The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.

[swt61]

I've got a question...My Mother wants to buy my Niece a nice digital camera for her Graduation. Her budget is about $600.00. Size is not a big factor, as portability is not a necessity. My Niece is artsy, but not an experienced photographer. Where should she start looking?

[Knuckledragger]

Steve, for a non-SLR, this is the top dog: Amazon.com: Canon PowerShot S90 10MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD: Camera & Photo

Canon PWNZ the point and shoot market. No one can compete with them, least of all Nikon.

For SLRs (bigger, swappable glass), Nikon's cheaper models are much better than Canon's. The Nikon D40 is long in the tooth at this point, but does just about everything a budding photographer might want. It might be possible to find it and two lenses for under $600. Amazon has it, but for way too much: 25420B Nikon D40 6.1 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera 3X Zoom Kit Outfit, with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor Lens - Refurbished by Nikon U.S.A..

Adorama still has D40, refurb'd, plus the shorter kit lens for $400, free shipping: 25420B Nikon D40 6.1 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera 3X Zoom Kit Outfit, with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor Lens - Refurbished by Nikon U.S.A.

That leaves room for maybe a flash unit: 4806 Nikon SB-400 TTL AF Shoe Mount Speedlight, USA Warranty

Not to confuse matters, but Adorama has a few refurb'd D60 kits as well:

INKD60RKB Nikon D60 Digital SLR Camera Body Kit, - Refurbished by Nikon U.S.A - with 8 GB SD Memory Card, Spare EN-EL9 Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Battery, Nikon Gadget Bag,USB 2.0 SD Card Reader, Professional Lens Cleaning Kit

Truth be told there aren't too many advantages of the D60 over the D40.

[swt61]

Thanks for the info. Any thoughts on Nikon's D3000?

[MexicanDragon]

Thanks for the info. Any thoughts on Nikon's D3000?

From what I understand, skip it. The D5000 seems to be the go-to "D40" level replacement. I think that, with the 18-55vr kit lens, just pushes the boundaries of the budget.

A site that is recommended by many: KenRockwell.com

Nikon D3000 - check out the headline

Nikon D5000 - oh, look, refurb kit for 525$ INKD5000RD Nikon D5000 DX-Format 12.3 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera Kit - Refurbished - by Nikon U.S.A. with Nikon 18mm - 55mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S DX (VR) Vibration Reduction Wide Angle Autofocus Zoom Lens, - Refurbished - by Nikon U.S.A.

I would defer to others, but I researched the crap out of this the past 5 months, and this is what I was going to buy before I decided to pick up something from someone down in SoFla.

**BRENT**

[Knuckledragger]

I don't know much about the D3K, but the reviews have been tepid at best. It's got worse noise at a given ISO setting, by a full stop, than the models it replaced. That's a big issue. It's harder to quantify, but the D3000 also has worse handling and user interface as well. What makes low-end Nikon DLSRs superior to Canons is equal-or-better image quality and vastly improved handling. Take those away, and the argument becomes moot. The reason I linked to the D40 and D60 is that they produce better real-world results than the newer Nikons and most Canon DSLRs (until one pays 2-3x as much.)

[swt61]

Exactly the kind of hard information I need. I've convinced her that the D60 is the unit to go for. Thanks guys!

[Knuckledragger]

I'm leaving MV tomorro. I haven't taken nearly as many photos as I'd have liked, and edited even fewer [hello dead FireWire port!] That said, here's a few that I did get through:

EDIT: Fixed some links. Click through for respective Flickr pages with tags notes and EXIF.

Edited April 3, 2010 by Knuckledragger
I like pie.

[agile_one]

ir ftw

[tyrion]

Are you really taking these photos or are you taking them from some pro out there? Just kidding, of course, they are just damn good.

[Salt Peanuts]

Damn. I really like the boat shot.

[Knuckledragger]

Let's see here...

First two shots were basically unedited. I set a custom white balance in my camera by using a $4 Chinese knock-off Expodisc. That's why the street lights are such an intense white color. I got the "sun star" effect in the first one by closing down the aperture to F/22 and doing a 30 second exposure. The second shot was done at F/10, IIRC.

Third shot was taken with my IR-modified PowerShot G2. Most of what you are seeing is the weirdness of infrared. I did spend quite a bit of time working over the levels and going at with the dodge and burn tools in PS. Level control is very important when working with infrared photos, I find.

Shot #4 is again basically no edits. I did some spot-removal, that's all.

The final shot is pseudo-HDR made from one RAW exposure in Photomatix, and then cleaned up in Photoshop. HDR gets a bad rap, but I enjoy it in small amounts. I tend to go for "subtle" HDR compared to the over-the-top cartoonishness that plagues so much of the technique.

[Knuckledragger]

So Reks... In one thread or other (not this one) you mentioned that you had a bunch of old manual Nikkor primes that you inherited from your father. 135mm F/3.5, 85mm F/2, and 50mm F/1.4 (IIRC). Those are most likely all good-to-excellent optically, and have a tanklike construction. I don't know those particular lenses specifically, but I'd hazard a guess that the 135mm is going to be razor sharp even wide open, and have absolutely gorgeous bokeh. It was designed as a portrait lens, and will of course serve wonderfully in that capacity on a cropped sensor or full frame.

[Warning: much lens nerdity ahead.] I have what a few of my friends characterize as an unhealthy obsession with 135mm primes. I have owned, uh, five of them. The three main ones I use are:

[Salt Peanuts]

Last bit, if you can find one, I suggest tacking down a Nikon E Series 75-150mm F/3.5 manual zoom. They bring less than $50 on the used market, and rival $1000 zooms for image quality. I have one and it has the best bokeh of any lens I own(!) Seriously, look at this:

Okay, lens geek mode off. I'm going outside, lighting up a Punch maduro, and take some pictures of my own.

