Showing posts with label burning questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label burning questions. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Nikon D200

Okay, so what's it like?
Well as I said earlier, it's an older camera without all the bells and whistles the newfangled cameras have.
More of a PRO camera, it shoots in RAW and has for me, a minimal amount of settings.
What I mean is you can't go hog wild with your pictures once you take em, you'll need some aftermarket software for that.
First of all, this thing weighs about a GAGILLION pounds.
No really.
I could build up my biceps if I did some curls while I was standing around.
It also eats some batteries, like fast.  I took maybe a hundred shots and the battery is like over halfway dead.
I'm also getting the battery grip with this so battery life shouldn't be a problem except now I'm gonna have to lug around like 2 GAGILLION pounds.
There's no preview of your shot so you got to eyeball it and set things up accordingly.
I haven't had to eyeball shutter and aperture in a while so it'll take some getting used to, but thankfully if you need to mess around you can mess around in P as the shutter and f/stops are adjustable.
Meaning you can scroll up and down:
















































The first shot was taken in P at f/3.5 @ 1/1750.
Scroll the wheel and the second shot was taken at f/19 @ 1/40.
Both were taken with the lens at 28mm.
Not too bad and I like the true depth of field.
I sort of got used to P&S cameras with a DOF of about a GAGILLION feet.
Or so.
Some macro:

































Again at two different f/stops, but this time I went manual so there are a bit dark.
Operator error.
Something I think we'll see a lot of with this camera.
Thank goodness for stuff like iPhoto and Aperture!
I like what this camera can do with it's full manual settings and focus, although it's like going back and navigating through MS-DOS.
I remember how.
Sort of.
Okay, not really.
I do have a plan though if I pick up this camera.
It's got a fairly decent lens on it, all I would need is another long zoom and a short fast lens.
If I pick those lenses up, I'll go and look for a newer Nikon body, like a D90 or D7000.
I can use the D200 as a back up, or just turn it around and sell it for what I paid.
Actually it's difficult to see this a second camera since it's so freakin heavy.
So I'm sort of leaning towards picking this up and using it for a bit, you know, like learning how to ride a bicycle again.
On the other hand, I've also lined up a good deal on a Canon T4i, but that comes with the kit lens and that set up will cost me more in the long run.
Do I go Canon or Nikon?
Stay tuned.