Nikon D750 & D780

ukaskew said:
If looking at zooms are any of the third party 70-200s reliable (particularly AF), or is it worth hunting down an 80-200 AF-S (owned and loved)? VR isn't a requirement.



Should have said but (quick) AF is a necessity.
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Third party 70-200s are great, particularly the Tamron VC. Minnnt picked up a Nikon VR1 within your budget.
 
If it's for portraiture then i would consider saving the extra for one of the Nikon DC's. If you're gonna use it for motorsport then I'd pick up the 70-200. The Tamron is excellent but doesn't accept TC's if that's important?
 
I spent the day yesterday at our local village farm & agriculture show. It was a glorious day (too sunny for photography, really) but I had decided to see what it was like walking around with just the 50mm on the camera. I had my 24-70 zoom in the backpack just in case, but I have to say, it was actually surprisingly enjoyable sticking to a single f/l for such a range of different types of shots...

From extreme close-ups:
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To fairly-close-ups:
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To context shots:
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The only negative is the 50mm isn't patch on the 85mm for portraits. Even with the help of some dappled shade and a wistful gaze into the mid-distance from my youngest, I don't like the bokeh anywhere near as much:
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I still love the D750's ability to capture such a wide dynamic range though (and highlight priority exposure!) - especially useful to rescue what you can in nasty bright conditions...
 
Looks like a good day, Paul. I was dying with a hangover sadly!

Looks like extremely shallow DoF on the bird? I'm looking at a prime for the X-T10 now, possibly the 27mm pancake as a nice compact walkabout lens.
 
Ha ha - didn't realise you were still perusing this thread Ian, given your system change?!

Yes, I shot the bird at f/1.8 to get the background to fall away. I didn't mind that the rest of its feet etc. were OOF as I was just mucking around. It's not a prize-winning shot by any stretch!

I'm dying with a cold (not quite, TBF) and my wife is out for a 15 mile walk with her friends. One child is still asleep (she has the cold) and the other is watching Star Wars. This childcare lark isn't so tough is it?

Right, I'd better get down and get them both up and outside!
 
Ian W said:
Looks like a good day, Paul. I was dying with a hangover sadly!

Looks like extremely shallow DoF on the bird? I'm looking at a prime for the X-T10 now, possibly the 27mm pancake as a nice compact walkabout lens.
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I had the 27,its a lovely small lens,decent IQ too.
 
Went out yesterday with the 15-30 Tamron, and was having fun, when the b`stard locked up on me! Zoom totally jammed and going nowhere at all. After a quick search, it seems they don`t tighten the screws down properly, so it`s going back. Rather disappointed to say the least. Did managed a couple of pix though ...

Bench by Paulie-W, on Flickr

A walk in the woods by Paulie-W, on Flickr
 
pjm1 said:
Ha ha - didn't realise you were still perusing this thread Ian, given your system change?!

Yes, I shot the bird at f/1.8 to get the background to fall away. I didn't mind that the rest of its feet etc. were OOF as I was just mucking around. It's not a prize-winning shot by any stretch!

I'm dying with a cold (not quite, TBF) and my wife is out for a 15 mile walk with her friends. One child is still asleep (she has the cold) and the other is watching Star Wars. This childcare lark isn't so tough is it?

Right, I'd better get down and get them both up and outside!
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Can I swap your 2 kids for mine please? 6am every morning, the 2 of them are up, 5.45am this morning I kept them occupied, made bottles etc till 8 and then shook their mummy out of bed and I'm at the river now for some peace!
 
Totally depends on your style and how you like to shoot. I'll be honest and say I prefer shooting with an 85 as walk-around (!!) But that means there are simply some shots I can't get. I used the 50 yesterday and never felt there was a shot I could get because I needed wider... conversely, I found I was up in the faces of sheep etc because I didn't have a longer f/l!
 
pjm1 said:
Totally depends on your style and how you like to shoot. I'll be honest and say I prefer shooting with an 85 as walk-around (!!) But that means there are simply some shots I can't get. I used the 50 yesterday and never felt there was a shot I could get because I needed wider... conversely, I found I was up in the faces of sheep etc because I didn't have a longer f/l!
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Our county show, you'd never get a shot if you waited for people to get out of the way to get a decent pic with the 85 :p
 
Paulie-W said:
Went out yesterday with the 15-30 Tamron, and was having fun, when the b`stard locked up on me! Zoom totally jammed and going nowhere at all. After a quick search, it seems they don`t tighten the screws down properly, so it`s going back. Rather disappointed to say the least. Did managed a couple of pix though ...
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Is that a known issue?
 
pjm1 said:
Ha ha - didn't realise you were still perusing this thread Ian, given your system change?!

Yes, I shot the bird at f/1.8 to get the background to fall away. I didn't mind that the rest of its feet etc. were OOF as I was just mucking around. It's not a prize-winning shot by any stretch!

I'm dying with a cold (not quite, TBF) and my wife is out for a 15 mile walk with her friends. One child is still asleep (she has the cold) and the other is watching Star Wars. This childcare lark isn't so tough is it?

