contemplating whether to get a 70200 or a new semipro camcorder

forgot to ask.when, where and how much did u get your 70200vrii? if u dont mind me askin..hehe



BTW,

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 16 2010, 12:22 PM

not menghadap matahari.. the opposite actually.the sun is at the back. I had to PP to get the details and for the bride to be bright enough like if i were to use a 2-3 sb600.

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 16 2010, 04:00 PM

I dont know about 3rd party batt grip. The only major/noticable difference that i can see is that 3rd party bg do not have the sturdiness, and rubbery feel as the ori bg. Im using an ori BG.

Physical built of the 3rd party battery, it is fine actually. I've been using it and no probs. The only thing one should note is that the 3rd party battery drains faster than an ori battery. Your choice. Price VS performance. That's all. I have one ori and one 3rd party batt.

Im with you... im more in love with a D3s than a D3x...gotta love that low noise at high iso thingy...D3s' STANDARD iso 12800 and it's like looking at D90's iso 3200 or lower..imo.

waa,,,cannot nego aa..hmm.. considering to buy the 70-200..still thinking..

I dont really want to achieve "glow" at all, but when I do prints this "glow" is the difference between a well lit pic and and a dark pic. This pic is shot with the SB600 straight on the subject and the sun at the back of the subject, so I need to really pump up the exposure on the brides. Sorry I don't have the umbrella at the time.

I dont know about you, but I have to send a lot of images for photo processing and learned quite a bit from doing it.

1. Learned that Fuji has the best colour.

2. Fuji prints are packed full with colour. I went to quite a few kodak print shops and what they do is that they reduce the colour output of their printers and the results would be prints which are very low in colour contrast and the colours arent rich at all.

3. The few Fuji shops I went to will ask you whether you want to adjust your pics to have the correct colours and brightness for all of your pics when printing.

ps. I've been comparing 7-8 shops both Kodak and Fuji.


It's great but I have to consider this:

1. If I didnt make the subject "glow" as you said, and I asked the shop to properly expose the subject, any remaining sky/cloud detail will be as white as the printing paper itself.
2. If I don't expose the subject well, the sky will be nice but the subject will be underexposed. (might be nice and acceptable on LCD, but printing it is a different story)
3. To recover more sky detail and lit the subject well for printing i need to PP this pic like so.

Printing and viewing on normal LCD is different for me. I noticed this issue when I print at the shop without any type of colour/exposure adjustment AND when viewing on my LCD. Colours on a normal LCD monitor are not as reliable as on a correctly set-up CRT. I need an IPS type of LCD to really achieve the correct colour and better viewing angles that would match a CRT. (few thousand ringgits to spend just on lcd). So now I lowered the brightness of my LCD and adjusted the colours to match the prints as close as possible.

I need to really make sure the colours are right and the exposure are right as I need to design custom/story albums which combines a lot of images in one page. The problem which most of my friends make when doing custom/story albums is that they have a bright/high contrast LCD and didnt properly PP the pics and it results in albums/images which are dark/underexposed, oversaturated human skin tones, jumbled up well exposed & under/overexposed pics and thus not so nice.

Here is straight from RAW. Un-edited except resize.



Edited :



This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 16 2010, 06:28 PM

hehe.. well..just wanna explain..

I typed a little bit and then I added more and more and more...hehehe... thought maybe i need to explain the printing side of photography.. well at least that is from my experience..just wanna share my experience .. no harm done..

it's just really sad when i and other newbies have all this expensive gear and cant really do well when the images are printed.

Printing wise. Yeah, even if I'm doing a lof of printing, I would rather print at a shop that i know will give me the best results. They have like RM250k, RM500k kind of printers VS even RM3-4k photo printers...no maintenance, plus i get a cheap photographer's price.

Hehehehe...waaa...registration already 5k.. not confirmed yet. Hehehe. Can get a 2nd hand 70200 or 2470 already..hehehe

But imo, artistic wise, it boils down to the photographer and not the lens or even camera body.

