[AWD]

I have a D3100 with kit 18-55 Lens. Want to upgrade the Lens, which one should I go in for ?

Or should I change the SLR to D3200 ?

[girimajiananth]

Originally Posted by AWD

I have a D3100 with kit 18-55 Lens. Want to upgrade the Lens, which one should I go in for ?

Or should I change the SLR to D3200 ?

How old is your D3100 ? I mean the total number of shutter exposes .Are you looking for a zoom lens ? You can go for 55-200 , or a 55-300 depending on your needs . A low light prime lens like a 50mm f1.8 or 35mm f1.4 is a good buy too.

[AWD]

Originally Posted by girimajiananth

How old is your D3100 ? I mean the total number of shutter exposes .Are you looking for a zoom lens ? You can go for 55-200 , or a 55-300 depending on your needs .

Almost new ~ 100 clicks.

Will a Auto zoom lens work fine on this one?

How would be 55-105 or 55-200 ?

Should I stick to Nikon lenses only ?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

I recommend Syncback Pro for backing up. I find it the best and have been using it for more than 3 years. I use incremental and backup my documents, photos, music, software etc on 3-4 drives on a periodic basis. Incremental is very fast and back up speed depends on drive speed. Have you also tried cloud based backup solutions. I do not know how that will help considering you shoot a lot everyday.

Thanks, I will definitely look into that. I've been looking at iCloud for back up purposes as well. However, it seems as if that will only work if you keep your photographs in photo stream. I don't. I just have all my photographs sitting on various hard drives in various folders, sorted by year, event etc.

Anybody been able to use iCloud for back up of all your files, irrespective the application?

Originally Posted by R2D2

Same here, it's RAW and JPEG always for me.

And thanks so much for the link to your blog/website. I found the narration and pictures charming.

I hope that you and your family continue to experience the best of India during your stay in this country.

Cheers!

Thanks, much appreciated.
We do like India and we are trying to see and experience as much of it as we can.

Jeroen

[girimajiananth]

Originally Posted by AWD

Almost new ~ 100 clicks.

Will a Auto zoom lens work fine on this one?

How would be 55-105 or 55-200 ?

Should I stick to Nikon lenses only ?

IMHO 55-200 is better than 55-105 . It offers a better zoom .

By auto zoom do you mean auto focus ?

Better stick to nikon lenses . There are other lenses like sigma , tamron , tokina etc , but nikon lenses are best suited .

[typeOnegative]

Originally Posted by R2D2

BTW, I don't expect Nikon or Canon to compromise on ergonomics even after the reflex mirror is history.

I would like to think that too. A full frame sensor in a large body is all that I require. I do not care if there is a mirror or no.

Originally Posted by R2D2

MLCs have the ergonomic elan of a slab of chocolate held up to your eye... i.e. non existent.

More a bar of soap -

1. Slips out of your hands at the slightest chance
2. Your eyes start watering after a bit

If you get what I mean.

Originally Posted by R2D2

Guess you can't have everything and some level of a compromise is required.

So true.

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by typeOnegative

I would like to think that too. A full frame sensor in a large body is all that I require. I do not care if there is a mirror or no.

I just want them to keep the ergonomics intact regardless of how they do it, weight reduction will be a bonus.

Originally Posted by typeOnegative

More a bar of soap -

1. Slips out of your hands at the slightest chance
2. Your eyes start watering after a bit

If you get what I mean..

LOL! I wrap the strap tightly around my wrist or put it around my neck to prevent the camera from slipping out of my hands.

These cameras are very cute but slippery. I even thought of getting an optional battery grip but gave up because Olympus (and Fuji) doesn't exactly burn the wheels when it comes to reaction times to customer queries. Even getting a quote for lenses took an inordinately long time! Silly people. Besides the grip costs a tear inducing $300 even in the US. I'd rather put up with the slippery body especially coz the Olympus is mainly for my wife

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by R2D2

I just want them to keep the ergonomics intact regardless of how they do it, weight reduction will be a bonus.

