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Holy Camera BAtman!!
At my price point, I had the choice between a used D200 vs. a new D80. The D200 is sooooo much better than the D80. I'm glad I went the way I did. I got the used D200, a brand new 18-200 VR lens and a brand new SB-600 speedlight for less than the cost of just a D300 body. You have an awesome package that would serve just about anyone's needs for years to come. My strategy is to use my D200 until there is a significant price drop in the D300. Maybe that will happen by the end of the year, maybe it won't. I don't much care. I just got an email a few weeks ago from Nikon informing me that my 1-year warranty on the D200 was about to expire. Nikon offered to extend the original factory warranty for an additional two years for $169. I took them up on the offer. Even though I've never had a hiccup from the D200 or the D70 before it, it seemed like a reasonable deal. There is nothing that could be repaired on the D200 for only $169, and it buys me plenty of time to eventually pull the D300 trigger. It's nice that I only need to buy the body. My lenses and filters, the SB800, and other goodies still get to keep on working. In 2007 I dropped a little over $1k for a very nice tripod and ball head. It's made a very noticeable improvement in my landscape work. I was never much of a tripod guy, but I got tripod religion in 2007. As another D200 shooter, I'll share with you another revelation that came to me in 2007. Always shoot raw, and use Nikon Capture NX as your raw converter and primary editor. It's a huge improvement over using Adobe Camera Raw. Capture NX won't completely eliminate the need for PhotoShop or similar, but it's the best place to start, and more often than not you'll have no need to do any further editing in another application. |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:11:05 GMT, "RG" wrote:
At my price point, I had the choice between a used D200 vs. a new D80. The D200 is sooooo much better than the D80. I'm glad I went the way I did. I got the used D200, a brand new 18-200 VR lens and a brand new SB-600 speedlight for less than the cost of just a D300 body. You have an awesome package that would serve just about anyone's needs for years to come. My strategy is to use my D200 until there is a significant price drop in the D300. Maybe that will happen by the end of the year, maybe it won't. I don't much care. I just got an email a few weeks ago That's a good strategy. I'm sure the D300 price will drop as soon as the next one in the series, I'm guessing a D400, comes out. Then you'll see the same thing going on with the D300 that is going on now with the D200. Of course, you'll probably want whatever new goodies are in the D400. lol [...] filters, the SB800, and other goodies still get to keep on working. In 2007 I dropped a little over $1k for a very nice tripod and ball head. It's made a very noticeable improvement in my landscape work. I was never much of a tripod guy, but I got tripod religion in 2007. A tripod is definitely a necessity for great landscape work. Especially if you're going to stitch together multiple shots for a panarama. I have a half decent tripod. No, not $1k, more like $100. But it works for me. As another D200 shooter, I'll share with you another revelation that came to me in 2007. Always shoot raw, and use Nikon Capture NX as your raw converter and primary editor. It's a huge improvement over using Adobe Camera Raw. Capture NX won't completely eliminate the need for PhotoShop or similar, but it's the best place to start, and more often than not you'll have no need to do any further editing in another application. If I was a pro I'd do that. I shoot some things in raw and some in jpg. I use jpg most of the time but I'll shoot in raw if I'm in a tough situation as far as white balance or exposure is concerned. It's easier to adjust those things later when shooting in raw. I'll also shoot raw if I think there's any chance of making large size prints, like over 8x10. Otherwise, I shoot jpg normal. For those shots in that New Hope slide show, everything was shot in jpg normal except for some of the train photos which were raw and converted. Capture NX is pricey. I just use the free Nikon PictureProject for basic raw editing and conversion It does all the things I normally want to do, like adjust exposure, crop, etc. It uses the same conversion engine as Capture NX. It just doesn't have all the bells and whistles. If I want a little more capability for raw files, I use RawShooter Essentials. When I want to do "photoshop type" editing, I use PaintShopPro 9 because I already have that and it works well. It only works in jpg though, not raw. If you get the white balance correct with the camera, for anything 8x10 or less, I can't tell the difference between shooting in raw and jpg. And there's absolutely no way you can tell the difference if you're just looking to