If your camera has live view, see if you can zoom in and check focus that way. it works on my D5300, i am guessing others have it as well. Also bias your exposure to higher shutter speed. the moon moves a great deal and i try to use 1/250 second or faster. ISO 250, at 1/1000 second at f8 is a solid starting point then bracket by adjusting aperture up and down in third stop increments. you might also play with the drive mode shutter release mode so you can press the shutter and get a few seconds delay before the exposure. this lets the camera vibration settle a bit from the button press. a remote is even better so you don't have to actually touch the camera at all.

Favorite.... wow, i have to choose? i have one of the last of the Nikon F2 series from 1981. i have a few nikon F cameras that get used on occasion that range from 1964 to 1971. I am more likely to pick up my Nikkormat FTn or FE2 if i want a retro camera. if i want to amaze the punters at a workshop i carry my Exa 0 (zero) or an old soviet made Fed rangefinder. sometimes a Kiev 88cm at an event is fun just to scare people. the camera is not my first choice but the Carl Zeiss Jena lenses are acceptable. mostly its that huge negative that makes up for the single coated lenses.

The all time favorite 35mm camera for me was a Contax RTSIII. That was a Japanese made wonder camera that was pretty much the end of the road in the late 80's. You could spend more money, but you didn't get more camera. modern Zeiss lenses, insane frame rate, and a vacuum pressure plate to assure absolute film flatness for critical focus.

Not often does a product come along that makes me drool. The idea of a useful wide-normal zoom at f1.8 makes this really tempting.

Sometimes it is just to try something different, sometimes you want a different look. Why would people still use "toy" cameras, or a Holga, or a Lomo? And we see small communities of people that use these cameras exactly for the interesting distortions, flaws and image artifacts introduced by the funky lenses or oddly shaped apertures. I suppose you could use use a medium format digital, with the finest possible lenses, H series Hasselblad maybe? create technically perfect images, then post process the images or apply filters in PP. Sometimes you luck into something really distinctive with one of these cameras or lenses and it just feels right or the images just have a quality that is absurdly difficult to reproduce in PP.

I have my Soviet and East German lenses with adapters for Nikon and used them a lot more with film, but still use them on occasion with digital. of the lot i have, i tend to use the Carl Zeiss Jena 180/2.8 and the Meyer 300/4 more than the others. the 300 for it's lack of modern coatings and fancy glass holds up remarkably well. there is a lot of sample variation, but mine seems to have very little chromatic aberration, which seems to be the most often cited issue with these. this with an Arsat 1.4x teleconverter and an adapter to nikon makes a passable telescope, and is decent for birds and moon pictures.
http://forum.mflenses.com/meyer-optik-goerlitz-orestegor-300mm-f-4-t33035.html I have a 90mm f2.8 Vega lens on the end of a stack of extension tubes and a nikon adapter and that has been my macro lens for years. I suppose i could get something technically better, but this is pretty light, and i like the feel of the native manual focus and the apertures have nice clicks making it easier to know what aperture i am selecting while still concentrating on keeping a bug in focus.

A similar adapter has been available for years to adapt pentacon 6/praktisix lenses to nikon or canon or M42. The leaf shutter blad lenses might have certain advantage with the leaf shutter, but they are going to be pricey. I have several pentacon lenses including some Carl Zeiss Jena lenses. A littel Czech optical firm has been hot-rodding kiev cameras and lenses that fit tem for years trading under the name Hartblei. Some of the more interesting lenses are refitted in mounts that give tilt and shift in good measure in any direction. http://www.photozone.de/reviews/205-hartblei-super-rotator-80mm-f28-mc-test-report--review

the new interface with the full editor, the browser and the express editor seems awkward sometimes but it is more of a visual appeal thing to me than anything. the express editor seems like a waste because it covers up so much. one of my more curious acquaintances investigated a bit more and says it is possible to modify the express editor and add back some of the menu selections and buttons so you can create a custom pared down version of the editor with only the feature you use regularly and that in theory should speed up a lot of your common chores. I have not tried this or verified it, so you mileage will vary. I have not been that curious because I never saw the full editor menus as cluttered in the first place.

So far as deals, you can search for coupon codes that are good for free shipping, free or reduced cost books or access to online training resources, and my favorite is to check the Amazon gold box deals. the X6 ultimate version I have, I bought from Amazon for all of $27.95. thanksgiving is coming up, and before and after there are pre-pre- Black Friday deals, Cyber whatever days sales and any number of specials. At least 4 times a year I find some version of PSP for under $40 and often with some kind of freebie added to it.

