I've been a film guy for my entire life. However, while I'm still a dinasaur in many ways, I have come the realization that a digital is probably the way to go.

Also, I'm kind of tired of carrying film through the x-rays in lead bags -- and they always want to look in them.

I think Nikon has a real nice digital cameras out there. I'd welcome your thoughts. What should I buy?

I know you should have a small digital for trophy pics. etc. I'm talking something with a telephoto that can take good game pictures.

You really cannot go wrong with either one of the Nikon or Canopn range.

Unless you are going for the big full frame cameras, I suggest you look at the Nikon D300S and the Canon 7D.

I use both cameras and both will give you excellent quality photos.

If your primary desire is tele shots of game then I would reccomend you stay with DX sensor size bodies. I personally would also suggest you stay with CF format memory rather than SD. Either Nikon or Canon produce equally high quality equipment that basically boils down to personal preference. The only other factor to consider is cost and this can go from semi-reasonable to astronomical without any REAL gain for the amatuer photographer. Just depends on how many bells and whistles YOU are able to take advantage of. I am a confirmed Nikon user so would have to lean to the D300s body and for an all purpose lense for Africa the 28-300 Nikkor. Not an inexpensive combination however.

Zimbabwe's recommendations are good, but not the least expensive option with Nikon for similar image quality. You can now buy a Nikon D90 for less than a D300s with basically the same image quality, but in a less robust body. If weight and volume are restricted the 18-200mm Nikkor zoom will give good results (equal to a 300mm on a full size sensor) and also retain the wide angle capability which is nice to have for trophy pictures.

I've got a D700 and a D7000 and a bunch of lenses, leaving me with the dilema of how much weight do I want to lug around for what real benefit. Everything is a trade-off, but I like the D7000 with a 10-24mm and the 28-300mm combo. Gives me the equivalent of around 15mm to 450mm in 35mm film terms with a 16 megapixel body, and occasional video for the victory dance around the campfire.

Cool thing with the 7D is that you can make very high quality movies, such as many television shows (House, Anthony Bourdain) are doing.

If you want video then the Nikon D5100 is the best so far, unless you get a 5D and then spend THOUSANDS on accesories and software, but still not too good. You have to work around the MANY limitations of a DSLR if you want to shoot serious stuff.
"House" was pretty rubbish if you really look at the footage.
Most use of DSLRs on film sets are used as a second or third unit camera.
DSLRs are great if you want to shoot a bit of Video now and then, but DO NOT expect to produce anything that looks "Pro" without serious investment and a lot of work.

Wink made me do it!

I bought a Nikon D90 this morning.

With using my Costco American Express card, I get a full three year warranty on everything.

As a hobbyist, it gives me more than I need for picture taking, and a little video.

thanks for all the advice and comparisons here.

regards

rich

It simply does not matter. Canon or Nikon, either offer any accessory you may want down the line.
Even an out dated Canon 40D will give you a better 20x30 print that any of the past 35mm film cameras using Fuji Velvia film.

Just pick a brand and stick with it and start adding good glass one piece at a time. People tend to forget it is not so much the brand of gear you buy, but the photographer in back of the camera that is important.

PS: If you want to take movies carry a small HD camcorder. SLR's simply can't do what a dedicated cam corder can.

quote:

I bought a Nikon D90 this morning.

A very good choice. Suggest 18-55mm lens for starters. With 1.5X sensor, lens give 27 to 82 equivelent. Medium wide to telephoto.

D90 Specifications

You can use many Nikon lenses on it.

http://www.aiconversions.com/compatibilitytable.htm

You can find real old classics for not much cash.

You can snoop around for used DSLR's on either Adorama or B&H Photo under their used catagory.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Wink made me do it!

I bought a Nikon D90 this morning.


rich

Kinda sounds like the "devil made me do it"! I think you'll have a great time with it. I realize everybody is all gaga over the zoom lenses, so go against the grain and buy the Nikkor 35 mm f1.8 DX. It's cheap, takes better quality pictures than any zoom and is lightspeed faster than all the zooms. What's not to like?