Cropping, PP, great angles etc etc from a creative photographer will make pics look artistic.

Nikon 1424 f/2.8, 2470 f/2.8, 70200 f/2.8, 200mm f/2, 300mm f/2.8 etc are workhorses for working photographers in their field of work. Wedding photogs will tend to need the first three lenses and wildlife/sports will tend to need a much higher range than 200mm.

I do hope to get some of those lenses to use for my wedding shoots...the 2470 is reallly sharp even at 2.8.. tried it. The all rounder lens for an FX body.

So it boils down to "Need VS Want"....do u need it or do u just want it?

I just wanna share my experience, opinions and a bit of researching through the internet about the famous Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

1. Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 (without motor) - 1st version
- This lens is the fastest focusing lens among all three versions.
- It has no motor and only can focus on bodies with built in motor like D80/D90/D200 etc.
- Some are made in china and some are made in japan. Japan versions are somewhat better optically.
- Quite a lot of this lens version have back/front focus problems especially the built in china ones.

2. Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 (with motor) - 2nd version
- This lens is the slowest among all three versions.
- It has a motor and can focus on all bodies like D60/D5000.
- Afaik, all are made in Japan.
- A small number suffers back/front focus problems.
- The lens electronic contacts sometimes fails to connect to the body. This usually happens because it's still new. Try cleaning it with a clean cloth.

3. Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 (newest version with motor & VC)
- This lens is 2nd in terms of focusing speed.
- Slower than 18-105VR focusing speed but still acceptable.
- It has a motor and can focus on all bodies like D60/D5000.
- From what I've heard, there's no more problems with front/back focus issues.


Now the question most will ask me. Why does the built in motor ones are slower than the one without motor?

1. Tamron still uses micro type motor in all it's lenses and this slows down the focusing speed and thus making it longer to achieve focus lock which is a b***h when taking wedding pics or other fast paced photography jobs. Been there..done that.. Really hate it because my friend's Nikon 18-55VR can have a faster focus lock than me. Sold it off in just a few months...

2. Sigma's 18-50 f/2.8 HSM is really fast because of the HSM motor but IQ and colour wise, Tamron wins. It's a toss between speed and overall IQ.

3. I'd like to note that the newer 1750VC has a faster motor than the 2nd version but it still uses a micro type motor and not a ring type motor.

4. Micro type motor are used in Tamron lenses with built in motor & cheap Canon lenses which usually dont have the words "USM" on it.
- This type of lens is cheaper to produce
- Slower in focusing speed

5. Ring type motor are lenses like Nikon SWM (stated as AF-S on it's lenses) , Sigma HSM, Canon USM, Sony SSM, Olympus SWD.
- This type of lens is more expensive to make
- Fastest focusing compared to micro type and non motor.
- Do note that pro lenses like the canon L lens and nikon's tele lenses have a faster SWM motor compared to normal/cheaper SWM lenses.


* This is why there's a lot of people selling the non motor tammy 1750 at a higher price than newer version (2nd hand).
* This is also why there's a lot of people selling their 1750 built in motor (some just 1 month old) or swapping it with a 1750 without motor.
* Most if not all sellers of the built in motor versions will just say they wanted to upgrade to other lenses, needed money, selling on behalf of friends etc etc...but now you know what the main problem is. It is slow!!!..at least for me where i really need a faster focus lock. The 1855VR, 1870 and 18105VR has a faster focus lock...yeah..
* The older non motor version is nice and fast but be careful if u wanna buy a 2nd hand NON motor version of the tammy 1750 because a lot of em has a front/back focus issue. U need to test it out yourself using a focus test chart here: http://focustestchart.com/chart.html

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 17 2010, 05:40 PM

No need to hunt anymore...

I did that review.. Updated a few infos here and there..up there before your post

btw, non VC with or without motor? two very very different lenses in terms of focusing speed.

