I'd advise the 18-70mm is the one to go for.. It's fairly cheap and widely available. I bought my D70 with that Kit lens and its very nice; i've had many good and very sharp images using that lens. The only cheaper alternatives would be an 18-55mm or you might find a second-hand 18-135mm. Both of these ar'nt bad either! There is also a newer 18-105mm VR lens which was the D90 kit lens and may be found now. The 18-135mm and the 18-105mm VR have plastic mounts. but the others are metal. (although) not sure about the 18-55mm.

I've now bought the 16-85mm VR; it's very good too, but quite a lot more expensive and mainly lives on my D300 most of the time.

Huh! Something told me to look on Craigspi$$ed this morning. "The 18-200 will be there my psychic voices said. There it was, the very last entry. Spooky.


Anyway, it's two months old and the bloke has got a full frame camera so this one's no good to him. He want's $650 for it.

Since I've seen them at Worst Buy for $699, I'm going to enter into negotiations if he'll play. In the US, prices do not include tax, so 8.25% would have to be added to the retail price in Texas, but not of course to the used price. (saying that, car sales are taxed, used, private or dealer.)

I agree with all of DoP's points except for one. In Photoshop CS4 Camera Raw, it IS possible (indeed it is very easy) to apply a graduated filter effect under software - it is AWESOME! You can even apply several graduated effects to the one image. I cannot speak highly enough of CS4, and I think I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities.

Haven't checked, but I don't think this feature existed in earlier versions.

But applying the gradation in post-processing can't recover any highlights blown out in the original image, so it's better to do ND graduation at the lens.

I got the lens. Silly question, but I got a filter as part of the deal. He said that he'd paid $40 odd for it, but it simply says Sunpack UltraViolet.
Can one a bit more information by certain trials? Polarized...should be able to work that out with some sun glasses, but assessing the other characteristics...how to do that?


Also, what noises should I expect to hear from this VR lens? Auto focus is noticeably faster than the 18 - 70, but the noises are strange to me.

It reduces UV. To be pedantic, a good brand may reduce UV. In practice, if it's a good brand, it will cut through haze a little (cameras see a little more haze than people do), take away a little blue tinge, and increase contrast. You may or may not observe these effects. It's typically used to protect the front glass, for those who like protecting the glass.

A polarizer is a very different animal, looks very dark, and has a front ring that rotates. It's used for controlling the sky and reflections (see posts passim).

Your filter, if it's the 72mm CF7037UV, retails for $10-$14, it would appear. The DF7037UV is around $16-22. Not to say it's a bad filter, 'cos that's what they all sell for.

Re lens noise, not much at all. I can't listen at the moment because the lens is loaned out.

35mm or 50mm prime. I'd suggest 1.4
12-24mm 2.8
70-200mm 2.8

That is all you need most of the time.

Some good info here.

Fair enough Bushfiva - but the graduating effect that can be applied under software is still awesome and can be applied multiple times in multiple places - much as you could apply to a negative in a darkroom I guess. Loss of detail in the highlights doesn't seem to be much of an issue - at least with the D300.

OK, but I think in that context you're probably referring to the digital equivalent of dodging and burning, since you refer to multiple times and places?

Oh dear, I thought I asked a simple question lol

I need to do a hell of alot more reading to understand the above - cheers all for the comments I will try decipher shortly.

Jof

Bushfiva - negative on the dodge & burn issue, though I can understand your confusion. The "Graduated Filter Tool" is indeed a brand new feature in Photoshop CS4 Camera Raw (it lives on the menu up the top of the screen in camera raw and is easy to miss unless you know about it).

In addition to exposure, you can also adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness and colour which are then blended into the image in much the same fashion as you'd get if you applied a graduated filter either on the lens or in the darkroom in the traditional film analogy.

More here Five Adobe CS4 Goodies for Photographers .

Apologies for the thread drift Jof, but stick with it and enjoy!

Carry on - all interesting stuff

Perhaps Saab could rename this thread (with Jofm5's permission of course) to something like photo matters

I am learning from it so dont object at all.

Done - I've gone for Digital Photography Thread to maintain the link with C&I

SD

Excellent title Saab

A useful technique, and because of it I settled for a slightly longer bottom ended zoom lens (28-135mm), is photo stitching, (google it for free software) Just shoot 2 overlapping pictures and then stitch them together, ok you get an elongated aspect ratio but that doesn't IMHO matter very much. For example these 2 were merged using photoshop. Not perfect but with more care taking the originals would have been better

It's a nice effect / technique, and you can have some fun by having someone pose in different places in each photo, so they appear twice (or more)!

SD

Don't get me started on Rockwell. Since he negatively "reviewed" the camera I have (Pentax *ist DS) while happily admitting he had never even see one, he's been on the "no-fly" lists of many Pentax owners. He's also one of those who thinks your only camera choices are between Canon and Nikon = another reason to ignore him.

ps: if you have $38,000 spare, you might like one of these lenses:


(Sigma APO 200-500mm f2.8 EX DG)

I'd have to hire the bloke to carry it for me.

Re : effects in Paint Shop Pro / Adobe Photoshop etc ....

For anyone that doesn't have decent graphics editing software, I can recommend "Photo Pos Pro",
which is FREEWARE, and IMHO rivals earlier versions of Paint Shop Pro :
Free Photo Editor, Free Image Editor, Photo Editing Software, Image Editing Software and Free Photo Tools

( Although Paint Shop Pro Photo x2 Ultimate is awesome ! )

BTW - What happened to the "stickiness" of the Ultimate List of Freeware thread ?