If you are new to digital, keep the "film speed" on your camera at 400 or less. You will be happier with the results if you do.

I've been shooting pro-level Nikons ever since I traded my 500CM system for a D1X. Didn't seem to make any difference what the "speed" was until recently I found that lower film speed made for more effective resolution when blowing up and cropping images.

If someone disagrees with me on this, I would be interested in your reasoning or experience.

Picture below taken with Nikkor 28 F1.4, rapidly becoming my favorite lens. Film speed 320. D1x is only 5.47 megapixel.

quote:

Originally posted by DMCI*:
If you are new to digital, keep the "film speed" on your camera at 400 or less. You will be happier with the results if you do.

I've been shooting pro-level Nikons ever since I traded my 500CM system for a D1X. Didn't seem to make any difference what the "speed" was until recently I found that lower film speed made for more effective resolution when blowing up and cropping images.

If someone disagrees with me on this, I would be interested in your reasoning or experience.

Resolution depends on more than just ISO speed, so the answer is Yes and No. Precise focus affects resolution, the type of sensor affects resolution and of greatest importance, the power of the software in the camera and the power of the software used in the "post-development" of the digital image may render the differences so negligible as to be of little importance. Noise, chromatic aberration, etc. are a function of the sensor and the software's ability to treat it to maximize what is frequently referred to as resolution.

With some cameras (such as with a Nikon D7000) the resolution difference between an ISO of 200 and 1200 is practically impossible to differentiate without resorting to sophisticated measuring equipment, even if it is there.

I always try to maximize superior results by using as low an ISO as I can, but the newer high end cameras make the differences neglible below 1600 ISO. Besides, if going to a higher ISO allows a faster shutter speed, your apparent sharpness may be better since the camera movement will be lessened.

To comment on the tractor photo, it suffers from a frequent Nikon overexposure error, resulting in blown out highlights in the wheels and seat covers in this case. Not much one can do about it when working from a small jpeg file:




I recommend underexposing by 0.7 EV.

Thankyou for your very helpful criticism.

Here for comparison is crop of full res image of 3k x 2k pixels.

It appears that reduction of image for posting causes loss of information.

I was going for maximum depth of field. Photo show limitation of this technology. I suspect D1x is showing it's age. Want to pop in D2Xs when time arrives.

Like film, digital sensors have a limited light sensitivity range. Nikons tend to favor exposing for the shadows to limit noise in the low light areas, which of course results in overexposing the highlights. For a static subject like the tractor, when you have taken the picture look immediately at the histogram and it will be obvious that there will be spikes hard at the right hand side of the histogram. If I see the histogram hard against the right side of the graph I use the EV adjustment to underexpose, trying out several underexposures until this is eliminated. By the way, Nikons almost always "blow out" the reds, even when considerably underexposed. I don't why this is, but if you can view your RGB histograms you will see that this is frequently the case.

There is another aspect of resolution which many are unaware of, and it is one of the big differences between film and digital sensors, and that is that stopping the lens down to f16 or f22 will introduce light diffraction which will lessen resolution as well. Generally you will want to go no further than f11 if you are after maximum resolution. To add to that, the autofocus will not necessarily give you the optimum focus distance to maximize depth of field, called the hyperfocal. In fact, most new lenses don't even have depth of field indications on the lens barrel making it a complex calculation and which also requires manual focusing. With autofocus cameras and lenses you will only get the maximum depth of field if you switch to manual focusing and know how to calculate the hyperfocal.

If you're seeking maximum sharpness and depth of field, read this:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/focus.htm

DCMI*,

Without making any presumption about your normal approach to taking photos with your 28mm (which by the way is considered to be an excellent lens) may I suggest the following experiment:

1) Using the A setting for aperture priority, set it to f11,
2) Set your lens for manual focus and adjust it to around 30 ft (around 10 meters) as an approximation of the hyperfocal.
3) Set the EV setting for -0.7 for an underexposure.

Without changing these preset settings, go and take a bunch of photographs of anything in your yard, your neighborhood, your town, you name it (where the subject is at least 15 feet or more from your camera), and compare if they don't show better results for anything beyond 15 feet than you are generally getting now.

