New to Digital Photography, years ago was into 35mm film

Andonso · Jan 10, 2018

Hello,

I've owned three digital point and shoot cameras mostly to post pictures to forums and to sell items over the Internet. HP 1.x mp and two Canon 3.x mp Powershots.

I recently picked up a Nikon D80 DSLR camera and three lenses.

My only experience with SLR cameras dates back to the 1970s when I purchased a Nikon F2 along with a Leica M. I use to have my own dark room where I would look forward to developing film and creating photographs.

My experiences up to now have mostly been with film photography and the works of film photographers dating back the early 1900s.

Since the 1970s I haven't done much photography except to post a few digital pics to the Internet.

I'm not certain what it was but once I stopped using film, for me, so did photography.

Now that I have a Nikon DSLR my interests in photography and to go on shooting exhibitions have come back.

I purchased a Nikon D80 that came with a Nikon 18-70mm lens and a 1280 shutter count which I'm learning is reasonably low. From what I'm told the Nikon D80 is an entry level DSLR with a few features and/or designs borrowed from the D200, which is considered to be a semi-pro camera with the same sort of crop sensor.

Again something else I'm learning about, crop vs full frame sensors. It would be nice to have a full frame DSLR, but because of budget constraints I'm happy with the D80.

My F2 an all manual SLR from the 70's was purchased for $500.00 which equates to over $3,000.00 in 2017 dollars, so this time I've comparatively spent significantly less for a DSLR that what I spent on a SLR, SLR lenses and dark room equipment.

Equipment acquired so far to use with the D80

AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF DX (came with the D80)
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED VR II Zoom Lens (purchase new)
Sigma 70-300mm F/4-5.6 DL Macro Super AF Lens 200 to 300mm (purchased used)

AC battery charger
AC Adapter AC-CU802
USB battery charger, 12 volt car battery charger + spare batteries

Lens filters, closeup filters, lens hoods, neoprene lens bags, camera bag (backpack), ML-L3 Shutter Remote Control

I also found a some wide angle and telephoto aux lenses, the aux. type telephotos lenses I found to be totally useless as it creates too blurred of an image. I think these aux. lenses were designed for cameras that use fix lenses such as found with some of the older point and shoot and video recorders.

I also picked up a Vivitar Automatic 3X-3 Tele Converter that hasn't yet been delivered. The 3x may be too dark or will only work under certain lighting conditions. Not really a replacement for an actual zoom lens but may help to extend one or more of my current lenses. For longer range shots such as wildlife and nature.

480sparky · Jan 10, 2018

Andonso said:
...............I also picked up a Vivitar Automatic 3X-3 Tele Converter that hasn't yet been delivered. The 3x may be too dark or will only work under certain lighting conditions. Not really a replacement for an actual zoom lens but may help to extend one or more of my current lenses. Where I can get some longer range shots such as for wildlife and nature.

I think you'll find that a 3x TC is going to be garbage.

Andonso · Jan 10, 2018

Yes your probably right. However I'm into experimenting and not necessarily into best results, perfect photos, where everything is perfect, etc.

In order to experiment and to learn more about a technology one needs to sometimes produce as you have termed it "Garbage". So I don't really care if it produces garbage I mainly purchased it to see what effects it has with the D80. Mainly for learning purposes. I don't really care what it produces.

I'm currently experimenting and trying not set the D80 on "Auto". This automatic thing is wonderful for taking snapshots but imo isn't the same as taking photos as we once did with film SLRs. However auto features has become very common I don't believe there are any cameras currently produced that don't have automatic features. This is a huge selling point and revenue income for camera manufactures. As many if not most consumers don't want or need to manually setup their cameras.

After Nikon replaced F2 with the F3 in the 1980s most all SLR's started to have automatic features.

However I'm familiar with the F2 and never did own a F3. My friend who I use to go on photography shoots with carried a 35mm (manual SLR), a Medium Form Film camera and a wooden 8 x 10 box camera which he considered to take very good photos for the type of photo he was striving to create.

Perhaps others will disagree but I would need to say photography isn't really about camera equipment but about the photographer and what the photographer strives to create from their camera equipment. No matter how good, bad functional, etc. the equipment may be.

It's sort of like e.g. you see a stick or rock laying on the ground. That stick or rock has some meaning and purpose in it's own right. Until someone picks up the stick or rock creating a use for the stick giving it a new or another meaning.

Perhaps not the best analogy but I think you get my drift and what I'm trying to point out.

terri · Jan 10, 2018

Welcome to TPF! Sounds like you are jumping back into photography, and trying lots of different equipment.

I hope you check out our Photo Galleries section on the main page of the forum. That's the best place to post some of your work, and get feedback. Great way to get to know everyone, too.

Keep posting and have fun!

Andonso · Jan 10, 2018

Thanks for the reply.

I must be doing something wrong. After creating a new gallery and trying to upload a jpg photo I'm receiving an error message.

"Our gallery currently accepts images only."

These are jpg images created by the D80 when set to large JPG images.

480sparky · Jan 10, 2018

Maybe the images are too large. Scale them down, preferably to 800-1000max. pixels on the long end.

Andonso · Jan 10, 2018

Yes, that's what I was thinking as their all around 3k in size.

After loading and saving from Paint scaled them down to an acceptable size. The photos I've taken so far with the D80 all are created by the D80 and and lens while in Auto mode. All I did was point and shoot.

Darker than normal days, dreary, without any sun. However that's in many ways normal year around for some areas along the Pacific Coastline. Lots of precipitation, clouds, drizzle, etc. There are areas north of me that average around 150+ inches annual precipitation, keeps most everything green, except areas where's there alot of logging going on.