Nikon D50?

Paul Rubin wrote:
(Floyd L. Davidson) writes:
Regardless, you can make a very handy "light box" of any particular
size in a jiffy, using white cardboard boxes and blocks of white
foam packing material for light baffles. Cut a hole in the side of
the box, put two light baffles on either side of the hole blocking
most of the light path. Stuff the light path with clear bubble wrap
packing material to diffuse the light. Put a flash unit into each
end of the box, one on a remote cord and the other with an optical
trigger. Set the object to be photographed into the hole and fire away.

I'll try to get some images that demonstrate differences and post
them on my web site later tonight. I'll take a few pictures of
coins using different lighting and using different lenses too.

Wow, neat, a photo of the light box above would be great too, I'm
not sure I'm visualizing it correctly. Thanks.

Okay,

http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson/dime

Unfortunately I'm right at my disk quota, and can't upload fullsized
images. So these are 1024x768 JPEG images with some compression.

First is a rather flat image taken of a dime using the light box
described above. Sort of unremarkable, other than it is
useless.

After that is a series of images of the same dime using a ring flash
and a variety of lenses. I more or less set them all up to be about
the same size. The lenses are

Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 AFD combined with a Vivitar 2x Macro
Focusing Teleconverter.

Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 AFD mounted with 48mm of extension tubes.

Kiron 105mm f/2.8 macro combined with a Vivitar 2x Macro
Focusing Teleconverter.

Kiron 105mm f/2.8 macro lense.

Tamron 90mm f/2.5 macro lense mounted with 36mm of extension tubes.

Rodenstock 105mm Rodagon Enlarging lense on bellows, reverse mounted.

Rodenstock 105mm Rodagon Enlarging lense on bellows.

Jupiter-9 85mm f/2.0 lense mounted with 56mm of extension tubes.

Industar-61 55mm f/2.8 lense combined with Vivitar 2x Macro Focusing
telconverter.

Following that are a couple of images attempting to show what a
light box is useful for, since taking pictures of dimes
obviously is *not* what it does well. Unfortunately I didn't
really have anything handy that shows the difference. But those
two shots will do...

Then there are a couple that do show the light box and how it works.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

I've had the D-50 for a year now - it's an outstanding camera, easy to use.

"Eric Babula" wrote in message
0...
I'm looking to get my first dSLR. Hoping to stay around $1000US for new
camera, 2 lenses, 2GB SD card and 2 batteries. Yes, I'm a
beginner/amateur, so please bear with my ignorance.

Much of my photography will be: family vacations (esp. in the mountains.
we love taking photos of wildlife and mountains - esp. bears!), kids'
volleyball games (low light, indoor, action shots with no flash - a big
problem for me with my current digicam, the Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ5),
and macro photography of coin collections (camera on a copy stand). Of
course, we'd be using it for family get togethers, birthday parties,
Christmas, etc., too.

I was looking at the Nikon D50 as a good choice. It was highly
recommended to me by a friend who has and/or had the Nikon 5400, 8800,
D50, D70, D80 and D200. I've done some reading, and seen comparisons
between the D50, the D70 and the D70s. Seems that, with the same lenses,
the D50 is pretty much as good as the others, maybe even better, but at
a lower cost.

Am I way off base, here? For my type of photo taking, would the D50 be
the choice for me? Or, is there something about the D70 or D70s - or
maybe even the D80 - that I really, really should consider? Like I said,
I'd like to stay around $1000. But, if I'm not gonna be happy with the
camera, and an extra $200 will make me happy, I don't want to make the
mistake and end up regretting my decision. Worse yet, I don't want the
wifey regretting my decision!!

Also, since I'm asking questions: What do you think of the kit lenses?
Would I be content with the 18-55mm and 55-200mm Nikkor lenses that come
in the kit? Or, would I be better off getting just the D50 body (IF
that's what I end up getting), and search for better lenses? Remember, I
like shooting pics of bears (and elk, moose, buffalo, etc.) in the
mountains - so a nice zoom is a must. Is the 70-200 going to be good
enough? Or, should I look for a Tamaron 70-300, or something? My
Panasonic FZ5 has 12x optical zoom, which supposedly is equivalent to a
36mm to 432mm in a 35mm film camera. So, how would the kit lenses
compare to that? I'm also especially concerned about getting good stop-
action shots of the kids playing volleyball. The FZ5 just isn't getting
great shots for me. These are fast action shots (kids diving for ball,
arms swinging at high speeds, ball flying off arms, etc.), and I need a
good camera that can stop action, get great shots, have low noise
levels, and zoom in on the action from the bleachers. BTW - do the kit
lenses have IS/VR? I'm thinking, at the big zoom (200mm or maybe 300mm),
I might be better to have IS/VR available to me.

I'm already considering getting a Sigma 105mm macro lens for my coin
photography: http://tinyurl.com/8wves. This, of course, will be in
addition to the $1K budget that I mentioned above, and will be a future
purchase, when I can muster up the $$.

Any help/advise would be much appreciated. TIA!

--
Eric Babula
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA