HECUBUS said:

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No primes, just 28-70 and 70-180 2.8's for sports.

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Love the 70-180 on the a9 for my grandgirls sports.

MBAR said:

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How is everyone's first prime not a nifty fifty?

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I own one but absolutely never ever used it. That is why I didn't mention it.

MBAR said:

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How is everyone's first prime not a nifty fifty?

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I bought a 24-70 and 70-200 right off the bat, so a 50mm focal length was covered, but I didn't have a macro, so I bought a macro.

My first prime I bought is my 500mm f4, which I still have. It all depends on what your shooting interest and style is.

labmansid said:

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My first prime I bought is my 500mm f4, which I still have. It all depends on what your shooting interest and style is.

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You certainly started at the top!

dubi said:

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labmansid said:

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My first prime I bought is my 500mm f4, which I still have. It all depends on what your shooting interest and style is.

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You certainly started at the top!

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And he can still haul it around. I know he has a gym membership in town somewhere. The same lens is my reason for switching to Sony. I had to go lite
but I can run faster. (grins)

BMo said:

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dubi said:

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labmansid said:

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My first prime I bought is my 500mm f4, which I still have. It all depends on what your shooting interest and style is.

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You certainly started at the top!

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And he can still haul it around. I know he has a gym membership in town somewhere. The same lens is my reason for switching to Sony. I had to go lite
but I can run faster. (grins)

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Haha! No gym membership needed, that lens gives me my upper body workout on its own! As I get older, I have had to resort to using a monopod with it after Spring migration nearly killed me.

dubi said:

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labmansid said:

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My first prime I bought is my 500mm f4, which I still have. It all depends on what your shooting interest and style is.

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You certainly started at the top!

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It was a bit of a jump from my old Kodak 1.6MP point and shoot!

labmansid said:

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BMo said:

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dubi said:

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labmansid said:

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My first prime I bought is my 500mm f4, which I still have. It all depends on what your shooting interest and style is.

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You certainly started at the top!

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And he can still haul it around. I know he has a gym membership in town somewhere. The same lens is my reason for switching to Sony. I had to go lite
but I can run faster. (grins)

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Haha! No gym membership needed, that lens gives me my upper body workout on its own! As I get older, I have had to resort to using a monopod with it after Spring migration nearly killed me.

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I understand the spring migration. That is what finally broke me.

So I got me a bottle and it worked wonderfully. Before and after pics:




Thanks!

You're quite welcome! Glad you found something to give you clearer views. I'll admit, it took my old brain a few seconds to figure out what you were talking about!

On a related note, I just yesterday ordered some more of the individually packaged wipes that were discussed. I had some from the kit with the fluid, but used most of them up this spring while shooting little birds during migration along the coast. They work quite well also.

So I haven't contributed much but recently I took graduation photos for my daughter and her friends and friends kids. Pretty much dusted off my Camera and lenses, recharged batteries and went out shooting. Had a great time.

So has the industry moved to mirrorless even more so? Are pros moving to mirrorless yet?

AggieDruggist89 said:

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So I haven't contributed much but recently I took graduation photos for my daughter and her friends and friends kids. Pretty much dusted off my Camera and lenses, recharged batteries and went out shooting. Had a great time.

So has the industry moved to mirrorless even more so? Are pros moving to mirrorless yet?

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I moved to mirrorless back in 2018. I was willing to switch brands from Canon to Sony to do it. I know a number of folks that wouldn't do that but are now buying the Canon and Nikon mirrorless versions since they are available. I believe we have hit a time that mirrorless will begin to out sell the DSLR. Also, as phones develop more sophisticated cameras, more will quit buying a "camera" IMO. This is a dilemma the camera companies have to deal with and market against.

I made a new thread but thought I might ask here too. In the market for a new laptop and the main thing I used my old one for was photogrpahy/editing. So I need something that runs photoshop and lightroom well. If it doesn't break the bank that's a plus too lol

Any suggestions?

Probably not best for the "breaking the bank" category, but the new M1 MacBooks are worth checking out. Adobe is in the process of updating all of their apps to run natively on the new chips and they're apparently blazing fast.

I usually try to go with a good gaming based laptop as they have what is usually required component wise, especially in the graphics department, for working with photos and video. Lightroom is a resource hog and needs more than a basic laptop has to run efficiently.

My previous laptop was an ASUS ROG, and I was pretty happy with it. It did start having wifi issues and one or two others, plus it was bulky and heavy, so a couple of years ago I started looking for something else and wanted one that was lighter and easier to carry around. I settled on a Dell Inspiron that seemed to fit the bill. It has a decent processor for the time, enough RAM and a SSD.

I should have stuck with another ASUS ROG or similar. My Dell can't handle having Lightroom going plus a browser open at the same time. Sometimes even with just LR open it randomly crashes. I think a big part of its problem is insufficient cooling, in part because it is so thin. So I cannot recommend a Dell for photo/video editing.

As already mentioned, I have heard good things about the new Apple MacBook. For Windows based, the newer AMD Ryzen platform is supposed to be comparable, but neither option is inexpensive, especially now with the problems with chip availability. If you can wait for a while, that might be advisable, regardless of which way you decide to go. My next laptop will likely be another gaming based one that can handle more intense graphics demands and have better heat dissipation. Just my .02 worth.

