Merco_61

When comparing prices, remember that the 70-200 VR II was introduced at $2400 in 2009. This means that the price hike when comparing introduction prices is in the same ~15% region as the new 24-70.

Have you tried Capture NX-D? Saves to 16-bit .tif as standard, uses all the settings in your D7100 and is free. If you want good noise reduction and to easily map as much DR as possible into 8-bit .jpg-s, PhotoNinja or DxO are hard to beat.

ViewNX, either 2 or -i should be able to export, but you have to use export instead of save. Cmd-e on a Mac, Ctrl-e on a Windows box.

Welcome to the forums!

Don't feel too bad about delivery times. I live in the 4th largest city in Sweden and sometimes a letter or package takes 4 days or more to get the 45 miles from Stockholm. Packages from abroad usually get to the first sorting spot in 36-48 hours and then it takes 10 days or so to reach Uppsala. 

The D750 is a nice choice and the 85/1.8G is sharp and has a nice transition from sharp to unsharp. You will probably find that the D750 retains much more DR at high ISO values than the K-3 did and that the AF is more reliable in low light.

To get the most out of the buffer in the D750, remember to switch Active D-lighting off as the ADL processing steals processor cycles. Unless you use Capture NX-D, ADL doesn't do anything except lowering the overall exposure anyway. You will have a steep learning curve ahead as you get to know what AF settings to use when but the experiments you do now will pay off quickly. 

Nikons auto WB isn't quite as good as what you have been used to under floodlights. It comes close, but tends to be on the warm side compared to reality and the Pentax renditions. It is better to do a manual WB either from shooting a gray card before the game or dialing in a value if you have been at the venue before and kept a note of the settings.

I suppose it is this sentence you mean?

The owner of the photo comments on the work done, highlighting what he liked best (both the interpretation itself and the technique used to get there) after the original week is over.

The purpose of the sentence is not to name a winner. It is a reminder to give positive feedback and highlight the positives of the entries. This is exactly what you both do very well after your week is over. 

Photo Editor isn't made for extensive edits, the idea is that the user should open the file, do whatever is necessary and save as a new file name to preserve the original file untouched. With this approach, the bit-rot introduced by saving over previous saves and recompressing every time won't be a problem. The automatic sharpening is meant to give the user less to worry about and works well if all you want to do is some tweaks without editing much. The problem is that you want to use the software in a way the engineers in Redmond haven't planned for.

To spin further on Darryl's excellent observation the order of factors that mage for a great photo is, IMO:

1. Light
2. Subject matter
3. Composition
4. Technique
5. Technology

The light has to be great, the subject matter has to draw the viewer in, the composition has to complement the subject matter, it has to be correctly exposed with the correct focus and defocus to complement the subject matter and the correct lens, body, filters etc have to be chosen. If even one of these factors is missing, it can still be a nice photo but it won't be a great one.

How many times have you saved the .jpg? I suspect that the software applies sharpening for screen on every save without telling the user, which quickly stacks up so you get sharpening artifacts. Saving again and again with recompressing the .jpg will soon produce the posterizing seen in this example as well.

Being inconspicuous is more a matter of the camera being a natural extension of yourself than the size of the camera and lens as long as the front element isn't too large and the hood too deep so that they draw attention to themselves. A 24-70 makes the work harder than even the modern, larger primes. The older generation of primes with the 52 mm filter thread is more suitable than more modern lenses.

The 24/2.8 AF-D is nice and easy to find as it is is still current. It is cheaper than the Ais, but the manual focus version is even better optically. On DX, the HN-3 is a better hood than the recommended HN-1 as it is more suited to the fov on a DX sensor. 

Ron's tip to put gaffer's tape on the logo is a good idea and helps in most situation where you want to be a fly on the wall. 

Marc, I agree that the beach situation turns us from the guy with the camera into the creepy guy fast, even if you only carry the camera and don't use it.

The new atrium roof at the city library at dawn.

Model: NIKON D300

Studying the editing exercises and see how different we all see things and how we have made our edits can perhaps give some ideas as well. Participating in the exercises is open to all members and the old ones aren't closed even after the original week.

Trying your hand at these and either trying to replicate a look you like or try something you get inspiration for as you look around seems like a good idea to me.

If you want to start submitting files for the exercise, shoot me a PM so I can add you last in this round and get you into the rotation for the next.

I usually try to go for minimal edits and getting things right in-camera. The exceptions are some HDR, focus stacking macros and using the Brenizer method for gigapixel panos. This is a side-effect of working with film in the 90-s and is a good habit to have as it is less time-consuming and makes the risk of photoshop disasters much less.

The slide mount crops the slide to somewhere between 94 and 96%. The DX sensor with a slide copying unit that is made for FX crops much more, of course. Can you rent a slide scanner somewhere? This won't get the parts of the slide that are hidden in the mount, but it will scan things in a timely fashion. Otherwise, you could rent an FX body and see what you can get with the ES-1. If this works, a D700 isn't *that* expensive used anymore and is a nice way to get into FX.

You could use a PB-6, PS-6, PK-11A and a 105 mm MicroNikkor with an aperture ring to get the full slide area on a DX body, even if the mount will be visible at the edges. This is how we did it before 2007 as there were no FX Nikons yet. A 60 or 55 mm will give far too much magnification with the bellows.

Is that one of those strange contraptions with the open synchronizing gears on front? If so, make very sure that you mark everything carefully at disassembly as you sometimes need a collimator to set the lenses from scratch. Medium formar TLRs are usually nice toys, even if there are some models to keep well away from. None of those are Japanese, though.

This project is doable, if youy have nearly unlimited funds and access to a stadium light rig to mount about 20 1200J studio strobes. You will have to rethink and shoot in available light, perhaps with some lightpainting thrown in.

The 35 on DX is on the long side to get a real presence when shooting street. I like to use the unobtrusive 35/2 O-Nikkor or a 35/1.4 Ais on the D700 for street as the 35/1.8 FX is much larger. I have used the 24/2.8 AF-D on the D300 quite a lot and got nice results with that combination too. Going with a prime is not limiting, it releases a creative flow as the f/l decision is already made and you start seeing with a pre-visualizing eye instead of casually observing.

The 35 on film or FX makes you, the photographer, a part of the street instead of being an outside observer. There have been quite a lot of good street shot with a 50 or even a 75 or 90 mostly on rangefinders, but they feel more like candids in a street environment to me than what I think of as street.

I have shot a bit of street, ever since the film days but I don't like to present that part of what I do on the 'net as one never knows in what context a web published photo will turn up.

There are very few of us who use the Coolpix range or have a manual for a specific model downloaded. Rather than guessing, we don't say anything so we at least don't give bad advice.