Whatbird.com

I just bought a new SLR - the Nikon D90. I have many questions about this product, its really amazingly complex and powerful. I wonder how many other birders own Nikon's and if so how did you leave to master it?

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Mitch Waite

I sprung for the D300 a frew months ago and am still on a fairly steep learning curve.  I read the manual, which I didn't think was very good.  The DVD that I purchased was much better.  I visited some photo forums and got a few suggestions for a bank of settings that would be good for bird photography, and through trial and error came up with my "standard" settings, which I use 90% of the time.  I use shutter priority set at 1/200 sec., spot metering, single point auto focus, always in VR.  This lets the ISO go (set at 400 min.) where it needs to once the aperture is maxed, as noise is not a big problem til it gets over 1000 (I have gotten some good shots all the way to 3200).  My current "bird glass" is a Sigma 150-500 f5--6.5 lens, but I'm lusting after something faster already.

Since I don't shoot every day, I don't think I'll ever completely master the camera.  I was a confirmed Canon user before I checked out the new Nikons, which now IMO are on a par with Canon and in some ways superior (I threw that in just to get some argument from the Canon people!)

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Twin Lakes Ranch
Central Texas

This is really helpful. So you shoot in the "S" mode or shutter priority, where you control the speed and let the camera control the F-stop and ISO? Have you considered using the Nikon's bracketing feature which can take several shots at the same time, each with a different ISO, f-stop, etc?

 I found a book on the D60 that seems to cover a lot of the same stuff that is on my newer D90, from Focus. The manuals are the pits.

SLRs seem like the perfect product for Apple to take on. They are another gadget we love to hate. Menu madness. Apple could call it the Macera or the iCamera.

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Mitch Waite

Yes, that's right.  So if the light allows an adequate f-stop, the ISO will be 400---if not, the ISO will go up to whatever it needs to properly expose the pic.  I have the bracketing on my list to try soon, but haven't yet.  What lens or lenses are you using on your D90?

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Twin Lakes Ranch
Central Texas

The D90 comes with a Nikon DX Nikkor 18 - 105 mm lens. Most cameras in this class seem to come with an 18 to 55 so the Nikon goes a step further and gives you more zoom range. I am going to have to bone up on using shutter priority. Right now I am not completly happy with the sharpness of my shots. I think its got something to do with the light is not bright enough.

We are in the process of adding photos to our pages, so you can see the Dark-eyed Junco I shot yesterday

http://offline.whatbird.com/obj/125/_/Dark-eyed_Junco.aspx

Its right below the illustration.

BTW how do you like how these pages look?

 

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Mitch Waite

Mitch --

I think the new pages look fantastic -- the Flash player to show the variants and photos is a huge upgrade.  My only complaint is with the Google ad right in the middle of the description of the bird's habitat/behavior...   understandable that it should be where people see it, but I don't want visitors to get the impression that there isn't much more to read in that area of the screen.  Looking forward to seeing all the pages look this way!

While the Junco pic was fairly small, it looked pretty sharp to me, and overall a very good one.  You can probably increase your sharpness if you go to "S" priority at 200.  That speed will eliminate most camera shake and most incidental bird movement.  Couple that with a minimum ISO of 400 and you're almost set for everything but maybe in-flight and low light.  I'm not totally sure but your camera may be able to "tune" your lens performance by automatically adding some sharpening, based on some simple tests you can do.  Check the "fantastic" manual on this.  The pages look very good to me both in form and content.

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Twin Lakes Ranch
Central Texas

goofy166:

The D90 comes with a Nikon DX Nikkor 18 - 105 mm lens. Most cameras in this class seem to come with an 18 to 55 so the Nikon goes a step further and gives you more zoom range. I am going to have to bone up on using shutter priority. Right now I am not completly happy with the sharpness of my shots. I think its got something to do with the light is not bright enough.

We are in the process of adding photos to our pages, so you can see the Dark-eyed Junco I shot yesterday

http://offline.whatbird.com/obj/125/_/Dark-eyed_Junco.aspx

Its right below the illustration.

BTW how do you like how these pages look?

Mitch the new pages look great I really like that layout  Your junco pic is pretty good to. I have a Canon body i really don't think there is to much difference in how they work but I shoot always in manual that way I get to control the aperture, Shutter,ISO in any given situation the only thing you have to remember is not to to excited about a shot and forget to make sure the exposure for the shot is ok I have ruined alot like that overexposed or under exposed

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Birds high above in the trees Serenade the flowers with their melodies - Line from the song "A Lovers Concerto"

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

The honest truth is that I am not good enough to shoot in manual (yet!?).  I don't want to risk getting something that I can't even fix later.  I know there is an argument for biting the bullet for the sake of advancing one's photo skill, but I want immediate gratification.  On some of the shots, particularly of the warbler sized birds, there is no time to do anything except point and shoot.

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Twin Lakes Ranch
Central Texas

Glad to hear you like the new pages so much. That really makes me happy. Sorry about the Google ad. Your right its in your face, but that is really needed to get anyone to click on it, and we get paid for the clicks. So please click away :) I really don't believe that their placement under Overview will prevent people from scrolling further down, after all the right column is still loaded with information.

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Mitch Waite