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Yes dear, it came to me with just 4000 actuations. First owner bought it in the Diwali season (just 6 months back) and he had D300 as his main body, also all these gadgets were always kept in the Digital-dry-cabinet ! Moreover its with original bill and warranty. I could not dream of a better seller :)

As we talked about the Manual mode in the previous post, I share a link which I just received in my mailbox few minutes back. * Manual Mode: A Primer*by*Digital Photo Secrets See the date of this article, its 22nd May 2011 !

4K is nothing for a D700 shutter. :) Best analogy I can think of is it is buying a modern car with just 4000 kms on the clock.

I am looking to see some of your low light pics now.

Unfortunately my gear is locked in the almirah as there's some carpentry work going on at home. No being a shutter-bug for at least 10 days.

Cheers!

Ha ha, our situation is almost the same now. The day D700 reached, I got 3 heat boils underarms and the left hand is always in the L position. This weekend went without any action, because sweating kills my brain at this stage. Hope to recover fast and step out with vengeance :D

No I don't think so... For example, In Aperture Priority mode

1. you choose the aperture
2. Camera automatically set the shutter speed.

In Manual mode if you want to capture the frame at the same aperture then,

1. you choose the aperture setting
2. And also dial in the shutter speed setting for correct exposure. But the shutter speed is set based on the meter reading of the camera.

3. Now if you want to expose the frame lighter or darker than what the camera meter suggest, you then either continue to reduce or increase the shutter speed till you achieve the desired exposure. Again, you are relying here on the Camera's light meter for reading.

Going back to Aperture Priority mode, you can achieve the same result of M mode, by following this after the first two steps....

3. Use Exposure Compensation to increase or decrease the exposure

If the metering mode and the scene are the same, then both M and Aperture Priority mode should give exactly the same output.

In cases where the exposure is going to be extremely different from what the Camera meter suggest (more than +/-2), Av or Tv mode doesn't allow to take the shot, then M mode is ideal. However in my limited experience, such case are rare.

Any users of Aperture ? Please do let me know about your feedbacks.

Every camera irrespective of the medium of recording has an aperture, so all those who use a camera are users of Aperture!!! :p
So, what exactly you want to know? Whether there are any users here who use aperture for controlling exposure while in the manual mode or whether they use Aperture Priority only to control the exposure and other parameters??

I explicitly control the aperture for the following uses:
1. To control the light and exposure.
2. For getting the required depth-of-field.

I mostly shoot in manual mode. If there is light is changing drastically, I prefer to shoot in Aperture(Av) or shutter speed priority(Tv). Choosing between Av and Tv again depends on whether the subject is moving(relatively) or not and the dof I want. For moving objects, I prefer Tv mostly, and for stationary objects, I prefer Av.

For old film camera, I have to shoot in Manual mode(M). I make use of Sunny-16 rule, if the meter not working. If the meter is working its Tv mode but the sunny-16 rule at the back of my mind. Its more like Tv mode. In Tv mode also, I can control the dof if required and if the 'available light' permits. Reason being: the camera I prefer the most, canon canonet has a max shutter speed of 1/1000. As per the sunny-16 rule, on a bright sunny day with a 400ISO film, I need to shoot at 1/400 speed and f16 to get correct exposure. But I prefer to shoot at f8 with 135 format camera. Hence at f8, I would be already reaching the limit of the max shutter speed, if I want a narrow dof, something like f2, I cant!!! :(

I am not saying end result will be different. I am a learner and still getting used to a 100% Manual mode. Its a better fun than any other mode for sure. But when I need to shoot fast where there is no time to adjust each thing manually, my only choice is Aperture. Eg. Street photography where each spot will be different light, subject, its movement, angle etc. The day I can quickly control the settings manually for such a situation, I will consider myself mastered the camera not photography yet :)

kkr, Ampere is asking about Aperture software not what you explained :)

Its very easy to learn to shoot in M mode!!!

