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Hello all,

I am new to this forum. I recently purchased a Nikon D50 camera. I am a casual photographer. A novice. I have to say, that this camera has rekindled my intersest in photography. My old 35mm SLR was collecting dust while I was using point and shoot digital cameras. This camera is the first one in years that "feels" like a real camera. I mostly take pictures of my kids. Since I take alot of sports shots, I purchased the 18-200mm f/ 3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR lens. I just received it yesterday and I am very impressed. I like it much more than the kit 55mm lens (I should, it costs as much as the kit). I have some questions about the functions. I understand how to focus the lens, but there is another ring on the lens that goes from .5 to infinity. What is its function?
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

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I'm looking to purchase the new 18-200 VR lens as well
I have the D70 with the 18-70 70-300. 28-200.
They all have the same ring.
As far as I know its so that you can set the distance between you and the subject so that it can focus better.
So if you were always doing landscape photography like I do mostly, you would leave it on infinity. But if you were taking closer pictures like a person for a portrait or anything else closer, you would set the ring to .5 or above according to your distance.
I have no clue how to judge distance in mm lol.
Maybe someone else can chime in with more info.
I would love to see some of the pictures you get with the VR lens. Isnt this lens like $600 ?

I love the 28-200 lens I have because thats the range I take most of my pictures and saves me from using the 18-70 where I would very frequently interchange with my 70-300 just to be able to shoot a couple pics at 100mm. It saves me with getting dust on my ccd

The 18-200VR would help me even more so I wont have to change to my 18-70 just to get the wider angle in places I cant walk back any further.

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Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. -Ansel Adams

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Hi comdial and Ruth. Welcome to Byte comdial, and Merry Christmas to you both.

I have the D70, 18 - 70G zoom and 70 - 300D zoom lens and both have a manual focus ring also.

I have every intention of buying this lens also. Essentially I'm waiting on reviews and will be testing the lens on my D70. I'd love to see you submit some images into the contest area.

I'm also looking at the D200 when they both hit Australia in January next year. Sorry Ruth, it's calling me lol...and as far as I'm aware, it's worth a bit more than your $600...(my $730ish)

In regards the ring that's on yor new lens, I'm pretty sure it relates to manual focussing rather than autofocus. I'm not too sure where the switch to change autofocus to manual is on your D50, but this ring is your focussing ring when you are in manual mode. The figures relate to distance from the lens in metres.

If it's not the focus ring itself, it'd be a the mechanism that limits zooming betwen distances. For example, say you were shooting at the tennis from courtside, and you were aiming at Andre Agasse from 15 metres at the closest point, but when he went to receive serve, he was 22 metres away. You can set the lens to zoom no less and no more than between these two settings rather than the whole 18 - 200 zoom range, so that your lens will not 'hunt' around too much, i.e. it will only zoom between a fixed distance. Thsi makes it quicker responding and also preserves battery life.

Just a note also, the cam will use much less battery power if you manually focus, but I find the D70, D70s and D50 viewfinder a little too vague to do this often. Because they're so good in low light, these cams don't often 'hunt' around to 'lock' on a subject, but I brought myself up on a Pentax film SLR and used to love the split viewfinder for manually locking on a subject.

Hope that helps and look forward to seeing your work.

Graham

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