I have a buddy the does commercial video production and lots of editing for a production firm. I asked him about video editing, and his answer was get Corel VideoStudio Ultimate and take the savings and invest in a good microphone system. Sound seems to be the Achilles heel of DSLR video.

I use PSP and have since the 90's. The interface is pretty clean, they update it often enough that the features stay relevant and fairly current, it is supposed to adopt Photoshop actions as well. I have PSP x3 on my laptop and x6 ultimate on my desktop. the panorama stitching and HDR features in the later versions are pretty handy. Just like photoshop, it has its quirks and is not a no-brainer or dummied-down version of photoshop. It was always designed to be an alternative to photoshop with an emphasis on photo editing and photographic art rather than blank canvas design. Many people i know keep an old version of photoshop for those once in a great while needs for features or some plugin that seriously refuses to work with PSP, but PSP and aftershot are less taxing on your computer and do about everything photoshop does for the photographer. fluency has a lot to do with it too. someone truly fluent in photoshop can move at the same speed you would with PSP, but they have earned that over years and years of practice and the adobe tradition of rearranging the menus on every other version slows them down a lot more. what i really like about PSP and new photographers is that i can spend about half an hour with them after they have spent about $70 on the software and they can crank out some pretty good images for their family or workplace. 30 minutes with photoshop would just about get them to a place where they could resize an image or crop it, but little else.

If you do decide photoshop is the more complete tool for your needs, i recommend adobe cloud. its really hard to argue with $10 a month to have unlimited access to the latest versions of lightroom and photoshop. only notable downside is that you need a fast internet connection to do the initial install or you will feel like a geologic age has passed just getting it downloaded.

A digital picture frame might be a more useful tool for you to share pictures with family. I got a big one for my mom, and i send her a new SD card every few months, and each time she writes back, she drops the old card in the envelope. So it sits on her china cabinet scrolling through pictures all the time and there are buttons on the back if she wants to freeze it, or manually advance images.

If you purchase a later model camera, d3200/d5200/d7100 or later, there is either built in wifi or you can get a little bitty wifi adapter made to transfer images to an android or ipad device via an app from nikon. That was one of the selling points of the D5300 i bought in May, and it's a neat toy, it allows me to transfer images from the camera even on locked android devices that won't mount storage. (google nexus) and lots of smart phones that do not support OTG storage devices. My wife uses it to transfer images to her phone to post stuff to facebook.

RawVision
RawDroid
NEFthumbnailer
Rawpal gallery
Photomate


there just are not a lot of apps for android that can read NEF files. So far, none of these has been very useful to me since they have almost no ability to edit the raw files. you can convert or extract jpeg or png files with a couple of these. I have not tried any of them recently because i decided three things...
1. jpegs out of a Nikon are all i need over 99% of the time.
2. Tablets are not a great platform for photo editing because it sure seems like the software developers are not really photographers.
3. sometimes there is no substitute for the right tools.

For low light the Expeed4 equipped Nikon bodies are excellent performers. i chose a D5300, but after having had it for a few months, i really think i could have done just as well with the D3300, similar sensor, same chipset, notably lower cost. The age of the body is relatively important because improvements in resolution and noise control tend to happen with each new generation. In this regard, i would rather have a D3300 than a D7000. A D7100 starts to bring enough other toys to the table to make it attractive though. If video is your main drive, then a mirrorless camera or one of the Canon DSLRs might be a better choice. If low light still images are your driving force, then Nikon currently has the edge on any of their newer bodies. In six months it will likely flipflop again. For now i would probably favor a less expensive body, and a general purpose lens like the 18-140 VR. that money spent, i would then take some time and LOTS of pictures to see how you like it, how you can adapt to it, and find out what you really lack that would make your pursuit more fulfilling or more successful. Sure, you can spend thousands on a top of the line full frame body and more on lenses. $15,000 later you might not be any closer to your goal and have a lot of high end gear depreciated to half its value.

While i do tend to say reach for what you can, because in many cases bigger and newer is better, but this is a complex pursuit and a single low-end to midrange camera and a good starter lens will let you explore before you spend a lot of money on exactly the wrong things. If you shoot indoor events, a good flash is mighty handy. If your choice is a good prosumer lens plus a flash vs a high end f2.8 zoom and no flash, then the choice of the high end has gained you very little. F2.8 at 6400iso vs f4 at 400 with the aid of a flash can be the difference between a marketable image and a deleted image.

Start well, but start small, then expand your tool set as you expand your knowledge.