post pictures on a website. But the caveat is you have to have the camera set up right for jpeg shooting. And for that, here's a hint for you: This may be why you're seeing a big difference between raw and jpg and I'm not: go to Shooting Menu-JPEG Compression and change the file compression from the default of Size Priority to Optimum Quality. For some strange reason, Nikon thinks the default should be to make all the jpeg images around the same size. If you have a bland scene with no detail it will take up as many bytes as a complex detailed scene. Of course, the complex detailed scene image quality will suffer. If you change that option, pictures with little detail will make little files and pictures with a lot of detail will make bigger files, preserving the quality. If you make that change and just shoot jpeg normal (not even fine) quality, you'll have a hard time discerning the difference between raw and jpeg. Steve |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:04:10 GMT, Steve wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:33:57 GMT, "RG" wrote: I've been looking at the new E-3 anyway - good excuse to get one. You owe it to yourself to give the new D300 a hard look. If I was shopping today, that's where I'd go and never look back. It's that good. Camera of the Year and deservedly so. If you're on a budget, look on ebay for the ton of D200's that people are offloading now because the D300 came out. You can pick up a D200 for 1/2 of what someone paid for it just a few months ago, and less than 1/2 the price of a D300. And most of them are in pretty much like new condition because the camera update cycle is so short. Yes, the D300 is nice. But the little bit extra it gives you isn't worth anywhere near over twice the going rate for a D200. Especially if most of your photography isn't of indoor low light without a flash, which is the only place the D300 really outpaces the D200. Yes, I have a D200. And it's awesome. Mate it up with the 18-200 VR zoom lens and you have the ultimate walk around camera. Here's some shots I took last week with that combo on a little walk around tour of New Hope, PA. I just bought it myself and these are the first pictures I took. I'm looking forward to even better ones once I really get to know the camera. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheliko...08607375/show/ Steve Nice shots, Steve, especially the locomotive. I'm also a D200 owner, as are several other folks here, and I love mine. I just sent my 18-200 VR back to Nikon to get the auto-focus checked. But I like the outfit. I can think of nothing that would make me trade up, unless I dropped mine walking down the steps! -- John H "All decisions are the result of binary thinking." |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:38:12 GMT, Steve wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:11:05 GMT, "RG" wrote: At my price point, I had the choice between a used D200 vs. a new D80. The D200 is sooooo much better than the D80. I'm glad I went the way I did. I got the used D200, a brand new 18-200 VR lens and a brand new SB-600 speedlight for less than the cost of just a D300 body. You have an awesome package that would serve just about anyone's needs for years to come. My strategy is to use my D200 until there is a significant price drop in the D300. Maybe that will happen by the end of the year, maybe it won't. I don't much care. I just got an email a few weeks ago That's a good strategy. I'm sure the D300 price will drop as soon as the next one in the series, I'm guessing a D400, comes out. Then you'll see the same thing going on with the D300 that is going on now with the D200. Of course, you'll probably want whatever new goodies are in the D400. lol [...] filters, the SB800, and other goodies still get to keep on working. In 2007 I dropped a little over $1k for a very nice tripod and ball head. It's made a very noticeable improvement in my landscape work. I was never much of a tripod guy, but I got tripod religion in 2007. A tripod is definitely a necessity for great landscape work. Especially if you're going to stitch together multiple shots for a panarama. I have a half decent tripod. No, not $1k, more like $100. But it works for me. As another D200 shooter, I'll share with you another revelation that came to me in 2007. Always shoot raw, and use Nikon Capture NX as your raw converter and primary editor. It's a huge improvement over using Adobe Camera Raw. Capture NX won't completely eliminate the need for PhotoShop or similar, but it's the best place to start, and more often than not you'll have no need to do any further editing in another application. If I was a pro I'd do that. I shoot some things in raw and some in jpg. I use jpg most of the time but I'll shoot in raw if I'm in a tough situation as far as white balance or exposure is concerned. It's easier to adjust those things later when shooting in raw. I'll also shoot raw if I