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Welcome, Joe!

I'll mostly comment on one item:
Jmlacy said:
The next lens will be the 17-35 2.8/16-35 f4 but I very rarely shoot at 2.8. I'm an f4 guy because I tend to shoot close to my subjects and like "some" DOF.
Click to expand...
A lesson we had to learn: 2.8 isn't only about DOF in the final result. 2.8 also gives:
  • A brighter image in the viewfinder
  • Faster AF
  • On many lenses, 2.8 also goes with better bokeh (simply because they put the design and $$$ into it for pro shooters who care about such things)
All of those will be benefits of an f2.8 lens even if you never shoot at 2.8

(The 17-35/2.8 is awesome :) )

BTW, you definitely CAN get A mode and auto-ISO to work. Be sure to check all the different things that affect it. I know you said you don't like reading manuals, but if there's one recommendation I can give it's this: buy Thom Hogan's guide ASAP. He covers a ton of subtle details you won't find in the Nikon manual. Well indexed, comes as a searchable PDF. Well worth the $.

Also... while we use Adobe CS4 Premium for lots of things, after comparing LightRoom and NX2, we went with NX2 and never looked back. (One downside to NX2, lack of photo management, is no bother; we use PIE. The other downside is occasional crashes on AMD-based computers... that's a small pain but they are working on it. Much better now than six months ago.)

Sorry for the brain dump... life's busy here but I wanted to give back a little to the forum that helped me so much when I was asking all the questions a year ago :)

Have fun learning...and shooting!
 
Aha. If you set the shutter speed in auto-ISO to 1s, it'll never raise the ISO until you're shooting in conditions that would be slower than 1s. Raise this to a level where you can hand-hold (I set mine to 1/125th, YMMV). Find a somewhat-dark scene, take a picture. The ISO should be higher than 200. Go outside or turn on lots of lights, take another picture without adjusting the aperature , and the ISO should be lower.

That's how auto-ISO works :)
 
I went to Hawaii-geeks site and got all my setups so I'm good there, that and thank to Ashely.

AF is next and then skin tones and I think I'm ready to shut up and go shoot.

Joe
 
Agree with Ashley to reset your d700 to original factory state.

Following are my usual settings:

Metering: center-weighted
Auto D-Lightning: Normal
Picture control: Vivid
High ISO NR : On
Exposure Mode: Aperture priority or Manual
ISO sensitivity step value : 1/3
Auto ISO : Min shutter speed 1/200. Min/Max ISO 200/5000
AF mode for still objects: AF-S with Auto-area AF (as well as single point)
AF mode for moving objects: AF-C with 3D-tracking
Focus Tracking with Lock-On : Normal (only applicable to AF-C)

To avoid too much underexposed at the center, I prefer center-weighted (and sometimes even spot metering). For ADL, I've a feeling of setting it to Normal would has a higher probability of getting better result than Auto. I shoot RAW and use NX2 with a little unsharp mask tune up. I'm okay with the noise performance up to iso5000. Depends on lightning condition, iso6400 would also be acceptable. Pushing the limit, I've tried iso25600 and it's not that bad. I can use Neatimage to further reduce the noise but normally I won't. The way it handles noise is quite pleasing (up to 5000). I will continue to test and fine tune the d700 for different shooting conditions.
 
About the same size as the 20d. Put on that 70-300 @420mm in decent light and that little D90 is a very impressive image maker. Gee..

Still waiting on B&H to get my flash here though.
 
set the minimu and maximum iso you want to work around give the camera those parameters also set in the auto iso menu the minimum shutter speed .. and you should be good to go
--
beam me up scotty

do you consider yourself lucky?
 
One strong suggestion -- set the maximum for auto-ISO to ISO 6400 on the D700. All the HI modes are digital gain, and if you expose at those settings, you will lose a bit or two that you might need and can't recover later. Shoot at max ISO 6400 and use exposure boost during capture to get the same results as HI1-2. Shooting at HI-1,2 is more for JPGs.

BTW -- In manual mode, I believe auto-ISO is always active when selected.
 
Is a great lens up to about 280. After that you MAY get a drop off in quality, but give it a test and see.

The highest quality conversions you will see from your Nef files are via ViewNX or Capture NX2, but LR3 is getting pretty close in most areas and is much nicer to use.

Good luck with your new gear
 
I took the d90 and d700 to the Arboretum today for a test. Words like wow just don't do it for what I saw.

I couldn't believe my eyes or my histogram. I'm completely speechless right now... it's just r-e-a-l-l-y that good. Wow...

Wow!
 
Hi,

I've been reading your thread with great interest.

Please could you share exactly what it is about your histogram so that relative amateurs can understand what it is about your histogram that excites you so ??

Thanks.
Jmlacy said:
I couldn't believe my eyes or my histogram. I'm completely speechless right now... it's just r-e-a-l-l-y that good. Wow...

Wow!
Click to expand...
 
My understanding is that if you're shooting RAW, the settings for D-lighting, picture control will have absolutely no effect!
pc168 said:
Agree with Ashley to reset your d700 to original factory state.

Following are my usual settings:

Metering: center-weighted
Auto D-Lightning: Normal
Picture control: Vivid
High ISO NR : On
Exposure Mode: Aperture priority or Manual
ISO sensitivity step value : 1/3
Auto ISO : Min shutter speed 1/200. Min/Max ISO 200/5000
AF mode for still objects: AF-S with Auto-area AF (as well as single point)
AF mode for moving objects: AF-C with 3D-tracking
Focus Tracking with Lock-On : Normal (only applicable to AF-C)

To avoid too much underexposed at the center, I prefer center-weighted (and sometimes even spot metering). For ADL, I've a feeling of setting it to Normal would has a higher probability of getting better result than Auto. I shoot RAW and use NX2 with a little unsharp mask tune up. I'm okay with the noise performance up to iso5000. Depends on lightning condition, iso6400 would also be acceptable. Pushing the limit, I've tried iso25600 and it's not that bad. I can use Neatimage to further reduce the noise but normally I won't. The way it handles noise is quite pleasing (up to 5000). I will continue to test and fine tune the d700 for different shooting conditions.
Click to expand...
 
I'm an Adobe guy. Except for NX2. We put some real time into both LR and NX2...and came away very impressed with NX2, not only how well it interprets NEF files, but how wonderfully it interprets photographer's intent for processing.

It is a bit different in how it works; you have to learn the tools and get used to them. Then suddenly it clicks, and we can get a lot done, very powerfully.

Of course, you'll find those who swear by LR as well. That's why my real recommendation is: try them and see for yourself.
 
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