Right, I'd better get down and get them both up and outside!
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Yeah, I get it. I used to do the same with my 35mm f1.8...impressive just how shallow a DoF you can get, more so with a FF camera I'm sure.

I just haven't got around to unsubscribing tbh. Some of the images are pretty impressive and it's hard not to think I may come back to Nikon some day, perhaps with a D750 ;)
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
I had the 27,its a lovely small lens,decent IQ too.
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Yeah, reviews are favourable apart from the as shallow DoF as you'd expect from an f2.8 and lack of aperture ring?
phil_b said:
Can I swap your 2 kids for mine please? 6am every morning, the 2 of them are up, 5.45am this morning I kept them occupied, made bottles etc till 8 and then shook their mummy out of bed and I'm at the river now for some peace!
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Yours sounds more like mine, Phil. He was up at quarter to six this morning [emoji42]
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
35 or 50 as awalk about on d750? What do people on here prefer and
why?
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28. :LOL: But mostly 24-85 TBH.

I find that I 'tune in' to a focal length after a while if I just have the one to choose from, no matter what it is, and stop seeing pictures that another lens would be better suited to. But that might be because I'm not a normal photographer. :D
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
35 or 50 as awalk about on d750? What do people on here prefer and
why?
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35mm for me, as I found a 50 too restricting. I also usually pop the 85 in the bag, as it doesn`t weigh much ;)
 
JYC said:
Our county show, you'd never get a shot if you waited for people to get out of the way to get a decent pic with the 85 :p
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To be fair, this is just our local village show. The neighbouring village had a competing show on yesterday as well - it's not exactly a grand affair!

To be honest, I like "searching for the image" with a fixed focal length. It forces you to try to take slightly different types of shots than you might with a zoom. And a longer f/l means you're picking out elements of a scene rather than the whole thing.

Totally horses for courses though - and it's probably just a fad I'm going through with my 85mm to be fair.

And Ed nails it for me (especially the last bit!):

Ed Sutton said:
28. :LOL: But mostly 24-85 TBH.

I find that I 'tune in' to a focal length after a while if I just have the one to choose from, no matter what it is, and stop seeing pictures that another lens would be better suited to. But that might be because I'm not a normal photographer. :D
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Yeah that's ok too. Never owned the 18-55 but the 18 was a beauty. 23 is the dogs danglies but had two 35's and they were both poor wide open.

Looking forward to getting the 24mm, gonna try and just use that for a month (doubt it'll happen!) and try and learn it inside out.
 
juggler said:
Which camera calibration settings are you using on import? You may find a different one gets you closer to the end result with less work.

I like it, btw.
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Livin The Dream said:
I missed the original from Paul (easily done in this thread, had 3 manic days at work and had pages to catch up!)

Personally, I prefer to set up a profile in LR. I find it a PITA to copy those adjustments layers across multiple images. The curve control isn't as responsive as in PS but once you have a tone that can be saved (think I have a dozen curves saved as a preset) and colours are easily tweaked. I tend to dip into PS purely for cleaning up, if I want to go to that length.
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Thanks guys and sorry for the delay in replying to you both. Good point about import settings. That exercise was really just about playing with PS but if I can get split toning to work the way I want it to in LR, that saves a LOT of effort.

Another bit of experimentation today - how can I shoot with flash in midday sun without HSS?

ND filters! This isn't great by any stretch, but as an experiment to further my knowledge it's been useful. I mounted a decent-sized diffuser onto a solid light stand above my "model" which helped lower the direct sun down to a gentler fill. I stuck an ND4 (2 stop) in front of my lens which at f4 was reading 1/250, so just in range of sync. I put my Smartflash on 1/4 power firing through a beauty dish and this is the result:


Experiment with midday flash by Paul M, on Flickr

And perhaps a more successful one of her brother:


Silly face #3741 by Paul M, on Flickr
 
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pjm1 said:
Thanks guys and sorry for the delay in replying to you both. Good point about import settings. That exercise was really just about playing with PS but if I can get split toning to work the way I want it to in LR, that saves a LOT of effort.

Another bit of experimentation today - how can I shoot with flash in midday sun without HSS?

ND filters! This isn't great by any stretch, but as an experiment to further my knowledge it's been useful. I mounted a decent-sized diffuser onto a solid light stand above my "model" which helped lower the direct sun down to a gentler fill. I stuck an ND4 (2 stop) in front of my lens which at f4 was reading 1/250, so just in range of sync. I put my Smartflash on 1/4 power firing through a beauty dish and this is the result:


Experiment with midday flash by Paul M, on Flickr

And perhaps a more successful one of her brother:


Silly face #3741 by Paul M, on Flickr
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I alternate between camera portrait, camera standard and the results of shooting a Spydr Datachecker. On my Oly I tend to use a neutral profile from Huelight.
 
Ed Sutton said:
28. :LOL: But mostly 24-85 TBH.

I find that I 'tune in' to a focal length after a while if I just have the one to choose from, no matter what it is, and stop seeing pictures that another lens would be better suited to. But that might be because I'm not a normal photographer. :D
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I often find more things to photograph the more restricted I am.
 
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