So you wouldn't recommend a Dell Inspiron? I found this one on amazon that has an intel i7, 512 gb ssd, NVIDIA GeForce MX330, 4.7 GHz, 4 core for $740 that I was considering. I have a laptop stand I used for my last laptop to help with the cooling

Another one I found is this Lenovo on amazon that has an i5 9300h, 512gb ssd, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, 2.4 GHz, 1 core. Some reviews talk about using it for lightroom and photoshop

Just based on my experience, I can't recommend a Dell. Of course, with newer and faster processers and such, they may do much better than mine. Or maybe I just got one with a bad component, I don't know. I also would go with at least 16GB of RAM, and preferably 32. My last 2-3 laptops had 32. I have watched task manager while running various tasks in LR, and it easily maxes out at times over 16GB of usage. I'm sure it would still run on 8GB, but performance would suffer. Also, I noticed in several of the better reviews of that Dell, that the reviewer had the version with the AMD chip instead of Intel. And most people didn't seem to be using them for more intensive applications. I also saw that one owner mentioned how it overheated quickly, same as mine.

That Lenova doesn't look bad, I have heard generally good things about Lenova laptops. Plus it is more of an actual gaming laptop. Again though, if it were me I would get at least 16GB of RAM.

I ended up going with this Lenovo. It has the 16gb of ram, 512gb ssd, AMD Ryzen 7-4700U, 8 core, AMD Radeon Graphics. I'm sure it'll get the job done

Looks like a pretty good deal.

Guppy91 said:

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Any tips on imaging through the windows of a commercial passenger jet? Specifically, on an Airbus 319 row 15 attempting to capture the Annular Solar Eclipse of 6/10/21 at dawn.
Pretty sure there will be distortion/aberration issues....
Blah blah blah ....

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Report: Many of us (even the pros) had struggles with photographing this eclipse. The windows on the 19 year old plane didn't help. Difficult to get long focal length lenses in focus through the multiple panes, no reference at dawn to practice, brightness at 39,000ft forced solar filter very early in the process , and we had to adjust exposures lengths with plane bouncing; it was a hot mess! Learned a bunch though.

Below is a recap of the flight... including the write-up because it's loaded with detailed info on gear, setups, and results that folks here may find useful.
https://pauldmaley.com/2021-annular-solar-eclipse-flight/
Result example:

Anyone have recommendations for a lens to rent for a full frame Nikon for an airshow in July? Looking for something fast enough to get good results below 1/125 shutter speed.

OldArmyBrent said:

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Anyone have recommendations for a lens to rent for a full frame Nikon for an airshow in July? Looking for something fast enough to get good results below 1/125 shutter speed.

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200-500 5.6.

Slow shutter speed will be rough with any long lens.

I shoot 1/1000 shutter for jets and 1/325 for props.

Where did you get the "below 1/125"? Your results will be awful.

dubi said:

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I shoot 1/1000 shutter for jets and 1/325 for props.

Where did you get the "below 1/125"? Your results will be awful.

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Jets are fine much faster obviously. I've had trouble not getting sufficient prop blur above that depending on the plane. The bigger stuff with longer propellers only spinning at 2000 RPM makes it tough. I'll have a week to get it figured out, though. I'll look into a 200-500 5.6.

Regarding which lens to use, I concur that the 200-500 will be your best bet. Fantastic lens from Nikon. I shoot Canon and use their 100-400 predominately for airshows using a "crop" body. When shooting an airshow, you probably won't have to worry much about needing a "fast" lens since it will be in daylight with plenty of light available.

Regarding the prop blur, I also find 1/320 to be a good compromise for shutter speed on the faster fighter types. For larger and slower planes, 1/250 or 1/200 usually works okay but can be iffy. Much slower than those, and you better have some mad panning skills to get sharp photos of the main body of the plane.

Here is a typical shot I've gotten using a shutter speed of 1/320.



BTW, but just curious. What show are you planning on going to? The big one in Ohio?

I'm going to Yellowstone coming up and would like a lens for wildlife / photos from a distance. I have a Nikon d5600 I use.

Any suggestions? I was looking at one on Amazon - Nikon AF-P DX NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR. It's relatively cheap and has VR which I think I would need for what I'm going to need it for. Thoughts/other suggestions?

Have you considered renting a lens? It's probably cheaper than buying that lens, and I'd pick the 200-500 over the 70-300 every day of the week. Just a thought.

As a hobbyist wildlife photographer, I would say 300mm is an absolute minimum focal length for something like this. I started out many years ago with a 70-300. Found myself longing for something more. Do you plan on doing more of this type in the future, or mostly just looking for something for this trip?

The Nikon 200-500 we were just discussing above would be more suited for your trip, or for any outings like this in the future, but of course is about a grand more expensive. If you only really need something for now for the trip, renting that lens would be a good option. The 70-300 you referenced is a decent moderate telephoto zoom and will produce good photos, just be prepared to do a good amount of cropping if an animal is pretty far away from you.

Another option is to rent, or possibly buy, one of the Tamron or Sigma 150-600 zoom telephotos. I know of people that use one or the other of those, and get great photos of distant animals.

labmansid said:

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Another option is to rent, or possibly buy, one of the Tamron or Sigma 150-600 zoom telephotos. I know of people that use one or the other of those, and get great photos of distant animals.

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Oh man, I didn't even think about the Tamron. That's another good option if you're willing to rent.

I've never rented a lens before, what all does that entail?

So there are several companies that do this, I'm partial to LensRentals.com. Basically you go on their website, pick out the equipment you would like to rent, and the days you would like it. They offer insurance (2 levels, one includes theft and the other doesn't), which I recommend, but you can do without if you can stomach the risk. They will ship it to show up no later than the first day of your requested period, and in my case it's always shown up a day earlier than that. When you get home, you box everything back up and use the included return shipping label and send it back. It's been a very easy and smooth process for me the 3 or 4 times I've done it, and the quality of the lenses I've received has been top notch.

I generally schedule it to arrive 2 days before I leave so that I can familiarize myself with the lens and also return it immediately if something was wrong (which hasn't happened yet).

Okay awesome I might try that then. Thanks for the info!