I saw a lot of newbies starting in photography or ones who wants to go into wedding photography use this lens. But it's sad for me back then when I had a D60 that I was too eager to get the tammy with motor and end up hating it.

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 17 2010, 12:03 PM

what kind of shots are u talking about? From experience, my 18-105VR and my friends 18-55VR beats the tamron 1750 with motor hands down speed wise in weddings. Maybe u should keep the D60 and get a 2nd hand Nikon 17-55 f/2.8. Sure gonna be puas hati with the Nikkor 1755

For me...when I sold off my D60 with tamron 1750 (w/motor). I didnt look back at the tammy and bought the 18105.. peace of mind

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 17 2010, 12:12 PM

Yeah.. having a lot of lenses isnt as easy as most people think when doing wedding and other kinds of photo jobs. I need to change it very often if I'm going solo at events. An extra body with a 50mm/70200/85mm and another one with UWA/kit/1755 2.8 is nice.. no need to worry about missing shots that you want.

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Added on March 17, 2010, 5:41 pmhttp://focustestchart.com/chart.html

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 17 2010, 05:41 PM

17-55 2.8
- Almost as expensive as the 2470 2.8
- Not an FX lens
- Wise choise if you dont want to plan using FX/full frame
- A nice all rounder lens for DX body

70200
- Big and cumbersome
- Heavy
- Expensive
- For portraits/close range birding & sports etc..not group/family shots
- Good thing is that it's an FX lens.

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Added on March 18, 2010, 3:22 pmI turn off the focusing light regularly..except when the subject is close and very dark.

I dont want to shoot and let people know i'm shooting and dont want to have that annoying thing light up every press of the shutter. It kinda disturbs people... Saves battery anyways...

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Added on March 18, 2010, 3:29 pmBy not that expensive...how much did u have in mind?

the kit lens is enough in my opinion unless you want to fork out rm1.6k or above for an ultra wide angle lens such as the Sigma 10-20, Tokina 12-24 and others..

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 18 2010, 03:29 PM

i wanna but the price a bit too steep.. can find 70200 vr1 for around 4.8 to 5.2k. but that guy's lens is kinda perfect including the tripod moun, myb thats y so expensive

btw, im looking for a 70200VR1 but the white/grey variant....

Sadly the new 70200 VR2 version does not come in white nor does the 24-70

The old 70200 f/2.8 VR and 28-70 f/2.8 does come in white...and it looks really cool.

fyi, there's still a new 28-70 white version in penang..

Is even better in shape, size & colour over canon's white 70200 & black 2470

I read somewhere this guy doing a comparison and saying that the Nikon 2470 (not white la...) is better optically than the canon's version.

Im a dark sider too..but it doesnt hurt to really stand out among the dark siders...

There is a prob though with large lenses being black in colour. The lenses will heat up really fast outdoors in the sun..

here is a quote from a guy on flickr...:

"Anyway, this lens is known as the "Great White" like a shark. Secondly, or thirdly for those who are counting, the reason lenses (mainly Canon) choose to design and produce white lenses, and mainly in the longer focal lenghts, is/are for those shooters who are outdoors and in rough and very extreme hot conditions. As you all know, black attracts heat more then white. I've personally seen a 300mm ƒ/4 warped from the heat and it's not pretty. If you're serious about photography and protecting your equipment either buy this lens is white or put a white foam cover over it."

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 19 2010, 05:39 PM

I think it's not so much as focus accuracy but focus lock speed..the built in motor version will hunt a lot to get a focus.. read here:

http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=32501933

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 19 2010, 05:55 PM

Warped doesnt mean that the lens melt like water..but maybe the guy meant the plastics was kinda bent in a way and lose the original shape..

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Added on March 19, 2010, 6:29 pmYeah... i tested the 2470 on a D3... it was awesome and really sharp.. even wide open at 2.8.. WOW! on a D3s.. makes carrying a speedlight optional...hehe

This post has been edited by alpha_company: Mar 19 2010, 06:29 PM