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I hope everyone is doing well. I’ve been playing around with macro as I may have mentioned before. So far I’ve been sticking to my D300s with a Tokina 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. Things I have learned. Unless I have the crazy afternoon sun here in Texas, I don’t have enough light or it is from the wrong direction and I get motion introduced with a slower shutter speed, so I am investigating diffusers to use with an SB-600 I have. I’m not wanting to crank the ISO very high but may need to for a higher shutter speed. Due to the previous issue I have been disappointed in sharpness due to camera shake or motion of the subject due to wind. If handheld and with my aging eyes, I can’t always judge focus as acutely as I would like. If using a tripod, I’d use live view to tweak it as needed for a static subject. It doesn’t seem to work well for the busy bees. Subjects where you have to lie down on the ground to see the view finder have their own challenges. This goes beyond macro as well. Live view on the rear display is also to use effectively. I am considering the foray into mirrorless, at least for some things. Bang for the buck on used Nikon mirrorless seems to revolve around the z5 and z6. I like the option they have of focus shifting to reduce the time and effort of a focus rail for creating a stack for focus stacking. Mirrorless would be good for street photography since people don’t see the usual raising of the camera to your eye. What experience and commentary does this group have on z5 vs z6? Have a great weekend, Jon

Have those periods where some little thing plagues your photography work? For some reason I seemed to miss the depth of field from time to time and it bugged me. With my D700 the screen on the back wasn’t the best resolution and my aging eyes even with readers couldn’t always pick up on it especially when out in the sun. So I over compensated by running a higher f/stop. Enter in diffraction. Sometimes I’d get a good shot but everything else was soft. I was maddening until I read and reread some articles on it and likely a YouTube video or three. The D810 has a higher resolution screen which helps, but even then the issue still exists when out in the sun. One thing that has helped me on the depth of field and diffraction issue was to put up a platform bird feeder about 20 feet from the front porch. I had to prefocus on the middle of the feeder and use a remote shutter release from inside the house. It taught me more about focal length and deep of field with relation distance to subject. Of course diffraction stuck its head in there too. While it was frustrating, it was a learning experience too. So for these purposes, I find my D300s gives me the perceived reach without the depth of field hit for longer focal length - close subject situations. Likewise on macro work. What are your stories along this line? Regards, Jon

Group...The top control panel display glass is cracked. Is this replaceable? Can I get a glass from Nikon or do I have tosend it in to them. Thanks Gordon Smith

Just saw this on DPReview. It appears to live on as part or Gear Patrol https://www.dpreview.com/site-news/8298318614/dpreview-com-looks-forward-to-a-new-chapter-with-gear-patrol Hopefully this will be a good thing. Jon

I’ve been playing around with macro a bit and have been on a bee binge lately. There is a trumpet vine growing wild along my neighbors fence line that I don’t have a problem with since it is an attractant for bees and hummingbirds. The weeks I am oncall for work I am stuck at home and use it as part of my backyard safari project. I do have a Tamron 28-300mm ‘macro’ lens that is fine for static subjects with my D300s but does not cut it when it comes to autofocus on fast moving bees. It is just too slow. I’ve been playing with my Nikon 28-300mm AF-S VR lens which has a pretty quick AF motor and using extension rings for a closer working distance. It can be frustrating at times when it decides to hunt. With that said when it works it does a pretty good job. Today I tried using manual focus on some bees. I had one that was being cooperative when I had the 28mm extension ring on it. The challenge I had was the focus ring is small and not the smoothest. I’ve been looking for a 300mm macro lens or at least closet to 200mm that has a fast AF and a decently smooth wider focus ring. Any thoughts or experience on such a beast if it exists? It would be nice to go from bees to hummingbirds which I can’t do with the extension rings as you lose a lot of your focus range. Trying to capture bees in flight is my goal especially if they are laden with a ton of pollen. I believe Nikon made a 300mm macro f/4 lens. If the ones I was looking at on the used market were that, they were still pricey. I do need to upload some of what I have been doing on flicker and re-organize that. Thanks for your input. Jon

Hello All Since posting on here and joining Flickr I have learn't a lot about photography, still loads more to learn and the group has ignited my quest for good quality photo's to frame for the house. Instead of buying pictures for the walls I want to take them so that everytime I see the picture I will remember the time and realise I was invested in that moment. I always look at the picture Kelly took that won a prize and wonder what must he think everytime he looks at it, I can take a decent picture mostly with the help of the D850 but I cannot create or see a great picture. So to all of you Nikonians what makes a good picture and what makes a great picture? -- Kind Regards Roy

Hello All I have the battery grip for my D850 and it has a power port at the end, the manual calls this a Holder power connector, the manual I have does not go into what this is used for or how it is plugged in if thats what it does, does anyone have this battery grip and do they use this power connector? -- Kind Regards Roy

I was wondering about how the group members insure their photography gear. Do you add a rider onto your homeowners insurance or have a specific policy for all your gear?

