It was that way from the start. I will start a claim with Nikon. Thanks Wingpilot for the data point. BTW, flew a bit myself...like just under 20K hours.

Earlier this year I bought a D7200 with a 18-140 kit lens included. After moderate usage, in various conditions, I am happy with the len's performance, with one exception.

I have not used it to video much, but when I do it is quite noticable that the zoom does not move smoothly when slowly zooming in or out. This results in unacceptable jerk to the flow when videoing.

Most of my experience is with work equipment, which generally did not include plastic lenses. My guess is that a metal mechanism would not have the same behavior.

However, before I attempt to get service on the lens or otherwise resolve this issue, I thought I would ask if others have noted the same with similar lenses.

Thanks.

The problem is readily fixable. You simply need a few prime lenses with better MTF to help you through those difficult shots, where perfection is mandatory.

Have fun with the camera, and enjoy.

To answer your question...you didn't provide the price points, but I have a refurbished version of the DX lens that I bought 8 months ago. It is light, and smoother than my 18-140 kit lens. While it doesn't have a VR switch, it does have VR, and it works well. There are lots of reasons to get the FX lens, but without debating each of those, I would urge you to consider just getting the DX lens now, because that is what you need. You will take lots of pictures, and find out how that lens fits in your shooting objectives. I think you will like it.

Later, as you upgrade your body, or add bodies to your collection, you can add the FX lens.

With regard to weather sealing, you might want to buy a couple of $6 plastic bags, to use with your camera in weather. Not real handy handheld, but on a tripod they are easy to manage.

Mine was $138 at the time, and the lens has the look and feel of a new lens, just not the fancy box. Here's a link to the current listing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076BPJ8YD/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I have seen them periodically at the $138 price.I figured I would get it and throw it away with an upgrade in 6 months. I haven't done that yet, because this lens was VERY affordable, and has worked well for me.

After doing a fair amount of reading, and searching and peer review article databases, I am coming of the opinion that the plastic bag ban appear to be more politically driven than ecologically driven. My reason for saying this is that there appears to be a preponderance of evidence that paper bags are more consumptive of Natural Resources, including energy per bag.

Personally I like paper bags.

With respect to plastic bags my understanding is that they consume far less resources per bag than any other packaging approach. I admit they are ugly hanging in the tree tops near the landfill down the road. For that I do not like them.

With regard to reusable bags, which appear to be the political push right now, there is a fair amount of evidence in peer-reviewed papers that the bacteria which grow on those bags, as well as other Critters, cannot effectively be dealt with, and after several uses the bags are about as clean as washroom door handles.

So with a personal preference of paper bags, I find that plastic bags are less consumptive of resources. Reusable bags are fine, except they're not the healthiest thing to haul around groceries in.

There is a final point. It appears that the biggest impact in the elimination of plastic bags is on the poor who have to walk to the grocery store and back, in all kinds of weather, who cannot afford nor manage $1 reusable bags, and for whom paper bags will cause lost groceries and substantial inconvenience when going home in the rain or wet snow.

The answer, as best I can determine it, is that is is indeed possible to download images. One at a time (no blanket downloads).

The service seems to be primarily there so that one orders prints, such as oil painting prints, and the like, of their photos.

I shot a couple of dozen weddings in the 70's using MF and 35mm. The MF was for the group shots and formal poses and the 35mm was for candids. I would shoot 150 to 300 snaps, and the customer would get 15 to 30 pictures in a book, along with what ever other shots they wanted. With perhaps one exception, everyone was thrilled. They spent a kilobuck, in the 70's and I know many still have the photos today (because I sometimes run into them around town).

I also know that there are many unhappy campers who spent money on photos and did not get what they expected, or got nothing at all. That is very unfortunate.

I got out of it because I was young, single, and liked having my weekends free. The money was nice, but I was into technical aspects of photography, and the only real technical challenges were keeping the equipment running flawlessly, and managing the lighting.

Today the game is different. Hundreds of shots at weddings, and productivity is not measured by 15 to 30 choice shots, but by how many (hundreds) of shots were captured. The game is different, since Steve Sasson's invention.

For example, in sports photography, getting just a few usable shots per night back in the day of film was expected. Today, the expectations are almost two orders of magnitude higher, with some photographer's telling me their quota is 50 or higher.

The technology changes, and the standards of production also change.

Some of the iconic sports shots are carefully planned, and set up for in advance. Wedding shots also require planning, practice at setting up the poses, managing the lighting, the people, and so on.

