M.Beier

Hi there!

Welcome to the forum

D5100 is in my book a bit obsolete body, however it is doable! If I was you I'd consider renting a body+wide angle for iceland, and then buy a 50mm prime.

The D810, if not too expensive, would be a good choice, yet D610 will be plenty.

Why the pro lenses? Iceland can be crap weather from start to end of your trip, and weather sealing isnt a concern in the pro bodies.

Hope you have a nice trip.

Summed up:
Rent

D810

Tamron 15-30 or Nikon 14-24

Buy:

50mm prime 

I had 1 original and 3 cheaper for my D5200, one of the cheap ones went bust, 2 others work fine..

For my D800E, I use 2 cheap alternatives, I managed to get close to 2000 pics without swapping battery using 150-600 lens for flights during an airshow.

You should stack such pictures especially when using 'el cheapo', you can get amazing results!

Next time I will try stacking myself, this is my best handheld of the moon without stacking

Honestly don't do anything... Scandinavian winter here too, but not that cold as Sweden, however -12C we have peaked this year.

Coating on lens is fine, it won't hurt the front element, and NIKON D3xxx D5xxx D7xxx and Dxxx DX series are plenty weather sealed for the condensation to be on the outside of the gear, you won't get any issues internally..

Worth to notice is that condensation will appear when something is colder then ambient temperature, as in when you bring it back inside, but the condensation will appear where the heat (indoor ambient in this case) surrounds the cold... Thereby it will be slightly moist/wet on the outside, inside will be just fine.

If you worry about the outside of your gear, what you can do will be to wrap it in kitchen plastic foil/wrap, that will make the water appear on the outside of the plastic
I've used this method on electronics cooled at -196C.

You have a good starter set of lenses, just get a hood for the 18-55 and shoot as much as you can. You might find a use for a good polarizer and a neutral density filter for your landscape photography, but that's it, I think.

Curious, how come the ND filter? I think polarizer can make sense, but with landscape atleast I want narrow aperture and the shutterspeed doesnt matter any more then the faster (the more light) the lower ISO. I cannot think of a scenario where I'd like to dimm the light reaching the sensor, what am I missing?

- But then again; I skipped all thought of getting ND filters, as I only see it for special shoots that are really not my type of photography.

Auch, this, and then upgraded my PC.

Tamron has multiple 70-200, the USD version is amazing, the macro isnt.

However one thing is certain, it won't replace 24-120... 70-200 is amazing for sports where your not too far away, it is my certain go-to lens for zoo - however, I'd suggest 24-70 as a replacement for 24-120, mind that the Tamron might be sharp - but its slow when it comes to AF - yet so, it is my far most used lens lately, you can almost do macro with it, as it allows you very short focus distance.

The pictures are crisp, and VC really helps a lot.*

*Except for fast objects, you'd need a good shutterspeed, indoor for kids, flash is a must.

Nice photos, but honestly I cannot judge the quality on the size uploaded, I'd need to see full quality, no crop 1:1 of which I'll zoom in and inspect all details.

Fingers crossed that the lens 'isnt that great', my wallet tells me 85mm 1.8G is more suitable

Primes are better for throwing 

Welcome to the page!
I started at same point with NIKON, I would suggest 55-300, those two lenses are compact and you'll get a good feeling for using DSLR, it is not optical perfection, but you'll experience some good results

My go-to lens quickly became the 35mm F1.8G, it is better in every aspect then the two, except for video... But for video NIKON isnt exactly something exciting, in fact - its quite dissappointing in my opinion.

Here is what I got as rookie - with D5200 and 55-300 (155.4 mm F/5.0 ISO-1000 1/25) NB: 155,4x1,52 to get FX focal ~236mm

• ƒ/5.0
•  
• 155.4 mm
• 1/25
•  
• 1000

I have 2 NAS at home...

One very fast, one regular..

Your speeds are off...

- Sorry about suggestions below, they are if more users are reading in case of considering alike option.

But first of all, when doing photos and storing them, do yourself a favor and get a box with 4 bays... 4 Drives, lets say 8TB each, configurated in RAID5, gives you ~24TB (8TB for failover), or more accurately 21.8TB

My speeds at home are

NAS-Powerful (i3-3225K, Dell Perc H710P, 4x F4EG 2TB, 4x4GB ram)

114.35/116.55MB/s

NAS-Box (Zyxel NAS, 4x Toshiba 6TB X300)

92.67/53.66MB/s

The NAS-Box is maxing out within the 1GB/s limit, and is quite ok for storage, however, if it is files that I need to bring to the PC, I will use the more powerful solution, as smaller files still transfer snappy..

The drives themself are much newer and faster in the NAS Box.

Haha, I wish

Not even allowed to buy any lenses untill house is done, that being next July

*And next 2 glass' on the list 15-30 F2.8 Tamron + 50mm ART

Merco, I forgot to upload, eventually I gave up with the sorting...

No post-processing applied, no cropping in this album

The airshow 2016

Big cameras call attention to themselves (and their users) even if they're just being carried over the shoulder. And, when you add a largish modern lens, even more so. Of course, you can go the opposite route and try to look touristy. Then people sometimes go out of their way to avoid looking at you. LOL

 

Really wide lenses help because you can point away from the action a bit and still capture it. But, it's true... you have to look at ease with the camera. No fumbling allowed! You should have all your controls preset so that you only need to raise the camera to your eye and press the shutter button. Having the camera set to either aperture priority or manual using a preset exposure (or the sunny 16 rule) is usually the way to go.

 

--Ron

Agreed, I usually fumble with 2 settings.... Aperture - and then ISO... Depending on the shoot, I need a given shutterspeed, the ISO is being sacrificed to acheive this... But gotta admit, that is probably one of the biggest pros of having the D800E, even at ISO-3200 the shots come out fairly clean... With my D5200, ISO-1600 going to the bin straight away..

35mm F1.8G seems ideal to me.

Honestly though, yes, big is less practical for street, yet, it does not prevent me from doing it..

Street I don't find as an issue for photography, yet... I have felt a bit akward when walking on the beach with a huge DSLR, especially when some er topless and heck, even passed by areas with skinny dipping..... People don't exactly appreciate a DSLR such places - of which I also decided to keep the hood on and not use it, but for street it would be seldom that I am not up for a shot.

Just my point of view.

Birding is a bottomless pit when it comes to lenses. Nothing ever really gets you comfortably close enough, while being sharp enough and having enough light gathering power. 

 

If it's just a hobby for you, then the 70-300mm is probably one of the best values for money you'll get without breaking your back from the extra weight. 

 

I've done a little bird photography with a 70-200mm f/2.8 + TC14 teleconverter. Very sharp good light gathering power, but it cost a mint, is big and heavy, and I was cropping the heck out of my pictures. You choose your budget and your battles.

And that is even 'lightweight' compared to the 150-600 or the primes 400(2.8) 600(4), 800(5.6)... last 3 I don't even think I'd be comfortable with doing handheld shots for a full day...