That's as good a system as it gets for some. I have had enough (as many others here) experience with 35mm over the years, when I see the properly measured focal length of a piece of glass, assembled into a lens, that I don't need calculators to figure what I am getting. I know what it will look like only from the number.

Given time and experence, all the beginners will reach that stage in their photography.

Since you 'appear' to get a larger view with an APS-C, you make think that you have an advantage, but you would be thinking wrong.

A full sized (35mm) sensor has larger individual light gathering elements and can work in lower light levels than the APS-C. You could take this 'better' image and crop it to the same picture that the APS-C gets with the same lens and end up with the same picture with better low light capability. The ONLY advantage of APS-C is lower price, but you get what you pay for.

You may find the resolution to be the same or better with one or the other, but that is a function of the sensor. You can get low mega pixel cameras and high mega pixel cameras in both DX and FX sized cameras.

I apologize, sometimes I take off running before the starter's pistol fires. I jumped in, forgetting the title.

Especially when you consider that not all APS-C have the same crop factor. That's why they are called 'beginners'. They are only beginning to learn. Many 'beginners' have these 'great ideas' about change and to their credit there have been some innovations derived from a beginner's idea, but given time to learn, they eventually understand why it's done the way it is

Bunches, but for what? Your camera? Your lens? Photography in general? Some particular phase or concept in photography?

Google is your best way to find the thousands that exist on any of this. Youtube is great for this also.

A lens has a focal length based on the design of the lens. It produces an image focused at a particular dimension distance behind the lens in the camera body. Whether you have a full size sensor, cropped sensor, 35 mm film or even one of the odd film sizes that showed up for a while, the projected image is the same and this image is based on the focal length of the lens.

The difference in the picture is based on the size of the sensor or film place at that point to receive it. Full sized sensors will get a picture of the entire projected scene (except for the areas outside the rectangle in a round projection). The cropped sensor is placed in the middle of this round circle projection and only gets a part of it. This data is then set as the picture. It shows up bigger since it sees less of the projection than the full size sensor.

The result is that the focal length is not the difference...it is the camera that makes the difference. Don't monkey around with the numbers on the lens...learn which camera you're using and make adjustments in your mind for your camera.

To save money, some lenses are built with smaller glass and project a smaller light circle into the sensor area and can only be used effectively with the smaller sensor. On a full sized camera, the picture would have the proper picture in the middle with vignetting on the edges. If you crop this picture to delet the vignetting, then you would have exactly the same picture as the small sensor. That's why we refer to many of our cameras as cropped. It's done in the camera for us by a reduced sensor. If you artifically change the number on the lens' focal length, then all the full sized cameras would have to "correct" for their camera. Just leave it reported as it is built and we'll each adjust for the camera we put it on.

If you are trying to enter the date as a file name, then be sure you do not use the 'slash' symbol, such as 12/25/11.
That makes it an invalid file name. You may already know this, but just trying to add a view from another angle. You can use the 'minu' sign 12-25-11

For this forum, use the 'Brouse' button to find and select the image. This eliminates all name errors. It just takes the file as named and posts it. You do get to put a caption if you desire.

As nyweb2001 said "edit", "undo". This works only for the first 'undo'. It then becomes a 'redo'. If you want more than just the one level of 'undo', then look 2 lines under the 'undo' in the menu and you will see a 'step backward'. You can back up one step at a time all the way to the beginning.

Hey! Curtis! Don't get too impatient waiting on your post to upload and "Send" too many time. LOL (we've all done it a time or two)

Your software will create an image from the raw file that is essentially the same resolution as the jpg fine. That is set and can't change. However, if you want to adjust exposure, contrast, color, color balance, or simular aspects, you will find that the raw file vastly superior to the camera produced jpg fine.

What it means is that you can load the raw file into the software and edit the image that is produced and view these edits on the screen. When you save the image it will be saved as any of a number of image files that you choose, but the raw file is not altered. The alerations can not be applied to the raw.....only the image produced by the data presented in the raw file. The raw is not an image. Even the thumbnails you see in windows explorer have to have a plug-in to make the data into this image. You can, however, delete the raw file from the disk with some of the editing software if you are not careful what you select.

Raw is a set of data from the sensor. It is not a picture. Each pixel that you see in a picture is actually from 4 different sensor elements. When you view thumnails or images of the raw file, you are only seeing an image generated from the data. You can not and software can not determine exactly what the four pieces of data were that resulted in the single pixel. It is a one way street. You cannot unscramble an egg and so you can not unscramble a jpg and make it a raw or take alerations to an image and apply it to raw data.

What does happen is that the software saves the alterations you made to the image derived from the raw and reapplies that each time you load the raw file. You can 'undo' or reset any of these steps and start over again.

Also, we often say or hear and then accept phrases about pixels on the sensor. There is no such thing. A 16 meg camera for example, produces a 16 mega pixel image, but that is the software generated count. The sensor actually has to send 64 megs of data for the camera to do this. It is a 16 meg camera, not a 16 meg sensor. We can correctly say that the sensor is capable of producing 16 meg images. But no sensor has any pixels.

Nikon has applied for a patent for an 18-300 lens, but only 3 months ago. It has 20 elements in it. It is only for APS-C (cropped) sensors. It should not be on the market yet. It's actual focal range is 18.8 - 291.

We really need to know which lens you have. Is it a 28-300 or an 18-200? If the 28 you NEED a wider lens. If the 18-28 you may just COULD USE a wider lens, but could get by quite well for now with what you have until you begin to get a 'feel' for the type of photos you shoot regularly.

Since video can stand lower resolutions than prints, you can re-size the cropped photos to the same dimensions as the original image. You will not lose visual accuity on the resulting video display.