This is how I did it:

Take you camera and a 50mm lens for a photo-walk just for learning manual exposure. Just read the sunny-16 rule and write down shutter speeds and aperture 'full' stop numbers before you go out for the photo walk. Use your camera as if you can only control:
1. Shutter speed
2. Aperture

Set the ISO and all other parameters constant, Ignore the meter for time being. Increase the shutter speed by a full stop and decrease the aperture by a full stop and take a pic following sunny-16 rule and various other combinations. Dont spend much time trying to preview the pics there itself. Come home, upload the pics onto the system and then study them. You are lucky, the digital cameras have an in-built notes taking facility that is the EXIF data!!! I had to manually write down things on a paper for each shot as I started with a film camera. I just required, three rolls of film to get the hang of manual mode.

On taking notes:
I used to note down the following as part of notes for each frame:
1. Date and time.
2. Angle of sun.
3. Shutterspeed.
4. Aperture.
5. Light conditions (bright/sunny, cloudy, overcast,....)


EDIT:
...........:Frustrati

Shaju how do u rate 550d over D90 from your experience, my friend was planning to buy a used D90 from any known, after selling his brand new 550d. Is that worth?

Oh okay! I will have to wait about 2 years for such a transaction. Heh heh.

Rub it in. Rub it in. :(

Saw this a bit late.

Why will your friend want to do that? I do not think anyone here will unequivocally say that the 550D is better than the D90 or vice versa. It is just that the cameras have different strengths. I like the ergonomics of the D90 over the 550D and would like to believe that in low light performance, the Nikon has the edge mainly because of a bigger sensor. But, and though I have not tested it, the 550D has better video shooting capability. Canon also has cheaper lenses.

I will repeat this ad nauseam: It is the person behind the camera that makes the difference and not the camera itself.

Extremely sorry for not elaborating. The Aperture I am referring to is the Aperture S/W for MAC which is equivalent to Photo Shop (if not equivalent, close to!). Any users of this S/W?

I agree, But this happened due to me. We both bought two 550d's together. He is a Nikon Fan in his life and from the day1 onwards, he is interested to go back. So I thought to clarify in our own thread here before helping him out !!

Not only D90 actually, even D5100 is there in mind. Need to get experts advice before jump in...

Shall I suggest a simpler method ? Let me explain what I follow in M mode:

Aperture is easy to decide and control according to me. So keep the Aperture at f/1.8 or f/2.8 if you want the best bokeh. Keep it varying between f/8 to f/16 if everything in the scene is required. So thats done.

Shutter speed is something tricky, because it can overexpose or underexpose if the camera is metering something and you tend to move the cam even a bit from where it metered. So, point the cam where you want to meter, adjust the shutter speed looking at the metering bars in the viewfinder (ideally at 0 value, unless you want a more creative shot).

Take a shot and see the histogram. If its balanced (need some basic reading to understand the pattern) we are done.

Exposure compensation is something I rarely touch, its not really required in normal conditions. Everything can be done by adjusting the shutter speed. ISO comes to picture only when I am in low light, otherwise its always at ISO-100. White balance is also something I try to control myself. But a person who is shooting in RAW, white balance in Auto mode is perfect as we are going to retouch the image for the final outcome anyway.

Hope I have covered everything what was in my mind !

I am not an expert to compare and comment. But I always thought both are of the similar features and pricing, except the mega pixel count and few bits here and there. What makes him sell his 550D for a used D90 ? Please ask his reasoning behind, may be we could hear something that is not heard before ! Given a choice, I would never do that. Does not make sense.


And you expect me to believe that ? :D

I cannot understand M mode usage for regular shots, unless your meter is inconsistent.
Even in cameras where metering is off by +1/2 or -1/2 etc, for every shot, you can always apply exposure compensation and leave it on.
However, if your camera sometimes underexposes and sometimes overexposes, you do not need to use M mode.
Aperture priority will do (control of DOF) or when shooting action, shutter priority will do just fine.