Hello from South Carolina

midwifeology · Sep 28, 2012

Hello! I'm Amber - wife to one and mom to two. I'm a doula and a student studying to be a midwife. I'm a long time lurker and decided to officially join. After shooting primarily in "auto" with a D40 for four years and having it bite the dust, I decided to purchase a D5100 and really learn all about photography and my camera. I purchased a D5100 with 18-55 VR, 55-200, as well as a 35mm 1.8G. I also purchased a Nikon SB400 and an Ape Case to stash it all in. I'm very excited and happy to have found this forum!

fjrabon · Sep 28, 2012

Welcome. I spent most of my life in the palmetto state.

The D5100 is a very, very capable camera, and as far as crop sensors go, I don't think any other camera clearly surpasses it in pure image quality. It has the same sensor as the D7000, which for my money is the best crop frame DSLR out there image quality wise.

I have both of the lenses you have, and while I don't use the 18-55VR a whole lot, I think it's actually a pretty decent lens if you shoot it between f/5.6 and f/11, with its sweetspot being like f/8-f/11. The 35mm f/1.8 G is probably the best value in AF-S lenses, imho. It has a bit of barrel distortion, but most good post processing programs can automatically fix it. Sharp as a tack, even as low as f/2. Heck, even wide open at f/1.8 its still very sharp.

I don't really have any experience with the SB400. I know it basically has 4 angles it can shoot from. So, you can bounce it off walls. It's not the most versatile flash in the world, but it's a gargantuan leap from the fixed flash built into your camera.