A used 18-105 can be had pretty inexpensively used, and they are remarkably useful. the 18-140 is the current upper end kit lens, those are notably more expensive and the used market is pretty tight. the 18-55 VR kit lens is really quite sharp, but the zoom range drives me crazy because I spent so long using film cameras with a 28-105, and then my early digital purchase was an 18-70 (similar angle of coverage for a crop sensor camera)

If you can find an 18-70 in good shape at a low cost, it is certainly a decent lens, watch for the condition and take some pictures from a tripod with it before you plunk down cash or make sure you have return privileges. these newer lenses are complex and the zoom and focus parts move in them move in helical tracks with pins or cams that run in those slotted tracks. when it is working it is a smooth ballet of technology, when the cams wear or the slots get sloppy, the ballet gets sloppy and you end up with poor focus or some other optical artifact that is undesirable. To test this you will really need to get full resolution images, and then look at them on a bigger screen. I have an OTG card reader I can plug into a 10 inch android tablet to do this kind of testing if I am meeting someone off craigslist or checking out a used lens in a pawn shop.

It is possible to get a D3200 or D5200 on closeout from some of the box stores and best buy with the 18-55 and 55-200 for really good prices now. Other than the flip out screen, there is not much functional difference between the 3200 and 5200. So it might be worth considering the D3200 to save a bit more and start saving toward a higher end body sooner. I think the local Best Buy near my home had a D3200 kit with two lenses and a bag for $529 a few months ago.

the 18-70 is a good lens, I used one for several years but it does have a fair amount of distortion. The 70-300 is actually a really good lens, it is an FX capable lens and since you are only using the center of the glass on a DX camera it looks even better. the major downside to this lens is that it is a D lens and will only autofocus on bodies that have internal focus motors. Comparing the 18-70 to your current kit lens, if your kit lens is not a VR model, then I would probably get rid of that one in favor of the 18-70. the 55-300 is ok, it is a really complex lens the 70-300 is probably a little sharper at the long end, but again, no VR and no AFS focus, so if you see an FX camera in your future or have a digital body with an internal focus motor, keep the 70-300 and have fun, if not, then try to trade it and only keep the 55-300.

VR won't work at all on an N8008. not enough focus points. You can turn it on and it will whine like a tired child and accomplish nothing. the F5, F6, F100, N75 and N80 would support VR and most of the newer "G" gelded lenses.

Did you have your VR on while on a tripod or monopod? That can rob you of some sharpness. Looks like your friend's shot was taken with much higher ISO to get a comparable shutter speed, so I guess that was later in the evening. I am guessing it is just technique. Your image does seem to have some motion blur in it that it more noticeable farther from the camera. my inclination would be to use a tripod, and a wired release to isolate impulsive movements from the camera. Also make sure you are on the concrete lower levels of the stadium or have the camera support on solid ground. metal or wooden bleachers introduce and assortment of vibrations that VR can't account for.

If the goal is to preserve history, one of the problems, for there are many, is to get someone else engaged in the process. People tend to do things not because it is the right thing to do, but because they develop a passion for doing it. It might be worth casting a net, facebook posting,s craigslist advertisements, making appeals to civic organizations or perhaps if there is a church in the area that has been around a long time it might be worth talking to the pastor to assist in finding interested parties or organizations that might result in one or two people that have an interest in local history and are willing to carry that torch. If the city or county government, or a nearby regional museum would be willing to host some of the resultant materials, i could see some of your work collected and possibly transformed along the way. People that are crazy about scrapbooking could be put to a task they love to preserve something that would end up on display elsewhere. the main thing is to make sure people are using copies of your original work and none of those originals, or very little of it gets used directly in exhibits. Newspaper clippings seem to be the most problematic since light and moisture tend to be the death cf sulfate processed paper. newspaper can be preserved much longer by neutralizing these acids, and one of those is a weird mixture of alka-seltzer and 7-up, or club soda and milk of magnesia. i am sure there are better solutions now, but there have been ways to do this for years. The photographs could be preserved using some standardized format, and saved to archival grade optical disks, CD or DVD, and those are pricey and not always easy to find. for display digital picture frames or small smart TVs can be had now and they can be fed files via flash memory, but there needs to be a well kept master record from which these things can be refreshed from time to time, and even that needs to be rolled forward onto new media every few years just to make sure it is retained and checked with a critical eye to see that the files have not been compromised. It seems odd that in a time when we have some pretty good materials and methods for preserving history, that our culture seems most fixated on preserving every other trivial thing.