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In body stabilisation is great as you can even use older manual lenses. That said it is the broad range of lenses that make the DSLR so attractive. Sony has still to catch up with Canon-Nikon in the sheer variety of lenses offered. Though excellent lenses from Zeiss are there for Sony, they are way to expensive for most of us. Regarding Minolta lenses, they are a generation older and may not be as sharp for smaller digital sensors as the current batch of lenses optimised for digital sensor. Chromatic aberration which was tolerable during film days is more pronounced in digital sensors. Have you explored the possibility of the mirror less (EVIL) cameras. With no mirror the lenses are lighter and the camera smaller.

@Aroy,

Thank you for your perspective. It was very helpful indeed.

Regarding EVIL cameras, I have been following them since the days the EP1 was announced. However I do not like the feel of these cameras. I prefer to compose using the eyepiece / viewfinder and I am not too gung-ho about the EVF supplied as an accessory. Also, the extra girth of the DSLR helps me stabilize myself.

And then, the problem of a smaller range of lenses still remain. Nikon is rumored to be developing an EVIL camera, but no news from Canon yet.

Can folks suggest good books on photography?
Composition, Exposure, Lighting etc.

Software called 123Di . Its one of the best to learn everything interactively about Photography.

True Amit, I have not tried serious landscapes or HDR. My D90 has dedicated BKT button, but I dont think I will use it for landscapes. Although I have not tried, someone told me single RAW file could be processed differently and used for HDR images. So that again mutes the use of BKT button.

Same thing what I heard from someone else.

Sony and Olympus are good brands and they have some really good models, only issue is the support & service part in India. I have gone out for photo-walks with many groups at different occasions, but never found either of these brands used by anyone. I think that tells the market pulse.

Dont invest in printed materials, Google will give you enough materials to read and practice for years. Below links which I found too good for my learning:

The Luminous Landscape Tutorials contents (Really useful)
Photography, Digital Camera & Lightroom Tips — FroKnowsPhoto » Archive (Plenty of videos)
Adorama Learning Center (tons of videos)

I tried it and the result is there in the previous page. Effects are so-so. I checked the EXIF after manipulating the RAW file - base exposure is still shown to be the same as the one it was taken with.

Thanks for the inputs. Plus I feel that Olympus might discontinue the DSLR range in the long term. And concentrate on doing 'EVIL'. :D

The idea of bracketing for HDR is to get High Dynamic Range. For example if the image has 20 stops of information and your sensor 12, then either you are blowing the highlights or masking low intensity in shadows. In either case you cannot recover the data.

With bracketing you are exposing for bright light at one end and for deep shadows at other. The software analyzes you shots and incorporates the full range in one image. In general this extended range cannot be either printed or viewed due to hardware limitations. Then it compresses the extended range into print/screen dynamic range. So you get the extremely bright parts as well as deep shadows in your shot.

Thanks for the explanation, until I try it myself, theory is way over my head. I have seen very beautiful HDR images in Flickr, also some very badly processed ones. May be the bad ones influenced me not to try it :). Anything that looks very artificial is bad processing in my books, may be I am wrong.

After waiting long for the Nikkor 70~200 f/2.8 VR-I and not being able to afford the VR-II version of this lens, I settled for another wonderful glass - the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D ED Macro.



Sold the Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED to a dear friend..!

Congrats, are you posting your shots in non auto dslr threads.

Thanks & yes I do post the pics in the non-auto dslr thread, but have not taken any from this lens. Just sitting and looking at this piece of hardware and admiring..:)

The theory is simple.

1. Sensor has say 14 bits of data. These are the brightness levels.
2. Your scene, say bright sunlight with deep shadows under trees requires 20 bits of intensity levels.
3. You shoot with meter set for bright areas, so you get 14 bits which give you gradation for bright levels, but leave the shadows black.
4. You shoot with meter set for deepest shadow, so you get 14 bits which give you gradations for shadows, but leave the bright parts white.
5. Your software analyses the two shots and concludes that there are 20 bits of brightness levels. It picks up 10 bits from white and ten bits from dark, balances the intermediate levels to give you an image with 20 bits.
6. As your monitor can normally display 8 bits( per colour), the software will fit the 20 bits of image to 8 bits.
7. What you achieve is that the sky which was very bright has now a lot of gradation. The shadows which were very dim have all gradations. Your image now displays the full dynamic range captured (although compressed to cater to the monitor!)

I have simplified things a bit. The number of bits in the image from sensor denotes the A to D converted levels. The dynamic range of the sensor may be more or less (in terms of f stops), but the theory still holds.

Congrats GD sab, looks like a stealth weapon by all means :)
Its a beautiful piece of glass which I considered and googled on for an entire month. Somehow Sigma 70-200 looked more affordable to me. Whats the damage by the way ?

Now stop admiring and head to the field :D

Wow excellent explanation, thanks a lot. I have a question, should i go with bkt of 3 shots with +/- .3 or something like that OR have multiple bkt with different exposure compensation settings and then make a HDR i.e. 1st bkt with +/- .3 and then another with +/-.7 so this will give me more shots.

@theBeast, from what I have read +/- 1 at either side is recommended if you are taking 3 exposures. The more stops the better. Have seen examples on Flickr that were made from 9 exposures, though I do not have all details.