Recent content by IkariWarrior

Maybe it's my technique but I find that turning it off works fine.

I have the same lens. Yes it is slow to focus but I guess thats the trade off in price. I do like using it. As advised, turn off VR for tracking subjects. I tend to use a single point focus to tame the focus hunting. Heres my flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossmiller/ the Zoo animals and...

Is that a night time photo?

As a start, I would stick with a quick shutter speed. The worst that can happen is that the photo will come out underexposed which can be adjusted on a computer later. A slow shutter speed will create a blurred photo which no use to anyone. Once you have infocus, unblurry images then you can...

I'm editing on my PC. I have no experience with Macs apart from my iPad and iPhone. If someone suggests to me that my 3.6ghz 8 core 16GB RAM and 2GB Graphics RAM with 128GB SSD and 1TB Hard Disk running Windows 8 can be beaten by an iMac, I don't think I could take them seriously. But then, I...

I think you'll find the 35mm a great little lens. I use it when I go out and about as it's light, very crisp and theres no faffing around. The latest photos on my flickr were all done with this lens.

I've always bought my lenses from Amazon.

I have the 35mm too and it is indeed a great lens. The 18-55 is perfectly fine. The wide end is creative enough for landscapes and the narrow end quite good for close up work since the focal distance on the lens is quite good. If the shop assistanct said the 18-55 is rubbish then he should be...

Nikkon 55-300mm DX can be had for £160 ish.

Yes. DoF is hard to grasp at first but when you think of the mechanics of what the lens is actually doing, it makes sense. This is why a telephoto makes quite a good macro lens if you can stand back from the subject enough. The minimum focal distance is usually 1.5m or so.

Your problem is you cannot achieve a shallow DOF since the focal length of your lens is too short for the subject at hand. The subject is quite large so keeping it in frame while at the same time keeping the DoF short is going to be difficult. You can move in closer to the subject and achieve a...

A good thing about RAW is that you can be quite safe in the knowledge that if you need to quickly get a shot and have no time to adjust the camera settings, so long as the photo is in focus it's likely you can recover a blown or under exposed shot much more successfully than you can with JPEG...

You can use a DOF calculator. It's a good tool to learn what different lenses are capable of. Try here http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

I have a D5100. I have the following and don't feel the need for anything else: Nikkor 55-300mm 4.5-56 Telephoto Nikkor 35mm 1.8 Nikkor 10-24mm Wide Angle (amazing lens for creativity) Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens (which I use when I just pick up and go) Of that, I would recommend the 35mm and the...