Weight reduction would be a bonus definitely. I am pretty much used to carrying 1.3-1.5 kg for my personal shots when I visit places. Even my wife and kid can shoot easily with that weight. FYI, my recent Canon DSLR camera has 760 g for the body and around 650-700 gm (EF 24-105 mm) for the lens. I also have a 85/1.8 EF lens which is more comfortable at 500 g approx. I hardly find that a bother and it is even less so when I see the output. That makes it worth it. I am hardly well built (162 cm, 65 kg) and my wife and son are even less so.

Weight reduction: some of Canon's prime lenses even in the short telephoto category are quite bulky. Eg, the highly rated EF 85 mm f/1.2 weighs more than a kg and costs huge. The weight for the standard high focal length zoom 70-200 mm is even higher approaching 1.5 kg. Add that to 690-800 g standard body and it can be quite a pain.

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by R2D2

I just want them to keep the ergonomics intact regardless of how they do it, weight reduction will be a bonus.

Weight reduction would be a bonus definitely. I am pretty much used to carrying 1.3-1.5 kg for my personal shots when I visit places. I do not make a living out of my SLR. Even my wife and kid can shoot easily with that weight. FYI, my recent Canon DSLR camera has 760 g for the body and around 650-700 gm (EF 24-105 mm) for the lens. I also have a 85/1.8 EF lens which is more comfortable at 500 g approx. I hardly find that a bother and it is even less so when I see the output. That makes it worth it. I am hardly well built (162 cm, 65 kg) and my wife and son are even less so.

Weight reduction: some of Canon's prime lenses even in the short telephoto category are quite bulky. Eg, the highly rated EF 85 mm f/1.2 weighs more than a kg and costs huge. The weight for the standard high focal length zoom 70-200 mm is even higher approaching 1.5 kg. Add that to 690-800 g standard body and it can be quite a pain.

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

I am pretty much used to carrying 1.3-1.5 kg for my personal shots when I visit places. Even my wife and kid can shoot easily with that weight. FYI, my recent Canon DSLR camera has 760 g for the body and around 650-700 gm (EF 24-105 mm) for the lens. I also have a 85/1.8 EF lens which is more comfortable at 500 g approx. I hardly find that a bother and it is even less so when I see the output. That makes it worth it. I am hardly well built (162 cm, 65 kg) and my wife and son are even less so.

Weight reduction: some of Canon's prime lenses even in the short telephoto category are quite bulky. Eg, the highly rated EF 85 mm f/1.2 weighs more than a kg and costs huge. The weight for the standard high focal length zoom 70-200 mm is even higher approaching 1.5 kg. Add that to 690-800 g standard body and it can be quite a pain.

I don't think any photographer whether amateur or pro would like to haul something heavy all day. The way I see it the main weight on a DSLR body that makes it difficult to handle and 'unbalances' the combination is the glass especially fast glass.

For e.g. my D800/D4 (900g/1.3 Kg) + my most commonly used lens the 24-70 F2.8 (900g) weigh 1.8/2.2 Kgs in total. While 2 Kgs of weight may not sound like much initially, it does tell after it hangs and swings around your neck for hours on end. The solution is to buy a better strap (Op/Tech Pro strap, Up Strap or Black Rapid) and to put the kit down on a table or even on your photo bag whilst outdoors at intervals.

So how do I tackle this? I try and minimize the lenses to a max of 3 and 1 body. For e.g. my favorite combination is a fast prime like the 50mm or 35mm 1.4 plus the 24-70. A good camera bag helps in supporting and carrying the kit. Ergonomics help a great deal whilst using the camera.

Lens weight rises rapidly as focal length and speed increase. Right now they are looking at reducing the weight of lenses as well. Canon has done a particularly good job with some of their L series fast zooms and super teles.

I am just under 6' tall and a relatively trim 73 kg after a recent and deliberate weight loss program that saw my weight decrease by over 5 Kgs. But I am not getting any younger and do foresee a day when weight reduction for camera kits will be not just be welcome but compulsory. Till then, I will continue lugging the 'ergonomically superior bricks' around.

[nilanjanray]

What's the cheapest way to get a Nikon D7100 from a reliable source? Ebay India prices are around 74K, while Flipkart, Smartshoppers etc. are around 77K. US prices ~ 66K.

Maybe I should wait for a while till prices come down a bit, and then buy from an Indian online retailer.

