Sorry I should have been a little more clear. I generally shoot landscapes. So the longer lens would be for some kind of intimate woodland scene across a valley or lake, or nice looking mountain from a ways off, etc. I'm not too worries about wildlife. But I do want the sharpest image possible.

DTM, thanks a lot. Mulling all that over. I may look at the Nikon 18-200mm DX that you recommend. I don't know if I really need 300mm, but I know 135mm definitely hasn't been enough sometimes when the subject is intimate and a decent distance away.

You can always rent something longer if you are going on a trip where you know you will need it. That's what I did since I really only needed it a couple weeks out of the year and of course gives you a chance to try it out.

Well I pulled the trigger and got the Nikon 18-200 for $1k. Amazon CC is a dangerous thing. Thought about getting a used one for $300 less that supposedly was only used 800x. But I just didn't want to risk it sucking.

I'm going out to Mohave Preserve this weekend, looking forward to trying it out.



I went through there at sunset in 2005 on my first photo trip ever. Always wanted to go back and spend some time.

Good luck man, hope you like the new toy

Wow, that was fast. I was just about to post a follow up to your two replies above. Essentially it was going to say that if you wanted a super-zoom with the best edge-to-edge sharpness, the 18-200 was the way to go, especially on DX. The 28-300 has similar center sharpness as the 18-200, but much less edge sharpness. Photozone recommends the 18-200 over the 28-300 for DX bodies.

I was also going to say that even on the 18-200 there is a 20-25% sharpness falloff from center to edge. If you want even better edge sharpness you have to give up zoom ratio. The 70-300 has similar center sharpness to the other two lenses, but much better edge performance and much less distortion. There is only about a 5% center to edge sharpness falloff at 200mm.

Good luck with your new lens. There is a reason it is so popular with Nikon shooters. It is still the lens I use the most often. However, when sharpness or lens speed (wider aperture) is really important, I switch to a prime or a more expensive zoom.

Does the choice of remote I buy for my Nikon D90 at all matter? I'm probably going to buy
This

Just because it says Nikon and apparently auto focuses if you haven't by yourself (minimal concern)

Any reason to buy a different on?

Here is a link I sent my dad today to explain crop factor. It is for nikon lenses but I think it explains it pretty well.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/dx.htm

I don't consider half of these to be "walking around lenses". At a minimum zoom of 55 or 70 plus the crop factor makes these lenses difficult to even photograph indoors I guess that's what your wide angle is for though.

Well at first my plan was to go with three lenses - the wide angle, the 18-135 and then some kind of 100-300. But then I've been talked into just replacing the 18-135 with the best 18-200 you can get. I think I'll be pretty happy with that.

I hike a lot and shoot mostly landscapes, so I don't like changing lenses when I'm out hiking around etc. and there's lots of dust and dirt around. I may get a 200-300 at some point if I find myself needing it.

I think for newbs(like me) it's best to pair your lenses with complimentary lenses. I kind of did this backwards by buying lenses I needed to perform certain tasks but I was kind of clueless in the beginning.

Lenses I have for my d90

Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 I think I got it on sale for ~$500
This is my walking around lens and is pretty ideal for almost everything I want to do.

Nikon 50mm f1.4 ~$150 but i don't remember
I bought this for low light photos consisting of mainly indoor portraits and low depth of field focus and it's compact light weight. This lens doesn't really perform as I wanted I think I would have been much happier with a 35mm for indoor photography especially considering the crop factor.

Nikon 55-300 f1.4-5.6 $300 on sale
I use this mainly for sports photography, nature, anything where I'm unable to get in close. I don't really need to use this much but then again that's probably a good thing as I don't have to swap out constantly.

I think this is a pretty good mix minus what I said about the 55mm

I encourage other people to post a good mixture of lenses

yeah you probably don't need to worry much about high f-stop on while taking hiking landscapes and such anyways.

18-200>>>>>>>>>>>>55-300 for this imo

AFAIK, it is the only infra-red remote Nikon has made since they started selling digital SLRs. Also AFAIK, it works with all Nikon DX format consumer level cameras (D70, D70s, D50, D80, D40, D40x, D60, D90, D5000, D3000, D3100, D7000, D5100). Considering the low price, I can't imagine a reason to get a different IR remote.

For the D90 and newer consumer level DX cameras (D90, D5000, D3000, D3100, D7000, D5100), you can also use the MC-DC2 remote release cord. The D70s and D80 use the MC-DC1. AFAIK, there is no remote release cord for the D70, D50, D40, D40x or D60.

The higher end Nikon dSLRs use a different, ten-pin connector for wired and wireless remote control devices.

If one is using a remote to reduce camera shake and not because one is going to be in the picture, some users find the release cord more convenient to handle, and slightly less likely to get lost. Since the release cord is only a metre long, it isn't very useful for self-portraits.

