dial, only AS& P modes.
Took me a while to find that.

Hmm ... the D200 which I examined at the photo store had a small
lever coming out below the mode dial

"multi-selector", not mode dial

which had to be depressed to allow
the dial to be rotated. While I did not try it at all settings, it
seemed to be required to make any change to the dial.

The shooting mode button is up near the shutter; you spin one of the
command dials to change A,S,P,M and I guess the custom ones if they are
programmed. The lever is to release the memory card. The old mode dial
has a locking button & operates timer, remote, a couple of burst modes, etc.

How noisy is the 3200 ISO? I find the D70 to have rather
reasonable noise levels at 1600 ISO (compared to the grain in film
pushed to the same speed).

Hopefully my D70 can be repaired & I'll do a comparison. I did a little
test in a dark room & the grain looked awful at full zoom in the LCD but
the 1600 shot was badly blurred so I'd still find it useful as I'm not
fond of tripods.

O.K.

I tried the auto ISO setting yesterday and that's pretty good but the
min speed for triggering an ISO boost needs to be changed for different
focal lengths. Not a big problem with primes, more messy with a zoom.
The menus are improved too so it's not that bad digging in the menu to
change settings. It really would be nice to be able to upload custom
software. But hey, I've got a ton more control than I did on the D70,
partly because things are more accessible.

I've got the downloaded manual (non-printing form, since I don't
have a serial number yet)

It comes with a printed manual.

Understood -- but I would like to be able to read a hardcopy
manual (before buying the camera), instead of having to use the PDF
reader (xpdf in my case) as it is a lot easier to bookmark it and pick
it up later to continue from where I left off.

Don't worry, it has tons of great features, you won't be lacking. I'll
repeat that the best thing is the brighter larger viewfinder, I just
love that I can now evaluate the focus and DOF. I'm using the DOF
preview extensively now and shunning autofocus. And it's a breeze to
verify capture sharpness on the full zoom in the large LCD.

I would strongly recommend this camera and a fast lens for people
serious about learning photography as well because the control is so
much better. On the D70 I just couldn't see what I was doing till I got
it on the computer. I'd try different apertures but really couldn't tell
what I was doing fumbling around half blind. I've only got a couple
years of taking this stuff seriously. I had a MF auto meter SLR years
ago in college & got back into photography about 5 years ago with what
was a nice P&S & I'm loving this D200 now.

It would appear that the digital SLR market has pushed up the prices of
compatible film lenses. Is this correct? On an auction the lowest 50
mm 1.8 Nikkor AF lens I could find was about $90 US! This used to be
hard to sell at a third of that when it was just a few years old. Is
there a trick to getting compatible AF film lenses at a reasonable
price? A 50 mm 1.8, and a portrait lens should do fine.

I can't remember the last time I saw that lens for less than
$90. Similarly, I can't imagine complaining about paying $90
for something you want to hang on the front of an SLR body
costing much more than that.

I'm not complaining. I'm noting that the prices seem to have changed
remarkably over the years as was wondering if this is something others
would agree on, or not. And are there particularly good deals for
non-zoom AF lenses for Canon? I'm going to need a 50 mm, portrait (85
or 100) and about a 200-300 telephoto (film type specs here, not digital
so multiply by 1.6 I think.)