My gear - boast about your gear here

[ssil2000]

i need to update my lenses i hate my 18-55 and 55-200 i tend to try to use my tammy which is not really versitile, i think i need to think about the 24-120 f4 i need to see a real world review of that i think.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Hoping we can all play nice and educate each other about our gear choices, ultimately saving us and lurkers making purchasing errors.

Here's a thread where many people discussed selling their 18-200VR Nikkors and what they replaced them with to get better image quality.

http://www.dcresource.com/forums/sho...ghlight=18-200

I'll happily read everyone's gear bragging or thoughts irrespective of brand, hell I'll count most of you as my internet friends.

In summary, 18-200VR, very convenient, never missed a shot and got some shots I really like. Eventually I filled a wall with these pretty good shots and decided I wanted a few great shots. This meant having to change from an all in 1 lens with a slight lack of sharpness to specialised lenses.

One thing that holds some people back from interchangeable lenses is worry about dust. I've changed my lenses heaps (though in the car or room with still air) and only now after 3 years have to clean my sensor, which I'm now confident enough to try.

[jcon]

I mean we might as well start posting canon and pentax photos in the NIKON Pic of the day thread... cmon guys lets all build a bridge and get over it.

There already have been some Canon people that have posted their Canon pics in the Nikon DSLR Pic of The Day Thread.... strange, eh?

[photowerkz]

Something on topic... And it is Nikon gear, made by nikon, in the nikon forum, shot with a nikon camera using a nikkor lens.
Hope that it is alright.

The nikkor 70-300 VR (shot with the d700 + 85mm f1.4g)



My workhorse. It's the one lens I've used most this summer, seeing as I've been to a lot of trackdays (www.mariusaasheim.net). Very nice
wide zoom ring that feels just right; not too loose, not too tight. The focus ring is quite small, so I suppose using it for manual focusing isn't the
best ting in the world. But, then again, this isn't some overpriced leica without AF so we can just forget about that.

It's light enough for you to carry it around for hours, but not light in the sense that it feels poorly buildt or flimsy. Build quality is good, and it has a
solid feel. It has a manual override, ON/OFF for VR and NORMAL and ACTIVE mode for the VR. NORMAL mode detects panning motion and stops
correction of sideways motion. ACTIVE mode has VR on full attack no matter what.

Faults? A drop of something that looks like oil has dropped down on the inside of the front element after a few months, but it hasn't effected IQ in
any way that I have found. Flare has never been an issue, so I don't use the hood on it.

It's no 70-200 f2.8 VRII in the IQ department, but it's not some kit lens piece of pooh either. For the price, this lens delivers in spades and I'll
happily recomend it to anyone looking for a lens of this type.

One thing: when I was looking at user reviews of this lens, before I bought mine, I found some statements from others that it was OK on their
crop body but really came alive on their D700. So a small disclaimer may be in order: my only experience with this lens is on the D700.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

The 70-300 VR was my favourite lens on my crop body for a long time. I notice a lack of contrast with it, but for the money it's always been my best way to get subject isolation.

It also focusses very close and quickly in decent light, much closer than the 70-200 so you can get passable shots of flowers and butterflies with it.

[jr_rodriguez]

Being completely selfish here, I say we need more people talking/reviewing tripods.
I am in the market for one, and tripod leg/ballhead combination choices are mind-boggling.

Marius: thanks for your review of your tripods.

JR

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

This is my biggest gripe with the Manfrotto 322RC2 quick release plate.

Any time I put the cam in portrait orientation this baseplate rotates. If the baseplate was purpose designed for the camera (D300) then it wouldn't rotate because it could lock into the socket in the body that was obviously designed for that purpose.

[achuang]

I've got the ballhead 486RC2 and I believe it has the same quick release plate. I've never had a problem of it loosening with just hand tightening. Even with a battery grip it doesn't budge in portrait orientation.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

The RC2 is the baseplate designation from memory so yes same baseplate. Ages ago, when I asked others here, no-one had the same problem as me. I do hand tighten it pretty hard too.

[achuang]

Any mates nearby with the same quick release plate you could try? Does SSIL have the same tripod head? It might be worth a try to go into a shop to try out another copy of the same quick release plate. If it works fine then it wouldn't cost too much to order a replacement quick release plate.