Having an assistant is nearly essential, unless you are experienced. Having multiple cameras for different lens is very helpful. Having the flash setup that you will need to consistently make lighting work, if you are using flash, is important. Having access to the venue to plan your shots, get pre-ceremony shots, or pre-reception shots, or whatever (moonlight shots, drone shots, etc.) is important.

Back to the lens...I will amend my earlier comment saying that a 70-200 is very handy. Most of my wedding experience was with fast 50, 105 or 135, and a 28mm lens. Lenses are much better today, and the MTF of kit lens often surpass the MTF of lower cost primary lenses of 40 or 50 years ago. But success today requires that your equipment (including cables, battery packs, etc.) works flawlessly, that you have practiced your lighting and poses, that you have a plan for the event, and that you produce a large number of good shots. I would focus on the skills and the readiness rather than another lens. Unless you are shooting candids, and there are no expectations of your productivity.

Best luck to anyone taking on the challenge of wedding photography!

A 70-200 is very handing for events like a wedding. If you don't have allot of wedding experience, I would get some experience at other events, like school things or church events. It will help you get experience working your camera under different conditions. Ideally you might get an event where you need to set up some group shots.

Are you planning on using flash?

Amazon doesn't really support a hotline and defers questions to their FAQ. So I thought I would seek out potential users who might have found out how to use this capability if it exists.

Perhaps a more experienced user can guide me... How might I download or share arbitrary resolution images with Amazon Photo? When I share images I seem to get images of about 1mb. For some images I might want to share 20mb images. For archive purposes, downloading rhe full raw image would be desirable.

Pointers appreciated.

I have gone to Oshkosh for decades. I typically use a 50 mm lens for about 80% of the pictures I take. These are usually of ground displays and people. For Air Show stills a 70 to 300 on a DX camera is fine. A longer lens can make it difficult to target and stabilize the subject. Depending upon your hand you could use a tripod. That makes it even more awkward to do action shots of the airshow using a long lens.

Shooting at Oshkosh makes one appreciate fast lenses. Also there is a lot to be said about carrying more than one camera, and switching between cameras as your need for a telephoto versus a normal angle camera happens.

If there is a particular airshow act that you want to capture, try to watch the airshow the day before Oh, so that you can plan your shots. Where you are on the field can make a big difference, and well show Center it's often favored, there could be advantages of being off axis.

Finally, an example of using a 50 mm lens. I have a SR-71 i shot while the chute was deploying. I was opposite the Cloud 9 hanger. The aircraft and chute are nearly full frame. If I was using a 70-300 i would have lost the shot.

Until you have a cover shot...

In my opinion, the camera should do the best it can at capture. Effects accomplished after capture may be done on the camera, or in post processing. So I would advocate the highest spatial resolution one can afford, the highest bit depth one can afford, the lowest noise, and the best lens MTF that one can afford. Softening images, adding degradation and other effects can be readily performed in post processing.

Everyone's system desires and price point are different. I could probably afford a D850 if I felt I had to have one, but I bought a D7200 recently to have a camera to play with. It doesn't do everything I might want, but rather is a compromise, given my situation.

The highest quality capture device will provide the best opportunity to get a desired product in the end. To me, but not necessarily to everyone, having higher resolution, gamut and MTF and post processing when I need to, are very reasonable trades. But not for everyone.

It would be very easy for a camera manufacturer to offer a blur function, if they knew that consumers wanted one.

(Example of contrarian view: Someone who is doing news gathering, and needs to have a short shoot to show time, may want a lower resolution imager, and gamut may be less of a concern publishing in a newspaper or on TV. Most of the media people I have talked with, however, prefer high resolution and high gamut, and argue that they can post process in minutes, and can wait.)

One can also meter and focus manually and enjoy the effects of a linear polarizer, if they can still be found.

I would agree. I just picked up a dSLR, about four weeks ago. I mostly shot in manual mode for two weeks. Then aperture preferred. But I am still playing around with it. Unfortunately, I wish that some of the settings are more documented as to what they do. In a few cases I have done experiments to characterize the performance with changes.

The first three days I had with it were cold, rainy and with wet snow, so I stayed inside on the couch, and played with all the features and settings. Three full days. I think I checked out about 80% of it's capabilities, but perhaps not.

There are still things I want to do with it, and am pretty sure I can, but I haven't quite figured out how to accomplish them yet.