Nikon advises covering the eyepiece when using a remote, to prevent light entering the camera through the eyepiece. I've never been able to figure out how to get the supplied eyepiece cover in place without moving the camera body a bit. If you have the same problem, you might want to frame the shot loosely, to allow for a little cropping. Alternatively, you can just use an elastic band to hold a small piece of thick dark cloth over the eyepiece. Or use a length of electrical tape to fasten an opaque cloth to the body above the eyepiece, so the cloth falls over the eyepiece when you move your head away.

I have a Nikon infrared remote and it's terrible. It works like maybe 20% of the time. You have to have it in just the right spot and it has to be in a good mood, etc. I switched to a wired remote. All the guys on the photo trip laughed at my wireless remote

Your lens collection does not look like the product of cluelessness. You've covered a good range with lenses that have very good quality for the price.

Many newbies have no idea what lens(es) to get, and just go for the standard kit. You seem to have avoided this error. The kit lens is rarely a good choice. (suzzer99, the 18-135 may have been been an exception.) Since one can't expect most newbies to know what sort of subjects they'll be shooting after they gain some experience, one can't expect a newbie to properly design a complete lens lineup at the get go. A good appoach is to start with one or two general purpose lenses, and add new lenses as gaps get noticed. This seems to be what you did.

Of course, there is no one correct combination of lenses. It depends on what you shoot, how much you can afford and when you buy them.


Some common approaches, assuming a cropped sensor body:

• a wide zoom and a tele zoom, perhaps with a fast prime in the middle.
• a superzoom, perhaps with a fast normal prime, and/or with an ultra-wide zoom
• an ultra-wide zoom, a midrange zoom and a tele zoom
• just a fast normal prime

Normal Primes
=========

I would love to recommend that any newbie get a fast normal prime. A prime lens is one that doesn't zoom. It has a fixed focal length. As a result they tend to be cheaper to construct and optically superior to zoom lenses. A normal lens is one which has about the same field of view as the human eye. This is roughly around 45mm on a full frame camera, or 30 mm on the APS-C crop bodies most newbies buy.

Using a prime lens, one has to "zoom with your feet" This tends to lead you to think more about perspective and composition, which is a good thing for a beginning photographer to get used to doing.

Unfortunately, a fast normal prime is not an easy option for Canon APS-C shooters. A normal lens on Canon's APS-C sensor size is about 30mm. The only 30mm lens I am aware of as available for Canon is the Sigma f/1.4, whose edge sharpness and focussing leave much to be desired. Canon offers a very good 35mm f/1.4 but it costs nearly $1.5K. They also offer a so-so 28mm f/1.8 lens, with worse optics but better focussing than the Sigma. Finally there is the ancient Canon EF 35mm f/2, which seems to have been recalled from retirement to try to partially fill the gap. It is over 20 yers old, has a noisy focus motor, no full-time manual focus, and at f/2 is a bit slower than the competition. Sharpness - meh. It costs about $320.

Given the choices, I can't enthusiasticaly recommend that Canon shooters choose a lens lineup that is built around a prime, if they have an APS-C body. If they do want a prime to start with, one of the 50mm's might be the best choice.

Nikon, in contrast, has the excellent 35mm f/1.8 DX for about $200. This lens beats all the Canon normal lenses on edge sharpness at wider than f/8, and is only caught by the $1,500 35mm f/1.4 for overall shaprness.

Both Canon and Nikon make excellent 50mm lenses. I hear of a fair number of people buying a 50mm lens as one of their first lenses.This is probably related to two things: they are inexpensive, and back in the days of film SLRs, the vast majority of new cameras came with a 50mm lens. This has led to a common perception that a 50mm is the lens to have. These lenses are easy to manufacture at a low price and 50mm is very close to normal on a full frame or film camera. It was a no-brainer for film, and still is for full-frame digital. But as you discovered, it is a bit too long on a crop-sensor body to be optimally useful. I recommend that Nikon DX shooters buy the 35mm DX before a 50mm, unless they want to take a lot of non-formal portraits with an inexpensive lens.

Superzoooms
=========
I'm using the term "superzoom' to denote a zoom lens whose longest focal length is 6x or more its shortest focal length. Popular superzooms include 18-200mm, 28-300mm.These are both 11.1:1 zooms designed for cropped and full frame sensors, respectively. They are intended to be the lens you use when you don't want to swap lenses. They cover wide to telephoto. These lenses achieve their versatilty by sacrificing image quality (mostly sharpness and distortion), aperture (they are variable aperture and slow at the long end), and by costing more. This is another category where Nikon has a clear edge, except in price. I can't really be enthusiastic about recommending a superzoom for Canon, unless you really don't care about quality, but do care a lot about focal range ratio. Nikon's 18-200 DX superzoom is worth considering if you are willing to pay the price.

Different paths for Canon and Nikon
======================
As a result of these two limitations, Canon users have fewer good choices of type of lens lineup. (Within the choices they do have, they probably have a few more individual lenses to chooose from.) Canon users are close to locked in to a two-zoom or three zoom approach. Nikon users could make those choices too, but can also go with a superzoom or a normal prime.

This lack of a good normal prime and a good superzoom for Canon APS-C bodies is one of several reasons why I continue to recommend that newbies who are primarily concerned about serious still photography choose Nikon for their first dSLR. (Newbies whose prime interest is video, I point at Canon.)

