Photography Lesson

“The N80 is a terrific SLR that has all of the features any pro would want, as well as being a wonderful starter camera for someone who wants auto-everything. A bud of mine just bought one, along with a 28-200. Good combination for a starter setup that he won't become unsatisfied with for many years to come, only then to add to his lens collection.”

“I certainly didn't mean to cast any aspersions on anyone's equipment. I've always used what I could scrape together.

From my experience with lenses such as Vivitar, Tamron, Sigma, etc., the quality issues weren't usually with the glass, but the internal mechanisms and materials. Was the focusing smooth and solid? Were fitted parts at close tolerances or loosey-goosey, when you zoomed did it stay where you left it? Quality certainly has improved, but I never had any of those issues to start with with my original manufacturer lenses.

In the end, the main issue is whether you get out and take photos and get the most out of what equipment you have.

And then learn to edit you shots and only share the good ones! I'm seriously considering doing a program on how to do a slide show the next time I am asked to do a program for our outdoor club.”

“At a Jazz game last night, kept seeing these annoying strobes going off every few seconds. Finally realized that the Delta center has installed house strobes all around the place clear up in the rafters, and one of the shooters on the sidelines was using a radio slave on his Nikon F5 that was utilizing them. These things must have been putting out like a zillion watt-seconds. They damn near gave me a migraine headache. How annoying is that?”

“Hey, Hobbit, I don't know about how strong the strobes are in comparison, but that's been going on awhile. I used to go to the Iowa high school wrestling tourney all the time (ya know, the state where wrestling rules!) and the dailies always had strobes up in the rafters. Ditto for basketball. It got to be fun trying to see which photographer was hooked up to which strobe. And I always wondered if all the "pros" took their shot at some primo moment, if there would ever be such a thing as TOO MUCH flash?!! hehee”

“To think I used to get yelled at by h.s. basketball coaches for shooting action under the basket with one camera mounted Honeywell. I think Sports Illustrated pioneered the idea of rafter and even backboard mounted strobes (even cameras) with slave setups. I read a profile of one of their main shooters who worked out their system.”