How do you know when your equipment limits you ?

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thesmileyone

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John
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At the moment i have a great crop body (d300s) but still have the lens that came with my D70 (18-70F3.5-4.5G)

I get good results with this (untill you zoom in, at which point its noisey even at ISO 200 with the exposure nailed perfectly) and wondering if a tamron 17-50F2.8 would vastly improve my IQ ?

Thanks
 
thesmileyone said:
At the moment i have a great crop body (d300s) but still have the lens that came with my D70 (18-70F3.5-4.5G)

I get good results with this (untill you zoom in, at which point its noisey even at ISO 200 with the exposure nailed perfectly) and wondering if a tamron 17-50F2.8 would vastly improve my IQ ?

Thanks
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Not sure about the tamron but I wouldn't be happy with your current lens on a D300s. It wouldn't have anything to do with noise though.
 
I bought the tampon to go with the D80 I gave to my son. I used it a bit on my D300 and found it to be very nice. I think you would like it.

I am not sure what is causing your noise issues, though, with your kit lens unless you are shooting at high ISO in low light because you have a fairly slow lens.
 
hunter20ga said:
I bought the tampon to go with the D80 I gave to my son. I used it a bit on my D300 and found it to be very nice. I think you would like it.

I am not sure what is causing your noise issues, though, with your kit lens unless you are shooting at high ISO in low light because you have a fairly slow lens.
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I should point out that I don't think there is anything wrong with your current lens and I'm sure it produces decent results, I have the nikon 16-85 f3.5-5.6 DX lens I got with a D300s, but I've gotten used to the fast FX zooms and primes and definitely feel limited by the slower glass especially when lighting isn't the best. I still use the DX lens on the D300s when the weather is nice and I want a light walkout set up.
 
thesmileyone said:
At the moment i have a great crop body (d300s) but still have the lens that came with my D70 (18-70F3.5-4.5G)

I get good results with this (untill you zoom in, at which point its noisey even at ISO 200 with the exposure nailed perfectly) and wondering if a tamron 17-50F2.8 would vastly improve my IQ ?

Thanks
Click to expand...

How far are you zooming in?

Changing the lens will do nothing for the noise. The noise is purely the sensor and camera processing - nothing to do with the optics.

If you can post examples of a 100% crop and any processing you have done maybe we can help you reduce noise in the images. Sometimes how the camera processes the shot, or indeed how you process it, can exaggerate the noise.
 
Without actually seeing the noise it is hard to say if it is normal.
 
thesmileyone said:
Checked what you said and it appears to be an issue only on ISO 400 and above, is this normal ?
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The D300s will shoot ISO 800 no problem as long as you don't underexpose. Sure there will be a bit more noise than 400 but are you pixel peeping at 100% because they should look good up to 8x10 prints and even larger and fine at normal screen sizes. I try not to go over ISO 800 with the D300s but will push it to 1600 if I have to and use noise reduction software in post.
 
thesmileyone said:
At the moment i have a great crop body (d300s) but still have the lens that came with my D70 (18-70F3.5-4.5G)

I get good results with this (untill you zoom in, at which point its noisey even at ISO 200 with the exposure nailed perfectly) and wondering if a tamron 17-50F2.8 would vastly improve my IQ ?

Thanks
Click to expand...

In a word, no.

From what you've said, you need to nail some other image quality issues before you can say a new lens would improve anything much, if at all. Specifically, look at exposure and noise - you should be fine at ISO800 with that camera.
 
I used to use the 18-70 on my D300s and didn't have any major problems with it. By choice I don't like to shoot over ISO 800-1000 but have shot 1600+ when needed with perfectly useable shots.

The 18-70 is a good lens but in low light it doesn't perform as good.
 
I remember when my wife bought me a Tamron lens for our anniversary she swore it was tampon until I actually pointed out the box to her.

I would never have even thought, but it jumps to my mind every time I see a tamron lens now.

On topic - I started off with a 400d, loved it, but just got annoyed having to go into menus and faff about when I needed to change settings and the buffer was rubbish.

Upgraded to a 1diii and 5dii and never looked back.
 
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