Camera Help

[pittpa]

Shot this guy with my longest lens, a 150-600 zoomed out.
With the Nikon Small Sensor, DX cameras you get a 1.5 multiplier effect.
So it’s a 900 mm shot.

I learned that after I bought a used Nikon D 70 with a 35 to 80 zoom and a 28 to 200 zoom. It wouldn’t go as wide as my iPhone 13 until I bought a 19 to 35 Nikon zoom which was a reasonable price and really works well. It’s just a 6 mp camera.
What was cool was that even 15 years after that camera’s release in 2004, Sony made good on the battery recall when I turned it into their website.
This little 2 mp Casio fit in an altoids tin and takes great pics. When I first had it, I took it to a Jimmy Buffett concert and it fell out of my shirt pocket and into my margarita.
It was used to take as many as half these eight by tens from antelope Canyon Arizona.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

I have the 8mm trick pan lens, but my widest regular lens is the 10-24 Zoom.
Which on the Nikon DX becomes a 15-36.
Since I’m more of a long shooter than a wide shooter, not that big a deal for me.
One Mo Time - The Smartphone Cameras are so good they have pretty much killed the Point and Shoots.
My first Digital Camera was a Nikon point and shoot which had a shutter response so frigging slow that I took pics of my feet!
So when you see Elvis in that Caddy eating that cheeseburger, pull out your Smartphone and shoot away!
Or a really weird car drive pass in a parking lot.

 

[DWalt]

My opinion on the best single lens for my Nikons is the 18-55 VR. Seldom do I need to use any setting in the lower end of that range but it's there if needed. Optics are outstanding and it is relatively inexpensive, can be found used for less than $100. I have read that with the advent of very high pixel count digital cameras, many users are going back to using only a 50mm single focal length VR primary lens instead of zooms for everything and then simply cropping and resizing the image in Photoshop, etc. to simulate whatever degree of focal length magnification is desired. Seems simple enough and feasible to me as it eliminates the need for carrying around bulky zoom or long focal length telephoto lenses. One camera and one lens for all purposes.

 

[Walkin Horse]

Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions. I bought a refurbished Canon r100 bundle. It’s a 3 lens kit with a flash tripod filters and all the little dodads that add up. And a 64 go card. It should be here on Wednesday.

 

[oldbrownhat]

...I'd also recommend getting a cheap older version of Photoshop. I use PS7, got a copy free many years back, and I have it installed on all of my computers. Unless you plan to become a Pro, PS v.7 will do anything you are likely to ever need. Today's PS is by subscription only and is very expensive.

A very good alternative to PS is Affinity Photo. Far less expensive ($70.00) and no subscription. My gf used PS for years as it came with the Adobe suite provided by the university but they don't do that now, so she switched to Affinity and really likes it as it provides all the pro features of PS (and will open .psd files.) As as regards getting a printer, beware of HP (and maybe others) when it comes to replacing the cartridges, esp. if you must have it connected to the net. The printers are inexpensive, so the mfrs. make their $$ on the cartridges. HP can detect when a non-HP cartridge is insterted and refuse to accept it! I sent this WaPo article to a friend who got caught in this:

Printer ink is a scam. Here’s how to spend less.

I recently needed to replace the ink on my HP inkjet printer. Four little name-brand HP cartridges of yellow, blue, red and black cost me $123. Ounce for ounce, that’s more than the price of Dom Pérignon champagne. Yet the actual ink in each cartridge likely cost about $2 to manufacture, industry insiders tell me. Americans are wasting some $10 billion each year on name-brand ink they could have refilled for less, according to the Public Interest Research Group...​

...Once you’ve brought home their printer, it’s not in the companies’ interest to help you economize on ink. When they flash a “low ink” warning, it doesn’t mean the cartridge is actually out of ink — there could be a few pages left, or a few hundred. And as much as half of the ink in a cartridge can get wasted just by your printer running maintenance cycles, according to a Consumer Reports investigation. “The printer companies created a perverse business model,” says Aaron Leon, the CEO of LD Products, which has been selling printer supplies for two decades. So much of the industry’s R&D effort, he says, goes into stopping companies like his from making and selling aftermarket ink. The industry’s number one nasty trick: embedding microchips in the ink cartridges. The companies say it’s to ensure the quality of your print and track when you’re running low on supplies. But they also use the microchips to make it harder (or at least scarier) for you to try to use compatible ink from other makers...​

 

[TX-Dennis]

A very good alternative to PS is Affinity Photo.

There's also Photoshop Elements. I bought last year's version (I guess it's now two years old) for $39. It does everything I want to do, but I'm far from a pro.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

I use Photoshop Express on my iPad.
My only complaint is they continually attempt to upgrade you!

 

[oldbrownhat]

I use Photoshop Express on my iPad.
My only complaint is they continually attempt to upgrade you!

My gf says that Affinity (also avail. for iOS) has started doing this, too. And that in some cases, files made with older versions won't open in newer ones But she is now a firm Affinity believer nonetheless. The upgrades aren't all that expensive and overall cheaper than a PS subscription. Affinity also have equivalents to the other Adobe programs, like Illustrator and InDesign.