I’m amazed by how great the 70-200mm f/2.8E is for just walking around and taking photos. Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph some Blue Grape Hyacinth, and a Bee was nice enough to pose for me while I was photographing the flowers. https://flic.kr/ps/vUNzi Zane

Does anyone happen to know where to find out what the limits are on the Nik Plugins? I’ve been fighting with a couple photo’s, intending to process them in Silver Efex Pro, only to find out that it apparently can’t handle a 816 Megapixel image. Zane

Semi off topic but does relate to the group and camera use. I wear multi-focal contacts being I am very nearsighted. They work fairly well and keep me from having to wear readers in my truck at night to be able to read the dashboard of the truck. They also reduce the number of time I have to put the readers on when out and about where there is sufficient light. The joys of presbyopia and middle age. Lately I have found I still need to put readers on when making adjustments to the camera or reviewing the images on the camera so I tend to be putting the readers on multiple times when in the field for mere seconds at a time. Being I also have a slight astigmatism that is just below what they can correct with contact lenses I have to deal with that. I had a thought the day before my semi annual optometrists visit concerning getting a pair of glasses to wear over my contacts usually when I am out shooting. The upper part of the lenses would correct the astigmatism only and the lower would add a +2.00 for up close work like reviewing images. The doctor wasn’t sure if it would work and had to think a few minutes about the concept. We tried holding 2 glass disks with the proper astigmatism correction in front of my eyes with the contacts in while looking at an eye chart. It actually improved things quite a bit. The letters while recognizable without the additional correction improved by not being as fuzzy. Not perfect but very noticeably improved. We both learned something from this exercise. I find that to be a win. I’ve been looking at lenses to place in an older set of frames and I am trying to decide between polycarbonate or glass. Glass having the better optical qualities is where I am leaning in addition to the better scratch resistance. As a note, I do have a proper set of high index glasses for use when not wearing my contacts. I don’t like them for 2 reasons. The perspective changes like the difference between looking through a 50mm lens versus a 35mm lens. They also have the progressive bifocal which I totally hate. I have also used OTC readers for years because they are cheap, but they scratch easily and that annoys me. I have not been able to find the half size readers that you can look over in quite awhile. I tend to want to try them on before purchasing. This is another reason I am going down this road. I will note that the high index polycarbonate lenses seem to do well as far as acuity, just the more extreme refraction causing some differences than with contacts. Does anyone here have any experience with glass versus polycarbonate in their glasses as far as quality?

Simply put, I’m loving the results from this lens. I had it out on the 29th, and have gotten 8 Coastal Defense Fort photos up on Flickr, and am loving the detail. As I’d mentioned a couple weeks ago, this was also my first time using the current 70-200mm as a walking about lens (since buying it last June I’d only used it for a couple reenactments). The most recent shot is from the 70-200mm, but the next 8 are from 14-24mm. Zane Healy flickr.com The level of detail, sharpness, and texture is just what I need, I’m actually a bit surprised to see this from a D800. I just wish I could get this out of the 24-70mm f/2.8G. Zane

I recently logged back into Flickr for the first time in awhile. I see they revamped things. I need to refresh my site there and figure out a better way to do it as I had more of a jumble of images without a more concise look. In the past I had a public view and I am thinking i need to set up a more focused set of albums that are displayable to those that venture to the site. I have not been able to search for any guides or help yet as I am working and oncall through the weekend. I know Walt has a nice layout, but trying to emulate that without knowing how things look from the account side of things seems a little daunting at the moment. Any tips would be appreciated. I hope this weekend if work is quiet I can test out my focus rail and stacking images in Photoshop. Jon

In response to Zane’s comments about Novoflex adaptors, I have the one mentioned, to put Leica M mount lenses on to a Nikon Z7. Works very well, in fact, especially if you use focus peaking! I have an M mount Voigtlander 40mm f1.2 Nokton that I often use on the Z7. There’s no communication between the lens and body, of course! Everything’s manual, though it works well in shutter priority. -- Chris Gibbins

I have a RRS focus rail coming. From one of my test shots with the 50mm and the 36mm extension tube I can see the benefit of focus stacking depending on the subject. I can see macro becoming a rabbit hole that I am diving into. A benefit for me is that if I can’t get out and about, the yard has an endless supply of subjects to focus on so to speak. While I plan on trying the focus stacking option in lightroom, has anyone had any success with it or should I look at other options?

Hi, Zane. Thanks for your thoughts. Since this project is still in the experimental stage, I'll stick with something a wee bit less expensive than Novoflex and its brethren. It's probably a good thing that I don't own any Leica lenses to tempt me. /AnotherBob Sent from our iBob

Hi, Zane. Thanks for the link to a very interesting chart. It also indicates that I may have found a use for my dust-collecting D60, which served us well in its day. Time to keep a sharper eye out, as the yard sale season approaches in Massachusetts. /AnotherBob Sent from our iBob

I just found this link, but still have more confidence in this group of familiar names than an unknown responder to DPreview. /AnotherBob https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4672622 Adapter F non-ai to Z: Nikon Z Mirrorless Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review Expert news, reviews and videos of the latest digital cameras, lenses, accessories, and phones. Get answers to your questions in our photography forums. www.dpreview.com Sent from our iBob

Consignment shops and yard sales have numerous 1970's Nikon film cameras with pre-AI lenses at nearly dumpster prices. My understanding is that, of the digital Nikons, only the Df can safely mount these lenses. What is different about the Df design that allows safe mounting? Would pre-AI lenses safely mount onto a current mirrorless body, using an FTZ? Assuming all manual settings. I have successfully used my old Minolta Rokkor lenses on my Z6, with a MetaBones adapter. The results are obviously not a match for new equipment, but fun to see the results, and I do have a few "good at the time" Rokkor lenses. Do any of you have experience with pre-AI lenses on a Df body or with adapters? /AnotherBob Sent from our iBob

I know tethering is great for studio work. I have an opportunity to do a shoot for a friend and want to be able to display images as they are captured on a TV attached to the HDMI port on my laptop (windows 11) to allow us to critique it as well as review aspects we want to change. The 810 does not have Wi-Fi capability so I am likely looking at a wired option unless there are workable options that won’t break the bank so to speak. What are the experiences of the group with this tethering? Any recommendations or should I stick to frequent breaks and import the card from the camera? Regards, Jon