Once I buy the D7100 I will sell my D90. What price can I expect, and is JJ Mehta forum the best place for selling? Condition is great, copy is good (bought from the USA, the photos can be seen on this forum, Amazon bill there, no warranty), < 25K shutter count.

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by nilanjanray

What's the cheapest way to get a Nikon D7100 from a reliable source? Ebay India prices are around 74K, while Flipkart, Smartshoppers etc. are around 77K. US prices ~ 66K.

Maybe I should wait for a while till prices come down a bit, and then buy from an Indian online retailer.

Once I buy the D7100 I will sell my D90. What price can I expect, and is JJ Mehta forum the best place for selling? Condition is great, copy is good (bought from the USA, the photos can be seen on this forum, Amazon bill there, no warranty), < 25K shutter count.

So you've finalized on the D7100 and the full frame D600/800 has been eliminated I guess.

I'd suggest buying from a local store in your city - 2 reasons:

a) You get to choose an authorized retailer. Nikon does get fussy about these things.

b) You are assured of what you buy by way of inspecting the box, seal etc, before you fork out the cash/cheque/CC.

Of all the online retailers, only Flipkart is authorized by Nikon and others aren't.

Not sure about what you could expect for a D90, it would be worthwhile to browse the Buy/Sell thread on JJ Mehta for an indicator. One guy had put it up for 26K but reduced it before it was sold. Not sure what the final price was.

http://www.jjmehta.com/forum/index.p...html#msg258018

[amitk26]

Originally Posted by AWD

I have a D3100 with kit 18-55 Lens. Want to upgrade the Lens, which one should I go in for ?

Or should I change the SLR to D3200 ?

What is your budget ? I will suggest following lenses which will do AF on your body.
1. A fast aperture zoom lens.

Tamron 17-50 F2.8 VC ( If you can find non VC version it is evern better)

2. A normal fast prime, 30 - 35 mm on APS-C gives field of view equivelent to 50mm on full frame which was called normal lens.

Sigma 30mm F1.4 if it fits in your budget else Nikkor 35 F1.8

3. Other lenses depends on your interest if it is in UWA , Macro or telephoto.

I do not see a point in moving from D3100 to D3200 is there any specific feature which attracts you ?

[ampere]

A question on storage. How do most of you store your images? Is RAW preserved? What happens if your machine's hard disk over flows? Take it off line? Before taking it off line, do you take a back-up of the same as well?

I am on Aperture with referenced masters. I keep RAW. Convert to TIFF which ever is needed and then after export I delete the TIFF. But still some how find the over all thing a bit cumbersome.

[vasudeva]

For my recent camera purchase (5D Mk 3), flipkart prices were identical to those at authorised store, Canon Image Square. I bought from Canon Image Square and the benefits were:
1. no delay in delivery: cash paid, camera taken. Flipkart is fast but in recent months, I have seen an increasing large number of items being out of stock. What is the point in claiming to be the largest online store, when a lot of equipment (I checked mostly in computers and cameras) is out of stock for a long time. It is always listed but that means zilch when it cannot be bought.
2. freebies that I managed that I could not get from flipkart. These included a 16GB SD Card, a Marumi Filter, and a camera bag. Plus Rs. 1K off the price. So total savings over flipkart could be around 3-4K. Not much, but still better than flipkart.

So check from brick and mortar store and then decide.

As to ampere's query and a recent query, backup thru syncback or any good freeware. As to hard disk overflowing, a wise person would not get to that stage, would he. Maybe you have too many RAW images running into terabytes. But then I have movies stored with total size approaching 4TB. I have mistakenly formated one hard disk that contained close to 2TB of movies (had to backup again through DVDs) and so now I keep backups externally for around 2-3TB. Not that I have invested in new disks. Just old ones plugged through esata. Incremental backups are fast and even faster on a fast desktop hard disk. Even newer external portable ones have USB 3.0 which is reasonably fast. Photos in RAW should be around 20-25 MB per file maybe and so you need 40-50 to make 1 GB. So 1TB disk could store around 40-45,000 RAWs. If they are extremely valuable to you, invest in 2 external disks and backup periodically and incrementally.