A few comments on your lenses
====================

this is an update to the original Sigma 17-70 design, that adds stabilization, and improves aperture at the longest focal length. I don't normally like 3rd-party lenses, but at the time the original came out, this lens was well worth cosidering. The new version is still a contender if you are willing to put up with a manual focus ring that moves during autofocus, and soft image edges. It is a step up from the Canon and basic Nikon kit lenses without as much of a step up in price (unless you really paid ~$500 for it, which is a bit much relative to list.)

It will do in a pinch for individual portraits (it's a bit too short to be ideal), and might work well for a tight group of two or three, but as you discovered, it is too long for generalized indoor use. Consider picking up the 35mm f/1.8 DX for the role you had in mind.

(I think you'll find that the lower focal length is actually 4.5, not 1.4.)

This is a reasonably good choice for these uses. Its autofocus speed, edge sharpness, and freedom from distortion are not as good as the 70-300. Because of this and since you have a 50mm prime and a 17-70mm zoom, I would have suggested the 70-300mm instead. Still this is a good lens for the price if you don't choose rectilinear subjects (or if you have good postpocessing software). You got an excellent deal - 25% off.

I like the way you thought about the different uses you put the camera to, and how you tried to choose lenses that matched what you wanted to shoot.

I'll put mine up in a separate post later.

Most reports of problems with the IR remote can be traced to a weak or cold battery. Battery strength especially affects working range. Also, the battery in the remote doesn't have a long life, so be sure to pack at least one spare for your trip. Other problems can stem from using it at too long a range or too oblique an angle, something obscuring the sensor or transmitter, and possibly some atmospheric and/or lighting conditions.

If the design was inherently unreliable, they would have replaced it by now. It's the same sort of technology that's in your TV remote.

Nothing wrong with using a cord. I prefer a cord for most of my remote shooting.

More great posts from DTM.

Regarding Nikon remotes - I have both the wired and wireless remotes for my D7000, and I find the wireless to be slow and unresponsive (and also temperamental) when compared to the wired version - this is with a new battery fitted. I mean, it works, but I wouldn't trust it with anything time-critical. Other things that I find much easier with the wired release include easily firing off bracketed bursts and dealing with long exposures by use of the lock switch. Plus, just having the confidence that my button press was definitely registered is reassuring!

Great help guys, I'm never concerned about being in the picture (I don't really care to photograph myself) so I'll go with the wired remote. Now I can finally get some decent astral shots...hopefully l

Thanks

I understand I want to use a polarizing lens filter on landscape shots but don't necessarily understand the science behind it. I know there are a bunch of other types of lens filters people use and they are more important than just protecting the lens. Could anyone give some good reviews or experiences with lens filters. I don't have any on my lenses right now and the only one I had I broke so I need to get at least one polarizing filter for my main lens.

Are there any times I really should avoid using them?

I read most of this and now understand why polarized lenses are better for landscapes but most of the rest of it went over my head
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...ns-filters.htm

the ND filters basically allow less light into the lens. This is done primarily to
take longer exposures. So lets say I am shooting a waterfall during the day, and I want a 4 second exposure to achieve a silky water effect. I can put an ND filter on (or stack a few) and then shoot @ f/16 for 4 seconds. Normally the image would be blown out, but since the ND filters prevent light from coming in, I will get the correct exposure. Usually the higher the number on the filter the more light it blocks out (like ND8 will allow less light than ND2).

For video, a lot of guys wanna shoot wide open @ 1/30 shutter during the day to get shallow depth of field, and a more "Hollywood filmic" look. Pretty much they need to use ND filters if they wanna shoot @ f/2.8 1/30 during the day.

The graduated ND filters, do the same thing as regular ND filters, only the light blockage is not uniform. So maybe the bottom half of the filter lets in 100% light, while the top half blocks out a little bit of light. This is done to get the exposure right when you have conflicting light or lack of light in a shot. So maybe a sky is very bright, but the foreground cave/rock/house is very dark. In this case you can position the graduated ND filter so that it darkens the sky a bit, while keeping the foreground bright. Usually this works best with like horizon lines where there are two distinct halves to the picture.

I think CP and ND filters are the most common and most practical. The CP is useful when you are out and about in the sun shooting stuff, while the ND serves a more specialized purpose.

Don't know much about haze and UV filters. I am not sure what purpose they serve. I always thought of UV filters as pieces of glass that protect your lens.

^ that cleared it up a lot.


UV filters are supposed to block reflected light. So if you are taking pictures of water/glass you can make it less glare or shimmery.

Polarized filters block reflected light (from non metallic surfaces), not UV filters

**** that's what I meant, polarized

Interesting article about depth of field (DOF) in macro photography:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/3064907237/depth-of-field-in-macro-photography

Most of its concepts apply equally well to other photographic situations with shallow DOF.

The article is on two pages. The first page discuss the causes and effects of shallow DOF. The second page describes two techniques for dealing with unavoidably shallow DOF other than increasing the DOF by adjusting aperture or magnification.