A Nikon D50, with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens. I'm really hitting the limits of the D50 though; I need at least a D200 or D2x for a lot of the stuff I do. The D50 is the cheapest, low-end camera in Nikon's DSLR line. It's not really the camera, but how you use it... but sometimes I need some features that the D50 just doesn't have (ostensibly Nikon removed them to get people to buy the pro-cameras), things like mirror lock up (I'll post an example of why later), TTL metering with non-CPU [manual] lenses (gah!), the ability to use 4G SD cards (It only speaks FAT16), higher frame rate, and faster shutter, depth of field preview, a second dial for aperture (Pressing a button while turning the other dial is awkward), lower noise at high ISOs, or wider ISO range, better autofocus ability (faster, more AF sensors, better in low light), wireless flash control, etc.
I generally shoot everything in manual mode, only using the auto-focus; But lately I've been using aperture priority mode, and setting it wide open (f/1.4), and then adjusting the exposure compensation up and down for the situation (This is also awkward to do fast on the D50, pressing a button while turning a dial). In the club last night [Fri-SatAM] I discovered, unsurprisingly, that the D50's metering is completely wrong when measuring flashing lights, and monochromatic light sources. If something/someone was lit with only a red light, then the camera will try to expose until something green or blue will show up in the background noise – completely overexposing the red. I had to underexpose by at least 2ev on some shots just to retain any details. (I should have been doing that more actually, a lot of these are overexposed. It would have reduced the motion blur problems as well) Oh, and the auto-focus won't do what you want either when you're trying to make a shot – I've missed alot of good photos that way because the D50 decides to unfocus from the subject. Switching the AF on and off requires two hands too, and is awkward to do while preparing for a shot.
Oh, and there's some color correction stuff I do in post (white balance, etc.). I'm going to write about it later [this afternoon hopefully].
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 10:45 pm (UTC)I generally shoot everything in manual mode, only using the auto-focus; But lately I've been using aperture priority mode, and setting it wide open (f/1.4), and then adjusting the exposure compensation up and down for the situation (This is also awkward to do fast on the D50, pressing a button while turning a dial). In the club last night [Fri-SatAM] I discovered, unsurprisingly, that the D50's metering is completely wrong when measuring flashing lights, and monochromatic light sources. If something/someone was lit with only a red light, then the camera will try to expose until something green or blue will show up in the background noise – completely overexposing the red. I had to underexpose by at least 2ev on some shots just to retain any details. (I should have been doing that more actually, a lot of these are overexposed. It would have reduced the motion blur problems as well) Oh, and the auto-focus won't do what you want either when you're trying to make a shot – I've missed alot of good photos that way because the D50 decides to unfocus from the subject. Switching the AF on and off requires two hands too, and is awkward to do while preparing for a shot.
Oh, and there's some color correction stuff I do in post (white balance, etc.). I'm going to write about it later [this afternoon hopefully].