I run Mac almost exclusively and have used Graphic Converter for general photo cleanup for about 20 years. But it's Mac only, which is really unfortunate as it is an excellent program.

 

[DWalt]

There are many free photo editors. But most of their utility is limited to relatively simple tasks such as cropping, and adjusting contrast, brightness, and color balance. That is probably enough for most users. In the early 2000s, Microsoft offered a pretty decent photo editor with some interesting features, one of which was an automatic image optimizer. Another was a large library of special effects, some of which were really neat (but most weren't). I don't remember its name but I still have a copy of it somewhere. I only played with it a little as I already had an early version of Photoshop, I think V. 4. I believe MS still has some photo editor in the Office suite but I have never tried it. I am still using the MS Office 2003 Pro, so I don't know anything about it. It will be a cold day in Hell before I use Office 365.

 

[kozmic]

I have been shooting Nikon since 1979, so unless you want to venture down that road I can only provide somewhat generic advise. I would suggest a mirrorless DSLR kit. Whether a full size sensor or a DX 1/2 size the kit lenses have come a long way (at least at the Nikon store).
The Kit lenses tend to be light weight and have great glass. I have a F 24-70 F2.8 F lens from Nikon. My D7II came with a 24-70 F4.0 Z mirrorless lens. The prior F2.8 is a $2k lens and the kit F4Z is a $700-800+/- stand alone lens. It was a $500 premium over a body only purchase. If I didn't have a couple of older F series bodies I would sell that and several of my other F lenses and replace them with Z lenses.
I know most of this is gibberish, but my point is, that the kits allow for a discounted lenses that are very crisp and easy to carry all day. Also, the new tech is mirrorless. Whether you go Nikon, Canon, Sony etc. give serious thought to a mirrorless kit and a full sized sensor if the pricing fits your budget. As for used gear. Lenses...for sure. Bodies...perhaps with careful inspection.

 

[Nevada Ed]

All my family and posting pictures are taken with a

Cannon Power Shot SD780 IS

that was referbished and bought back in 2/12/2011.

My old, super camera with special and a big ZOOM lens was a old 35 mm.
The pictures were sharp and perfect but that was when you could play games and even do B&W stills, and add filters, lighting and timing to your pictures.

At my age, I almost need a tri-pod to take a good picture.

 

[DWalt]

I have been shooting Nikon since 1979, so unless you want to venture down that road I can only provide somewhat generic advise. I would suggest a mirrorless DSLR kit. Whether a full size sensor or a DX 1/2 size the kit lenses have come a long way (at least at the Nikon store).
The Kit lenses tend to be light weight and have great glass. I have a F 24-70 F2.8 F lens from Nikon. My D7II came with a 24-70 F4.0 Z mirrorless lens. The prior F2.8 is a $2k lens and the kit F4Z is a $700-800+/- stand alone lens. It was a $500 premium over a body only purchase. If I didn't have a couple of older F series bodies I would sell that and several of my other F lenses and replace them with Z lenses.
I know most of this is gibberish, but my point is, that the kits allow for a discounted lenses that are very crisp and easy to carry all day. Also, the new tech is mirrorless. Whether you go Nikon, Canon, Sony etc. give serious thought to a mirrorless kit and a full sized sensor if the pricing fits your budget. As for used gear. Lenses...for sure. Bodies...perhaps with careful inspection.

I picked up two of the older Nikon kit lenses very cheap (about $120 for both) on eBay, the AF-S 18-55 VR II and 55-200 VR DX lenses. Their optical quality is plenty good enough for nearly everyone. Very few Nikon users will ever need any more capability than what those two kit lenses can provide. I don't know anything about kit lenses from other makers, but they would almost necessarily have to be equal to Nikon's just to stay competitive in the marketplace.

 

[Faulkner]

For outdoor and wildlife pictures I use one of two lens exclusively, a 70-300 VR Zoom or a 120-600 VR Zoom on my Nikon D5300.

For family pictures and everything else I use a iPhone 14.

 

[DWalt]

I have an AF Nikon 70-300mm FX lens which is effectively a 105-450mm if on a DX body. Very seldom do I use it now. Back when I did use it, it was mainly for taking photos of deer and javelina using a 35mm F5 film body. With the ultra high pixel count sensors on new digital cameras of today, there is increasingly less need for such long telephoto lenses. There are even cell phones now available with cameras having 200 MP sensors. That is insanely high. I can easily believe that the day is near when all cameras will have only a single focal length prime lens (or maybe something other than a conventional lens) and zooming will be entirely digital instead of optical and with nearly an infinite range and packed full of AI for flawless focus, superb resolution, and perfect exposure control. And they will be found only on cell phones or whatever personal communication devices replace them. Every other camera type of today will go the way of the dodo bird, and they can't even be sold on eBay because no one will want to buy them. Exactly like most of the high-end film cameras of 25 years ago perished. One thing I would NOT recommend doing today is putting serious money into any high-end conventional digital camera and lenses unless you are a working pro who really, really needs one right now to make a living.