Soooo pretty.

Knuckles, do you have a Nikon body as well or do you have some kind of lens adapter?

[Sherwood]

That's really an ideal pseudo-HDR, knucks, as a traditional HDR would wreak all kinds of hell with moving water, and you'd never get that circular polarizer see-through foreground that makes the shot so striking.

As a devotee of HDR myself (and fuck you haters), I'll note that you have no halo problems or wonky color in sight. A little darkening of the sky in the top of the center, but I'll assume that's the filter.

Really a standout shot. That and #2 are my faves.

[Knuckledragger]

Soooo pretty.

Knuckles, do you have a Nikon body as well or do you have some kind of lens adapter?

I only have one digital body (Canon EOS 30D) and I have a bunch of adapters for it. Then Canon EF mount has one of the deepest flange depths of any autofocus 35mm lens system. There's quite a lot of adapters for mounting M42 and Nikon F mount lenses to EF bodies on the market. Most are made in China and sold on eBay, and they are not all created equal. The good ones cost $20-30 each. I got a set of lesser M42 adapters, 4 for $50, and I got what I paid for. One didn't work at all, and the other stopped working after about 6 months of light use.

There's a Flickr group for using manual focus lenses on EF digital bodies: Flickr: EOS Cameras and Manual Lenses and I know there's one for Nikons as well. There's also the Manual Focus Forum, which has a vast array of information on the subject.

[Salt Peanuts]

Thanks for the links, Knuckles.

[Knuckledragger]

That's really an ideal pseudo-HDR, knucks, as a traditional HDR would wreak all kinds of hell with moving water, and you'd never get that circular polarizer see-through foreground that makes the shot so striking.

Thanks. It's true, multiple-exposure HDR of moving water is a complete waste of time. I have tried it before on several occasions and got nothing but frustration for my efforts. I use Photomatix most of the time for HDR processing. It is an app that gets regular updates, and I'm not convinced that all of them have been improvements. That said, the support of pseudo-HDR-from-RAW has gotten much better over the years. Also, Photomatix now finally passes EXIF data through to the final image. It didn't for years, and when it first did, it chewed on it something fiece (F/7.9999 instead of F/8, WTF?) but now it works quite well. Best $100 I ever spent on software, TBH.

[Salt Peanuts]

i downloaded the trial for Aperture 3. i think i'm gonna have to buy it, because it seems to do everything i want, and much easier than GIMP or PS. the black and white presets produce very nice results with a couple minutes of fiddling.

Have you tried the Lightroom 3 Beta 2? It seems to work well even on my (relatively) ancient iMac but I really have nothing else to compare it. I'll probably download Aperture 3 trial to see how I like that one.

[Knuckledragger]

The 85/2 looks to have pretty neutral bokeh, which is good. Out of branches are something of a bokeh torture test. If a lens exhibits strong nisen bokeh (rings) then it will render OOF branches as last parallel lines. The lens looks to be pretty contrasty and have good color transmission as well.

[aerius]

[aerius]

the DSLR is a revelation. i'd forgotten how much fun it is getting used to new equipment, taking pictures of stupid stuff around the house, making flash diffusors out of candy wrappers and plastic cups. i can't wait to actually take the thing outside and try to get some real pics, now that i'm acquainted. i have a feeling that photography is going to be really fun again, because it's even less risky than it was in the late 90's, when film was cheap and i was a photo developer at a one hour lab, and thus didn't have to pay for development or prints.

Yup, went through that phase myself when I got my digital camera a few years ago. The first few months were pretty crazy, I even took a picture of my bellybutton just because I could.

the best ad hoc diffuser was a folded up piece of typing paper, stuck under the flash and angled upwards at a nice lazy angle. nobody wants to see pictures of my stupid houseplants, i know.

With my compact camera I got the best results with a sheet of notebook paper. I was taking pictures at a party and the flash was making people look pretty horrible, so I used a piece of notebook paper that was lying around as a makeshift diffuser and it worked pretty well. I later tried several other papers at home but the first guess turned out to be the right one.

[Salt Peanuts]

Just found a dust/speck on my viewfinder.

Don't know how it got there since I hadn't changed the lens since putting on my 35mm right after I received it and dust/speck wasn't there then. Annoying since the reason I exchanged the first one was because of dusts/specks on the viewfinder. At least it doesn't affect the pictures.

[Salt Peanuts]

[Salt Peanuts]

It may just well be a lint and the solution may be as easy as blowing some air on it. I didn't inspect too much as I needed to leave for work. It doesn't affect the pictures, so I'm not overly concerned about it, just little annoying until I get used to it and stop noticing it.

[Knuckledragger]

Just found a dust/speck on my viewfinder.

Don't know how it got there since I hadn't changed the lens since putting on my 35mm right after I received it and dust/speck wasn't there then. Annoying since the reason I exchanged the first one was because of dusts/specks on the viewfinder. At least it doesn't affect the pictures.

What Reks said, but also, do you have a blower? They are indispensable for DLSR owners. Check the mirror and the bottom of the pentaprism (which is located above the mirror when the camera is held in the horizontal shooting position) for specs. A micofiber cloth is very useful for cleaning the mirror and the exposed sides of the pentaprism.

This is a decent blower, but you can probably get one locally:

Amazon.com: Giottos AA1900 Large Rocket Blaster: Camera & Photo

Avoid ones like this, they're no good:

NP10091 Adorama Blower Brush - Small

You can get microfiber cloths any place that sells glasses.