decided D80 but still some questiones

[Mav]

WOW, Mav, those are some excellent shots! What can you handhold down to without VR? Less than 1/300 at 300mm, I imagine.

Fantastic.

Dunno. Definitely less than 1/300th. When I first got the lens I was taking photos with VR off at around 1/125 to 1/160s in the 200-300mm range and not having any trouble getting sharp shots either. I'd guess somewhere between 1/60 to 1/100s. The next time I have the chance I'll test it out.

Thanks Mav for the shot samples. So Nikon boasting that the VR is equavalent of 4 clicks has some weight by the look of it. Your 1/5 was equivalent of 1/80, shooting at 300mm. I tell you man you have very steady hands, worse than mine.

And this midget D40, I feel good to have it really, I am vindicated .

Based on the "1/focal length" rule as the baseline, I'm getting about 6 to 7 stops improvement with VR. :hail:

D40 FTW. :mrgreen:

 

[Socrates]

I'm impressed.

Of course, I bought a Rambler once so what in hell do I know?

 

[TamiyaGuy]

*whistles* Half a second and still acceptably sharp results? Yet again, Mav, you've truly proven yourself. I aspire to be you. Not like you, but you.

 

[Mav]

heh, where'd Ruby go? :blackeye: I love it when people call BS on me, because I never BS.

 

[Socrates]

Oh silly me! Here it is! The ones above were not even the best examples.

[size=+1]70-300 VR: 300mm, 1/2s[/size]

Full shot:

EXIF:

Look sharp to you? It does to me. Actually it's not quite fully 100% sharp. At 100% on my screen you can see just the slightest bit of hand shake slur in the street sign, but that's pixel peeping and the equivalent of viewing a 30" wide print at a distance of 1 foot, which nobody does. Moving back a few feet or reducing magnification slightly your eyes lose the ability to resolve at the level needed to see the very slight amount of hand shake blur and you can no longer tell. So at any reasonable print size viewed from any reasonable distance, this is a sharp photo. Or more correctly, "serviceably sharp".

I took three photos of this while figuring out what I could get away with on this thing. This one was at 1/2s, and the other two were at 1/3s. Two out of three were sharp. Oddly the one that wasn't sharp was at 1/3s, not the 1/2s shot. So with an average of 1/2.5s for the two sharp shots, that's a full stop beyond "IMPOSSIBLE". Geez I coulda just left my ISO at the D40's base of 200 and fired away at a half second, but I was trying not to push my luck too much.

Hell, I couldn't hold the camera that steady when I used to be sober!