A place to keep track of favorite reference links & items I'd like to buy. Frankly I'm a novice with camera equiptment so don't look for deep insights here, just an attempt to organize my notes.

• My Equiptment

  Nikon D70        

  $1,000 6MP DSLR camera body (interchangeable lenses, larger sensor, etc.) See below for 28-200 lense details. I really don't want to lug around a bunch of expensive lenses but am considering my options.

  Olympus C3030

  $800 3.3MP 3x zoom (it was pretty nice way back in 2000) Barely shirt pocket sized point & shoot digital camera, many of the photos in the galleries are from this camera. It is slow as snot starting up & the manual controls are unusably stuck deep in the menu but it's a pleasure to use and takes wonderful pics that print at 8x10 very nicely.

• Lense Options

  Lense recommendations

  Nice understandable reviews, other sites are way over my head in technical jargon.

  Canon 500D +2 77mm 2-element close-up diopter

  $140 changes the closest focusing distance from infinity to 9.9". This article explains that for a 77mm lense, there is only one good option. Here's another article about the pros & cons of such a device. There is no way I'm going to spend $650 for a strictly macro lense because I just wouldn't want to lug it around & pull it out for that. The other option is short extension pieces that lengthen the lense but this is a lot of fiddling & dust on the CCD versus just pulling something out of my shirt pocket & screwing it on. The 77mm will fit all the lenses below except the ultra wide angle.

  Nikon AF-S DX 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED

  $1,000 - 3.5" long - 1 ft macro - ultra wide zoom

  I'm not sure I really need that wide but I need more than I got. I suppose the kit lense is probably adequate unfortunately I didn't get that. This is supposedly the only real option for a wide angle zoom. Requires 82mm filters & adapters which means I couldn't put a standard macro adapter on it.

  AF-S DX 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED

  $360 - 3" long - 1.25 ft macro - kit lense mid-range zoom

  An excellent starter lense & very compact.

  Nikon AF-S VR 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED

  $510 - 3.7" long - 1.6 ft macro - vibration reduction mid-range zoom

  This is heavier & bulkier than the kit and my 28-200 & is still seriously lacking wide angle ability but it's still small enough to carry around at all times. The odd 72mm filter thread will probably not take a close-up adapter & the telephoto is enough to stay with a single lense for most uses though it is not fast enough to accept a telephoto adapter. I haven't found a wide angle adapter that could be added & don't know whether that's wise but if feasible I'd love to just have one lense that is not too big with image stabilization. The cost is no long telephoto. Without a wide angle adapter I would need another lense & might as well get a longer telephoto combined with the a wide angle. That would require a big budget!

  Nikon AF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED

  $350 - 3.5" long - 1.3 ft macro - 'all-in-one' zoom

  I chose this for my D70 but I think it's blurry & I miss the lack of wide angle ability. Maybe it's OK though & I'll just have to use a higher ISO to get good pictures. The reviews are pretty good even though such a wide zoom range is generally frowned apon, this seems to do very well considering and I can still shoot in the middle range for very sharp pictures. It's slow speed is awfully hard to hold steady in low light though so I'm craving a VR model.

  Nikon AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED

  $1,600 - 8.5" long - 5 ft macro - vibration reduction telephoto zoom

  It sure looks huge in the pictures! Unfortunately, it's probably not usable for macro. This has really excellent optics and is fast at f/2.8 with the AF-S it would be possible to add a $400 Nikon TC-17E II (1.7x) teleconverter to get up to 340mm with 1.5 f-stop loss. There is a 2x teleconverter but that would kill the VR function. The real advantage with this lense is being able to shoot action from a distance.

  Nikon AF VR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED

  $1,500 - 6.7" long - 7.5 ft macro - vibration reduction long-telephoto zoom

  Compared with the above model, this is slower at f/4.5-5.6, it is non internal focusing has more telephoto and it's smaller. The 7.5 ft min. focus distance would be odd and that makes it pretty much useless for macros but so is the 70-200 though theoretically the close-up diopter described above could be used on both lenses I'm not sure how much difference that would make starting at 7.5 ft. This or the above tele would be a great add-on to the kit lense or if you could afford both, the wide angle. Pull it out for low light or telephoto situations and still have enough wide angle & general purpose zoom with the kit for most conditions. Paired with the wide angle you would need to pull out one of these beasts pretty often.

• Software

  NeatImage noise reduction

  Not real cheap but allows camera specific profiles & includes sharpening. $75 Pro+ version works as a plug-in for photoshop

  Breeze Browser

  $60 is also not cheap but I was really impressed with this for the ability to show histograms, apply sharpening, select multiple thumbs & run them side by side at full zoom with coordinated pan, etc. It is fairly simple (not bloated) but plenty customizable and fast.

  ACDSee version 4

  $50 v7 Image browser which I find essential for the drag & drop rearrangement feature. Right-click batch renaming locks the new sequence in. It is a bloated program though & I'm not happy using it for general purposes.

  Irfanview

  Freeware, really fast & powerful but worthless thumbnail browsing. I use it as the default file association & for super fast batch processing.

• Tutorials

  Long list

  needs culling for relevance

  Luminous Landscape

  Fairly advanced, nice layout with lots of examples.

  Using Photoshop's Auto Color

  Very detailed explanation for color balance adjustment.

  Dynamic Range of Digital vs Film

  Shows charts that clearly indicate the superior performance of DSLR's and the slight improvement of RAW vs JPG.

  Color Management

  This is exactly what I needed to improve my prints and make them look like the monitor without expensive profiling tools. Be sure to follow the link for more explanation of how to set up the printer in particular, every little setting for Epson printers.

• Accessories

  13" x 19" Printer review

  $400 Epson Stylus Photo 1280 is excellent, handles roll media, can get bulk ink system for it.

  $500 Canon i9100 is 3 times faster & has individual ink replacements but requires expensive paper for good prints.

  $700 Epson Stylus Photo 2200 will make archival prints lasting more than the other's 12 years.

  Slide copier adapter for DSLR's

  $65 attached to your 80mm ~120mm lens (I'd like to know if people have had good results with this)