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Oh, and the *other* exotic 24mm might be more fun, too: http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/nikon/lenses/specialty/nikon-24mm-f3.5d-pc-e

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I think the 10-20 is probably the most useful of the options you’re listing. Unless your 70-300 is the horrible G version I’m not sure I’d bother with the 80-400 (and if it is the 70-300mm VR might still be a better choice, it’s quite a lot lighter and faster to focus)

If you get the 24mm/1.4 you should probably get a 77mm ND filter to go with it – in daylight you won’t be able to get to F1.4 without it, and if you’re not using it wide open you might as well stick with the F2.8

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For general photography (if you don’t have anything specific in mind) I’d probably recommend the 35/1.8 AF-S as a starter prime lens in preference to both the 50/1.8 and 24/2.8. It’s a much more versatile focal length than 50mm on a DX camera, and it’s cheaper and it’s more than a stop faster than the 24mm.

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Even on the expensive ones the light falloff is heavy.

Money can’t bypass physics ;-). Light falls off based on the square of the distance, so for a correctly exposed subject, anything at 1.4x the flash-subject distance is a stop underexposed, and at twice the subject distance it’s two stops.

You can work with the falloff in the right situation (e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47546170@N07/5050750134/), but otherwise there three basic solutions:

– Move the flash further away from the subject (which also means harder light, absent a modifier like a softbox)

– Bounce the flash off a ceiling etc, which extends the distance the light is travelling and spreads it out so it’s coming from multiple directions. However, this requires some surface to bounce the light from, and drastically raises the required power output.

– Use more light sources, e.g. a separate background light (or balance against daylight)

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I’m kind of tempted by those cheap ringflash adapters, but I’m not sure I’d ever spend the $$ on a dedicated ring flash unit; I have an older manual one and I don’t think I’ve used it more than a couple of times. The basic problem with them is that they aren’t flexible at all, and using a light that close to the subject results in very severe falloff if you don’t light the background separately (e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/99885207/).

For me, an off-camera flash works much better in most situations, e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5631513898/ – If this had been shot with a ring light on camera the far side of the flower would be much darker than the near, but I had my flash angled so the face was parallel to the flower, lighting it fairly evenly (I had a small softbox on the flash to even it out a bit too).

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I usually use Flickr’s privacy controls for stuff like that – I post ’em as private and then create a set with a link that allows anyone with the URL to see the private photos in that set. That way causal browsers can’t find them but they can easily be shared. It also means causal visitors to my photos don’t have to wade through bunches of random family stuff that they don’t care about….

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Woah, congrats on the promotions, new mods!

NoBigDeal, you have to make your own Ban Hammer, I think. Maybe you can borrow one from SilverStag, looks like he’s got three already …

Or use this:

War Hammer by awrose, on Flickr

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Is that a drunk ewok? 😆

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki

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A two bath developer like diafine might be your best bet for option B – there’s not a lot of variation in the process from film type to film type.

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I’d like not to ask, but I’m in a quandary about one of my photos. The session was ‘bees’, literally, and there were lots of good images.

The second one is much more interesting, but I might crop it a little bit tighter if it was mine.

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(with the exception of the tripod, because I don’t have a convenient way to carry it)

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I can see myself getting into a lot of trouble with this one.

well, if you want trouble: http://anflagg.ecrater.com/p/10726487/pure-magnesium-powder-100-grain-5-grams

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Some b’s.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5465719617/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5130330602/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5130330532/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/5005229570/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/4785040715/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awrose/4785041149/

I suspect I may have chosen poorly for my final three this week….

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Some Darlots have that feature, sleeping, but not this particular one.

I meant to fabricate one – it would depend on the optics, but there’s a decent chance something like that would work if you put it right behind the lens instead of in the middle somewhere.

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It’s actually not easy to determine the correct aperture of a lens by measuring the physical object – you need to know the location of the rear optical node (so you can measure the focal length) and the entrance pupil (so you can measure the aperture). I think the easiest way to approximate it is to compare exposures with a known lens.

You might be able to get sharper photos by installing an aperture, it’s effectively wide open as-is. Think Waterhouse stop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterhouse_stop

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