I shot all these photos with a standard lens: the AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm ED mounted on my D90. It's a truly remarkable lens with brilliant optics. I trip the shutter with Nikon's little "remote control" I shoot with the camera set on "P" and adjust to f16 with a shutter speed of about 1/6 to 1/8.

You have to stop your lens down to get sufficient depth of field. Shutter speed be damned. Use a good solid tripod and trip with the little remote. With your long shutter the vibration caused by the mirror slap is minimized also. I've shot photos using natural light with shutter speeds as slow as 1/4 to 1/3.

The camera is programmed to set the shot at about f5.6 and 1/60. That results in muddy looking shots with no definition. Stop it down and slow it down.

Curl