D30 for P & S

Hi All

I have been learning a lot just lurking in this forum but I have a question if I may. I will be buying the D30 or replacement but my girlfriend travels to bird seminars a lot. Would it be a decent camera as a point and shoot with the built in flash. I will be getting the 550 but she wants to carry as little as poss. 2 cameras are out of the question. Our 990 was stolen. Red eye was horrible without bracket & flash and that was my fault not nikons. Just ask her. LOL She will have a lot of other things so probably 1 lense attached and extra battery grip would be all. Thanks in advance.
Dave

Dave Smith said:

Hi All
I have been learning a lot just lurking in this forum but I have a
question if I may. I will be buying the D30 or replacement but my
girlfriend travels to bird seminars a lot. Would it be a decent
camera as a point and shoot with the built in flash. I will be
getting the 550 but she wants to carry as little as poss. 2
cameras are out of the question. Our 990 was stolen. Red eye
was horrible without bracket & flash and that was my fault not
nikons. Just ask her. LOL She will have a lot of other things so
probably 1 lense attached and extra battery grip would be all.
Thanks in advance.
Dave

Click to expand...

FWIW....I have a D30 with ALL the goodies. ( big lenses, flashes, etc...)

When I want to carry it as a"P&S", I take the body with the 24-85 lens. The size and weight of that combo is not much more than a decent p&S camera. The built in flash works fine. Altering for ISO can also change the flash distance if you need more distance.

Redeye is not a problem, and the zoom range on the D30 / 24-85 lens with the 1.6x factor is 38-136, which is a nice P&S range.

my 2 cents.

I'd generally agree with Anthony, that the D30 can be used with a relative minimum of effort and expertise, and good results can be obtained in most circumstances.

If the conditions are challenging photographically, you'd need to access the non point-and-shoot features, but it does pretty well on its own.

When I'm travelling as light as possible, I put on the Canon 28-135IS and it does a great job for general shooting. The built-in flash is more than acceptable (just don't expect studio-looking results) and redeye isn't a problem (I too came from the Coolpix series, with brackets, external flashes being a necessity to avoid this).

To get the best out-of-camera results (minimal processing and editing time after), she'd probably be shooting Jpeg, and you might consider using parameters with high in-camera sharpening, normal to high contrast, normal to high saturation. I shoot Raw 100% and spend a fair amount of time converting and editing, but Jpegs with the above settings should do pretty good straight out of the camera.

Hope this helps.

Don
http://www.dlcphotography.net

Dave,

Out of curiousity, why are 2 cameras out of the question? Once you finish outfitting your D30, your into several thousand dollars. A decent P&S at about $600 is only going to be a few hundred dollars than the 550EX alone. You'll spend twice as much on a lens alone once you get that digital body and become very quality conscious. The Olympus 2100UZ at about $550 would make a very nice machine for bird watchers even it it "only" 1600x1200 pixels. The ultra zoom (38-380mm) and stabalized lens would be of great value.

Just a thought.

Dave Smith said:

Hi All
I have been learning a lot just lurking in this forum but I have a
question if I may. I will be buying the D30 or replacement but my
girlfriend travels to bird seminars a lot. Would it be a decent
camera as a point and shoot with the built in flash. I will be
getting the 550 but she wants to carry as little as poss. 2
cameras are out of the question. Our 990 was stolen. Red eye
was horrible without bracket & flash and that was my fault not
nikons. Just ask her. LOL She will have a lot of other things so
probably 1 lense attached and extra battery grip would be all.
Thanks in advance.
Dave

Click to expand...

Thanks all

I feel better all ready. It sounds like it will do the job for her. I am still learning PS 6 but am very comfortable with a computer. Just never shot raw before. I have taught my friend who is the track pro, to go digital this year, and the track is buying him either a dix or h. We print on Epson 1200,1270,870 with the CFS on one of them. We could get better quality but that is all that is required. We do finish line and winner's circle.

This is just a hobby for me and since I won't be trying to get anything back from the camera, right now 1 camera will have to do.

She is in to a lot of other things so I would have to buy her a bunch of stuff first.
Dave

Hi Mike

I have always had slrs from my 35 mm days and when I was trying out digital KodaK 260, Nikon 990, there was something missing. The 990 is a good unit with the ability to match up to diff scopes etc but I like the idea of the clean pic, no or low noise, and interchangeable lenses. Also it may have to be used as back up at the track if and when their camera's are sent in for repair. This would not be it's main use but just in case. Also I have been saving a bit so I won't feel it to bad in the wallet.

Just my views as I am sure a lot of other camera's are great. The bird's that I will be shooting are Parrots as we own 15 of them and they only get to fly around the house. I want to set up a small studio with lights in the basement for taking pet pics complete with diff backdrops so that is where the D30 really shines.
Dave