think there's any chance of making large size prints, like over 8x10. Otherwise, I shoot jpg normal. For those shots in that New Hope slide show, everything was shot in jpg normal except for some of the train photos which were raw and converted. Capture NX is pricey. I just use the free Nikon PictureProject for basic raw editing and conversion It does all the things I normally want to do, like adjust exposure, crop, etc. It uses the same conversion engine as Capture NX. It just doesn't have all the bells and whistles. If I want a little more capability for raw files, I use RawShooter Essentials. When I want to do "photoshop type" editing, I use PaintShopPro 9 because I already have that and it works well. It only works in jpg though, not raw. If you get the white balance correct with the camera, for anything 8x10 or less, I can't tell the difference between shooting in raw and jpg. And there's absolutely no way you can tell the difference if you're just looking to post pictures on a website. But the caveat is you have to have the camera set up right for jpeg shooting. And for that, here's a hint for you: This may be why you're seeing a big difference between raw and jpg and I'm not: go to Shooting Menu-JPEG Compression and change the file compression from the default of Size Priority to Optimum Quality. For some strange reason, Nikon thinks the default should be to make all the jpeg images around the same size. If you have a bland scene with no detail it will take up as many bytes as a complex detailed scene. Of course, the complex detailed scene image quality will suffer. If you change that option, pictures with little detail will make little files and pictures with a lot of detail will make bigger files, preserving the quality. If you make that change and just shoot jpeg normal (not even fine) quality, you'll have a hard time discerning the difference between raw and jpeg. Steve Other than the limitation as to number of pictures on a card, which are getting quite cheap, why would you not shoot everything in jpeg 'fine'. At least then you can crop segments of the shot or the whole shot if you want. -- John H "All decisions are the result of binary thinking." |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:00:36 GMT, Steve wrote:
On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:10:13 -0600, Vic Smith wrote: On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:34:08 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote: Just got off the phone with Olympus. The bill to repair my E-300, flat rate, is $310 plus 6% tax which brings it to $328.60!! Damn. So much for that camera. My daughter just told me she needs a film SLR, with wide/normal/tele lenses, UV filter, etc, for a required college class. Has to have manual ap/shutter/focus. She's an ed major. I guess I'm going to fix the shutter leather on my Minolta 102, or buy a working body. I've got the rest. But I am somewhat ****ed about this, because the last time I got the sticking shutter fixed it cost $125 and only lasted maybe 100 frames. That was at least ten years ago. I was ready to go digital SLR, and you would think that a college class would go that way. They will do film processing, but you don't need an SLR for that. [...] You won't find many professionals using film anymore. Just the specialized large format stuff. But the good thing about that is you can find *tons* of really high quality 35mm SLR film cameras being offloaded for cheap since no one wants that stuff anymore. Ebay and Craigslist are your friend. I was in WalMart the other day and saw a new Canon EOS Rebel 35mm film SLR for about what it costs you to fix your sticking shutter. If you want new, that would be perfect for her class. It has all the modes you mentioned. Good thoughts. She'll need my lenses, which won't fit Canon. I'll go the used route. --Vic |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
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Holy Camera BAtman!!
Please don't forget me! jherringatcoxdotnet Check your inbox. |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:50:28 GMT, "RG" wrote:
Please don't forget me! jherringatcoxdotnet Check your inbox. Absolutely spectacular! Now why didn't my pictures of Yellowstone and Oak Creek Canyon come out like that? You really need to take a trip to DC and capture the local scenery! Maybe with Reggie during cherry blossom time? Would it be possible to share that with a friend of mine in Holland? He's been through a lot of that country by motorcycle, so he'd appreciate the work tremendously. Thanks for sharing that. Most cool! -- John H "All decisions are the result of binary thinking." |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
On Jan 8, 8:50*am, "RG" wrote:
Please don't forget me! jherringatcoxdotnet Check your inbox. Well, this has drawn quite a bit of interest, can I see?? |
Holy Camera BAtman!!
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