What would you do for the money?

Micah · Nov 24, 2009

I have been at this for a year now, and I feel like I'm ready to upgrade. I currently have a D80, a Tamron 70-200 f/2.8, a Sigma 17-70 2.8-4.5, a SB600, and a few odds and ends.

My options are:

Buy a D700 and keep the lenses.

Or:
Keep the D80 and buy some Nikon glass. A 50mm 1.4, a 24-70mm 2.8, and a 105 micro.

I know the lenses cost more, but if I keep the D80 I can sell the lenses I have now to offset the price.

What would you do????

I'm also looking into this. Westcott | Strobelite Plus Two Monolight Kit (120VAC) | 230

craig · Nov 24, 2009

Consider the current and future needs of your business. Post some details and we can help further.

Love & Bass

Micah · Nov 24, 2009

The business end of it is not even really a consideration untill I find my niche. I currently enjoy shooting weddings (I've only done 3) and I want to do more portraits. I know that if I were a good enough photographer, I could make great photos with what I have, but I'm the kind of guy that is always looking to upgrade.

craig · Nov 24, 2009

In that case you may be better off investing your money in the lenses. The focal lengths and the 1.4 ability to shoot in low light will come in handy for weddings. A new camera body would be better suited for commercial work.

Love & Bass

boogschd · Nov 24, 2009

what would i do ?

D700 upgrade
+ a 35mm/50mm 1.8 if i can still afford :lol:

.. goodluck

photograham · Nov 24, 2009

I really like that D700

Derrel · Nov 24, 2009

For people photography--weddings, portraits, events, the full-frame cameras provide more pleasing pictures in my experience. Better control over depth of field and better focal lengths and better working distances are three benefits you get with a full-frame camera. APS-C cameras are okay, but once you use a FF on an in-studio or a location shoot with an ugly background, you'll be glad you have a FF camera. 85,103,135,200mm lenses are also easier to use on people on a larger sensor with a full angle of view. FF also keeps your muslin or seamless paper backdrops more out of focus when shooting flash at smaller apertures like f/8.

chip · Nov 24, 2009

Personally I have no idea why so many folks are so in love with owning a 50mm f1.4 or 1.8 "normal" lens. I have one but I never use it. Who needs a 50mm when you already have a 24-70mm f2.8 or 24-105mm f4? To me the 50mm is so inflexible it isn't very useful. Everybody is talking about needing a fast lens. At f1.4 shooting indoors with the subject located reasonably close to the camera, the DOF is too shallow to be useful. If you have a D700 the high ISO performance would be great. A f2.8 lens would be more than adequate in terms of speed. Can someone please educate me on the true value of a 50mm f1.4? As it is right now I don't think it is worthwhile to buy a fast normal prime lens.

Dominantly · Nov 24, 2009

The 50mm at f/1.4 gives you some awesome results when playing with shallow DOF.

dhilberg · Nov 24, 2009

chip said:
Personally I have no idea why so many folks are so in love with owning a 50mm f1.4 or 1.8 "normal" lens. I have one but I never use it. Who needs a 50mm when you already have a 24-70mm f2.8 or 24-105mm f4? To me the 50mm is so inflexible it isn't very useful. Everybody is talking about needing a fast lens. At f1.4 shooting indoors with the subject located reasonably close to the camera, the DOF is too shallow to be useful. If you have a D700 the high ISO performance would be great. A f2.8 lens would be more than adequate in terms of speed. Can someone please educate me on the true value of a 50mm f1.4? As it is right now I don't think it is worthwhile to buy a fast normal prime lens.

The advantage of a fast prime lens is just that, it's fast. If you're running ISO 3200 with a 24-70 at 50mm at f/2.8, using the 50mm at f/1.4 will allow you to use the same shutter speeds at ISO 800 instead because it's two stops faster. For bodies like my D80, this is crucial because ISO 3200 (HI) is complete crap, unusable. ISO 800, on the other hand, is great and cleans up good in Noise Ninja if it needs to be.

This is probably not as crucial on a D700, but I guess that depends on how low the light level is where you're shooting and what kinds of shutter speeds you're after. Personally, I'd rather shoot at the lowest ISO possible, regardless of high ISO performance.

Plus, the DOF at f/1.4 is more shallow than at f/2.8 with all other things being equal, which is a good thing. You can always stop down to increase DOF. On the other hand, you can't open up an f/2.8 lens wider than f/2.8.

