The "What Camera Should Darren Butterworth Get?" thread!

[Nigel C]

Ok, I'll start...

Canon!

[Grahame Hutchison]

From a lifetime Nikon man, definitely Nikon. Never had a problem and the D300 is a gem to use.

[Raymond Rowe]

Canon all the way.

[Sarah C]

I say Nikon. 2 all.......

[Andrew P]

what about Sony?

[Nigel C]

Who?


As per the JP.Net thread, he's choosing between Canon and Nikon, hence only 2 options were given here for the poll.

[Stephen Brown]

Yeah Chris, I have a serious amount of camera envy. The D700 is on my list for the future.

The 300/f4 on the D300 sparkles and produces some great shots (see the jetphotos link in my signature, the pics are labeled with which ones were taken with the 300mm). I can only imagine how it looks on the D700.

Although I'd love to have the 300mm/f2.8 or 400mm/f2.8 on the front of it.

Something to look forward to.

[Mike S]

I got a 50D today as well

[Stephen Brown]

Originally Posted by chris d

I spent my first afternoon using the D700 - I think I can get more out of it as I learn more of the intricacies. Given I've only had it since Thursday, I'm reasonably impressed with my first efforts - especially since I decided to stay late into dwindling light (I really wanted to test ISO400 and beyond). The images at ISO400 are still quite clean, dark blue sky has only very slight grain, pretty close to what a D80 does at its lowest ISO setting.

I spent some time looking through your photos on jp.net - I really liked the Air Tahiti Nui A343 image. You used Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 G (IF) VR + TC17EII combination for that image according to your remarks. How much editing did you do to the image (in terms of sharpening)?

It looks very crisp, more than I was expecting with a TC being used, especially for the quite high resolution of the image.

It appears that the 70-200G and the 1.7x TC is a good combination - right?

Chris,

The 70-200/f2.8 is an outstanding lens to begin with, so adding the TC only slightly lessens the overall quality. I use both the 1.4 and 1.7. Its having a good base lens, the 300mm/f4 as well also likes the TC's, and shooting within the confines of the lens (i.e. shoot at a reasonable f stop and shutter speed). I only use the 70-200/f2.8 and the TC's when I need a bit of versatility, I much prefer the 300mm/f4 when working at long lengths. That particular day with the Tahiti Nui we had the taxiway right infront of us as well as the runway, so I needed the zoom function.

Also I must note that I shoot in RAW. The post processing is usually done in Nikon Capture. The RAW file obviously doesn't make the picture sharper, but it does give you more scope for adjustment around exposure and colours.

If you use that D700 right I've seen some great noiseless pictures all the way up past ISO1000.

Oh and you can add the 200mm/f2 to my LLL (Lens Lust List)

[Darren Butterworth]

MikeS - Great to hear, share your tips with me as you discover them.

I've already done something wrong I think. When I review pics on the lcd screen, the image has the red focus dots over it. I'll need to dive into the manual.

Darren