To 18-200 mm VR or not to?

[hoboahoy]

Lyncca, I completely agree with you. I wanted to get a 18-200mm VR for convenience particularly for the fields, since I don't know what kind of kodak moment I am expecting from the dogs (short distance vs long, etc). So I wanted to get the 18-200mm for convenience at the expense of sharpness. I wasn't expecting much clean sharp focus with nice blur behind from it, then when I see such a great shot like Chewbecca's, I just probably have to have a fast prime lens, in addition to the 18-200 mm VR.

Chewbecca, what would you say about my getting a D90 instead of D300? Would you recommend a D300 instead over D90 for strictly dog photo shooting? They say both are good high ISO shooter, that's why I chose these two.

Thank you guys.

 

[hoboahoy]

Village Idiot, ok I concur over and over. Yes I'll make sure I'll get a fast lens, the prime 50mm 1.8. Thanks for your opinion. I love that sharp focus on the dog with the background blur. Village Idiot, both of my corgis have already learned to look away as soon as I point my camera at them. In fact they are consciously avoiding my camera, especially inside the house, short distance when the flash is close to them. They are pretty smart, and I stopped using the flash, which is making it so difficult to shoot when it's dark. But yeah I agree, depending on the dogs, I'm sure some dogs don't mind the flashign as much.

 

[Chewbecca]

Wow Chewbecca, outstanding pictures. That's the kind of picutre I want to take. Your photo is much better sharp & clean, night & days compared to my pictures from my P&S.

Chewbecca, is the ADL helping you for your dog being dark? I don’t' think I can get a sharp focus on the dog bullseye with nice blur behind with such zoom 18-200mm VR unless I use a prime F/1.8 like yours. So yes I was already considering a prime 50mm F1.8. I was thinking of 2 lenses: one 18-200mm VR and 50mm prime F1.8.

When you use your D300, how would you rate the 6.5FPS capability? Do you use it often? Do you feel it's fast enough and useful? Or do you feel you can get away with less of the FPS (such as 4.5 FPS of D90?) I am considering either D300 or D90. With D300 particular, it has a faster FPS. Indoors under house lighting they say D90 can be even better with the high ISO than D300 because they tweaked the processor in D90. So my main concern at the moment is the 4.5FPS of D90 if I decide to go that way (instead of D300). I'm sure you'd give praise for D300, but what do you think of D90?

I highly appreciate your input as a dog shooter. I am so happy you are taking great pictures. Nice looking dog too! I am thoroughly impressed with your photos. Take care.

Thank you! Er...I know absolutely NOTHING about the D90 at ALL. I will PM you with a place where you can find the info, though.
I LOVE my D300, not that I've had it long and had much of an opportunity to get out and play with it often.

The shot of her in the sunshine: I was in the actual correct AF mode (Dynamic area AF mode with all 51 focal pts. picked), and I probably took well OVER 300 shots of her and I had WAY more good shots than bad shots (meaning, more sharp, clear, and crisp, vs. blurred and/or soft). I only processed, like, 40 of them simply because I just didn't have time to process all the good ones.
Does the FPS make THAT much of a difference in the D300 vs. the D90? I don't know, honestly. I might be willing to trade that for the video portion of the D90, though. I WOULD like the ability to video and then switch off video to take pictures with the same camera, though.

OK, I've had 837849 interruptions since I started this reply. I'll PM you.
Thanks again for the compliments!

 

[zeroskillz]

I love my D90, and find the FPS rate to be wicked fast. In fact it has a feature that allows you to turn it down, and select between the slower and faster rates. I used it to shoot a soccer game last weekend and it almost shot to fast for me.

I often take pics in the house with no flash and find the shots at ISO1600 to be just great, and even the higher ISO's turn out real good (no so much on my D40x). Great NR. I shot some at soccer practice last night with ridiculously high shutter speeds with high ISO's just messing around... I'll see if I saved them and post a result.

Granted, I've got no experience with the D300, but from what I've gleaned and been told, the D90 is a fine choice. The movie feature is also kind of amusing.

See if a camera shop will let you mess around with them and try the frame rates.

HTH
-Ted

 

[dhilberg]

I own the Nikkor 18-200mm VR and love it.

As long as you're outdoors in the daytime it's great. My experience with it is good so far. I read other posts that complain about it's sharpness, but I've found it to be quite sharp. Not as sharp as the 50mm f/1.8, and certainly not my 50mm f/1.4, but that goes without saying--those are among Nikon's sharpest lenses! Since you're going to be sharpening digital images anyway (almost all need sharpening) it's not such a big deal.

The auto focus is fast. It tracks moving subjects very well. I wouldn't use it indoors unless you're using a flash. It's just too slow, and in low light auto focus suffers. It will hunt.

The VR is great; I handheld a shot at 1/5 sec. @ 55mm. Although noisy, it's fairly sharp! The VR eats battery life though. Outdoors in bright light you don't need it.

For things indoors I use my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D.

 

[petercox]

The 18-200 is a fantastically convenient lens for general use. If you have a critical eye, it is prone to barrel distortion and can be very soft when used wide open (f/5.6) at 200mm. That being said, it's light and you don't need to switch lenses when you're out and about.

I would recommend buying it for general use and also buy the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 for indoor use. I don't recommend using a flash if you can ever get away without one - a good quality available light shot will trounce a shot produced with on-camera flash any day. That being said, it is harder to get good shots with the 50mm in dim light as you'll be using it close to wide open, meaning your depth of field is going to be very thin - if you're not precise with your focusing you'll end up with a lot of unusable shots.

But that's the fun, you get to practice a lot!

Good luck, and enjoy your new toys.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[hoboahoy]

Zeroskills, yeah the D90 seems to be a fine piece of hardware according to what I have read about. Your opinion agrees with what I have read. I hear about the great performance of it under poor lighting conditions with high ISOs, arguably better than the D300 due to the "tweaking" that Nikon has done onto the D300 to improve upon.

It's nice to hear you could keep up with the soccer game with the FPS of the D90. What is particularly insteresting to me is that you said you could shoot the soccer game at night at high ISOs in continuous shooting at a high FPS. That's really nice to hear because that shows the capability of the D90 that I would really need. Also I take photos of the dogs indoor at night under a poor lighting condition. Thanks for sharing your experience. I wonder if you could have performed better with a D300 under the same circumstances.

Dhilberg, if I decide NOT to get a 18-200mm, but to have a prime 50mm F1.8, what additional other lens would you suggest me to have for the indoor (generally poor lighting conditions) shooting of the dogs in a relative proximity in addition to the 50mm F1.8 Prime? I would like that additional lens be used possibly also at the outdoors when the lighting is poor at & after sunset? What lens would compliment the 50mm F1.8, given that I don't have the 18-200mm VR? (I know I'm getting a 50mm F1.8 because it's cheap enough, and I like the sharpness).

Petercox, as you say somehow I am sensing I'm being heading toward obtaining both the 18-200mm VR and the 50mm F1.8 and call it my initial set of lenses. That may be a good compromise to start off between prioritizing the convenience and maximizing the image quality through a fast lens if required. I justl ask people for what I could get if I decide not to get the 18-200mm, but yeah for the convenience it's hard to beat the 18-200 instead of carrying around a few lenses (besides I'm just a non-pro usual person who just want to take dog photos, so I don't have to be so critical of image distortion and all that could possibly comes from the 18-200, but I still like the 50mm F1.8 for cheap). So I could end up going with your suggestion. Thank you.

Ok thank you everybody, and have a nice day. I'm learning a lot from ya'll.