I can't believe I just read a complaint about DOF being too shallow. Shallow DOF is like the holy grail of photography. :lol:

chip · Nov 25, 2009

dhilberg said:
chip said:

Personally I have no idea why so many folks are so in love with owning a 50mm f1.4 or 1.8 "normal" lens. I have one but I never use it. Who needs a 50mm when you already have a 24-70mm f2.8 or 24-105mm f4? To me the 50mm is so inflexible it isn't very useful. Everybody is talking about needing a fast lens. At f1.4 shooting indoors with the subject located reasonably close to the camera, the DOF is too shallow to be useful. If you have a D700 the high ISO performance would be great. A f2.8 lens would be more than adequate in terms of speed. Can someone please educate me on the true value of a 50mm f1.4? As it is right now I don't think it is worthwhile to buy a fast normal prime lens.

Click to expand...

The advantage of a fast prime lens is just that, it's fast. If you're running ISO 3200 with a 24-70 at 50mm at f/2.8, using the 50mm at f/1.4 will allow you to use the same shutter speeds at ISO 800 instead because it's two stops faster. For bodies like my D80, this is crucial because ISO 3200 (HI) is complete crap, unusable. ISO 800, on the other hand, is great and cleans up good in Noise Ninja if it needs to be.

This is probably not as crucial on a D700, but I guess that depends on how low the light level is where you're shooting and what kinds of shutter speeds you're after. Personally, I'd rather shoot at the lowest ISO possible, regardless of high ISO performance.

Plus, the DOF at f/1.4 is more shallow than at f/2.8 with all other things being equal, which is a good thing. You can always stop down to increase DOF. On the other hand, you can't open up an f/2.8 lens wider than f/2.8.

I can't believe I just read a complaint about DOF being too shallow. Shallow DOF is like the holy grail of photography.

Maybe it is just personal taste, but I dislike having part of the subject out of focus. When I take pictures of people I do not like just having one person's nose in focus but his ears are out of focus. It just does not appeal to me that way. A 2.8 lens gives me all the DOF isolation I need and then some. I take a lot of indoors pictures. I like to be able to get a larger group of people or a larger area in the frame. 50mm has too narrow of an angle of view that I find not very useful. Maybe I am a wide angle junkie but I find myself zooming out to 24mm on my 24-70mm all the time! Often I wish I could zoom out more to get the coverage that I seek. I would not be happy to have a 50mm lens and it isn't convenient to have to change lenses frequently. So for me between a 50mm 1.4 or a 24-70mm 2.8 the choice is clear - I'd pick the 24-70mm most of the time.

IgsEMT · Nov 25, 2009

Personally I have no idea why so many folks are so in love with owning a 50mm f1.4 or 1.8 "normal" lens. I have one but I never use it. Who needs a 50mm when you already have a 24-70mm f2.8 or 24-105mm f4? To me the 50mm is so inflexible it isn't very useful. Everybody is talking about needing a fast lens. At f1.4 shooting indoors with the subject located reasonably close to the camera, the DOF is too shallow to be useful. If you have a D700 the high ISO performance would be great. A f2.8 lens would be more than adequate in terms of speed. Can someone please educate me on the true value of a 50mm f1.4? As it is right now I don't think it is worthwhile to buy a fast normal prime lens.

Kind of agree with you... but to some folks extra 2 stops from 2.8 to 1.4 is significant plus they want shallow dof. I'm happy going 4.5 on my glass but even going down there is rare. normally hang b/n 5.6-11 and don't need more then that. Plus I'm a flash fanatic so generally low lighting isn't an issue cause I got at least one light source.

elemental · Nov 27, 2009

chip said:
Personally I have no idea why so many folks are so in love with owning a 50mm f1.4 or 1.8 "normal" lens. I have one but I never use it. Who needs a 50mm when you already have a 24-70mm f2.8 or 24-105mm f4? To me the 50mm is so inflexible it isn't very useful. Everybody is talking about needing a fast lens. At f1.4 shooting indoors with the subject located reasonably close to the camera, the DOF is too shallow to be useful. If you have a D700 the high ISO performance would be great. A f2.8 lens would be more than adequate in terms of speed. Can someone please educate me on the true value of a 50mm f1.4? As it is right now I don't think it is worthwhile to buy a fast normal prime lens.

All other things equal (which is a fairly ridiculous thing to assume), lenses perform better stopped down than at their maximum aperture. Thus, there's a good chance a 50mm f/1.4 at f/2.8 is going to be a lot sharper than a 50mm f/2.8 at f/2.8.

While there's no real apples-to-apples comparison here, I've never seen a lens that's at its sharpest wide open. My 50mm f/1.8 almost never gets used wide open, but it's supersharp at f/2.8 and an absolute razor at f/4.

kkamin · Nov 27, 2009

+1 on being amazed someone is complaining about shallow DOF. Go close to your lover's face without a camera and focus on their lips or eye and see how much else is in focus-this is how the human eye views things close-up. Shallow DOF creates some of the most beautiful portraits IMO.

MKandiko · Nov 28, 2009

When I had my 50mm it was strictly for the sharpness factor, being a single focal length it has great sharpness. Unfortionatly I dropped it and it broke.