Photography.5 - Equipment

No no no. I just got lazy. The S8200 looks like a nice little camera. Users are pretty much only complaining about the pop-up flash. Apparently it has a mind of its own and wants to be used quite often, and won't go quietly when you try to push it back down. From what I've gathered, you have to turn off the camera to turn off the flash. Since you take a lot of outdoor shots, where the lighting is too bright to trigger the flash, this may not pose a problem for you.

Terry's camera would be a great choice for you. The flash isn't automatic, it has a large diameter lens, a very nice grip, a great zoom, awesome macro capability, and a long battery life. You'll need a big pocket to put it in, though. And, if you have questions about its functions, you can ask Terry! Bonus!

Just ordered this lens to replace a Tamron 24-135 that I dropped on the concrete last winter. The Tamron still works, but the zoom function is screwed up and sticks, freezing up just when you need it. I really like the Tamron, but it has been long ago discontinued so I can't get another one new. This Nikkor doesn't have a hood, so I'll have to find something.

Something else a little disconcerting is that the lens has a plastic mount. I hope that doesn't prove to be a problem, because I change lenses a lot. At $400 on Amazon it was the most I was willing to spend, but that mid-range zoom is my go-to lens, and I needed that.

I got it! It's really a nice lens. I took a few shots at the farmers' market today and it seems sharp and the colors are good. It has VR II for Vibration Reduction second edition, silent wave focusing motor, low dispersion glass, all the good stuff. I don't generally test lenses with resolution charts and all that stuff, I just shoot and if I like the pictures, it's a good lens for me. I'll be posting some pictures in the near future and you can judge for yourself.

Oh, good! I'm glad you're liking it. I looked at the above image in the larger sizes, and everything looks nice and crisp. Yay! The larger sizes also reveal the awesome details of your craftsmanship. I especially love the hummingbird, and the cute addition of the little blue bird in the bird house :-)

I do all that, mostly on the scroll saw. The hummingbird and the elk on the right are my most popular patterns. The large key shape rack on the bottom and the fifth wheel trailer are the two best selling key racks.

I have been using an older model Nikkor lens, an AF-VR 80-400 "http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=207360&is=GREY&Q=&A=details" since I got my first digicam maybe ten years ago or more, and that is the one that I use for all my bird pictures. It's a good, sharp lens, but it has some drawbacks. Focus is slow, because it doesn't have the internal Silent Wave Motor, and relies on the camera's focusing motor, and also it is very heavy. It has Nikon's original VR (for Vibration Reduction) which works well, but handheld at full zoom it is not terribly effective. There has for some time been a more modern 70-300, but it is a pro lens and sells for $9000, way out of my range.

But now comes the AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300 f/4-5.6G IF-ED. "http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/449088-USA/Nikon_2161_AF_S_VR_Zoom_Nikkor.html" For less than half the price of the old lens, I get the internal Silent Wave Motor and VRII which Nikon claims allows hand-held shots down to 4 stops slower than without it. Reviews on Amazon were very good, and so I gave it to myself as a birthday present. I am hoping that this will allow me to get even better bird shots, especially on my next trip to Tucson and the Sonora Desert Museum.

This lens is slow at f/4 max aperture, but you pay a lot more for another stop or so. Also, it's still heavy at 26.3 oz. and lacks the tripod mount collar that the older lens has, but it is smaller and fits in my hand nicely, so I hope to utilize it a lot. I'll keep the other one, mainly for use with a tripod, where it excels.

I find that with the higher density pixels and better software in the cameras that you can push isos up to 3200 or more with very little extra noise. The speed of modern dslrs is making ultra large fstops less necessary.

Not my 10 year old Nikon. It has some kind of built-in noise suppression for high ISO but the noise over ISO 200 is unacceptable to me. In any case, the fast lenses are also (not coincidentally) the best glass.

I wonder if there is a firmware update available or is it that the sensor just isn't capable of being pushed? My Sony is really good up to 1600, and acceptable at 3200. It's good enough that I can't remember the last time I used a flash.

There was one firmware update years ago, and that was the last. In many respects it's a great camera, but for low light it just doesn't have it. I don't know about other Nikons, or newer versions of the sensor, but this is Nikon's CMOS and it was new when this camera was made. They may have improved it over the years. I shoot a lot of birds, and one way to stop action of birds in flight is to push the ISO up to get incredibly fast shutter speeds. I can't do that, because even in bright sunlight I get unacceptable noise at ISO 800. I just have to live with it.