While this looks suspiciously like a "point and shoot" approach, I suspect your will get very good results, the best you can expect from your camera/lens combination under daylight conditions.

Some of the real world advantages to this approach are:

1) You will always be at the optimum f stop/depth of field combination
2) You don't have to worry about focus for anything beyond 15 feet
3) You can concentrate on composition and forget all the rest

I will give that a try this weekend, and see how it works. The F11 max seems really interesting.

My only comment is that it seems a little silly to have an auto everything camera and then to drive it like a 1930s Leica to get optimal performance.

Why would Nikon do that?

quote:

Originally posted by DMCI*:
I will give that a try this weekend, and see how it works. The F11 max seems really interesting.

My only comment is that it seems a little silly to have an auto everything camera and then to drive it like a 1930s Leica to get optimal performance.

Why would Nikon do that?

Well, you allude to the problem, which is "what is optimal?"

There will be times when you want maximum depth of field, and times when you want shallow depth of field, and times when you want a selected depth of field, say from 3 feet to 15 feet. The latter might be perfect for taking pictures in a closed setting indoors. With your lens (which I believe has depth of field markings, unlike the new lenses), you can easily do this.

The high end cameras allow you to have control, letting you decide to let the camera follow its own program, or you take control and tell it what to do, since Nikon hasn't yet invented the camera that can read your mind. With the presets I suggest the camera is still using its "automatic" metering and setting the shutter speed. If you are in a low light situation you may find the shutter speed to be too slow for a hand-held shot and will need a tripod, assuming you want to stay with the high resolution/maximum depth of field combination. Presets like this, to end up with a point and shoot situation, are only interesting with wide angle lenses anyway, and pretty useless with telephotos for which autofocusing is a tremendous advantage for myopic oldsters like me.

I am a recent proud owner of the Nikon D3s, the camera that is the exception to the "rule" that ISO 200 is the best. The sensor on the camera is such that it is easily 3-4 stops faster than anything else you can buy as a civilian.

That's great if you shoot at night, in gyms that are poorly lit, at concerts without flash. etc but if you want to use it in daylight you need to shoot really small apertures (f8, f11. etc) which sucks for good bokeh or you need to get some neutral density filters --- great pro camera but I'll probaby wind up selling it because although I bought it for sports (and it's great for nite football) almost all my shooting is soccer during the day in the bright California sun -- I'll miss the great quality and fast motor-drive but I like to shoot a apertures like f2 and f2.8 when I can.

Bill, you'll need to enlighten me on this one. As far as I know, ISO 200 is ISO 200, whether it's on your Nikon D3s, my D700 or any other camera. However, since you seem to want to get rid of it, I'm sure a hefty AR discount will get it sold quickly.

quote:

Why would Nikon do that?

Most AUTO setting are based on averages and averages please almost no one who gives a rip. Also, it's impossible to expose every part of a subject perfectly unless you are setting up light poles or remote flashes etc, which most people do not.

I have found with my Canons, both film and digital, if the frame is about half or more bright, it will overexpose the picture so I knock 1/2 to 2/3 stop off and it makes a big difference. My Pentax film cameras seem to have the best meter to make pictures pleasing to my eye. I detest all the futzing in photoshop to make pictures unrealistically perfect which is why I usually use Tri-X 400 B&W for most of my pictures. With a digital camera I find myself farting around with settings and ISOs too much and not focusing on WHAT I am shooting. But that's just old archaic me...

I voted my pocketbook: Nikon D90. With the 70-300 at full extension I took pictures at the Cardinals ballpark in StL at the Cubs-Cards game July 31st from the BOA pavilion (2nd level 3rd base side) that were so good, you could see the chaw in the right fielder's mouth.

I just left it on auto and took the best pictures I have ever seen by amateurs at a ball game.

These new cameras are amazing.

Rich,

Also try the P or Program mode. It will try to use ambient light as
MUch as possible but also if you have a backlit subject you can just pop up the flash for fill-flash. The D90 is a very good camera.