Tuesday 15 January 2008

New toy!

I shall apologise in advance for being a bit of a camera nerd in this post. If you have no interest in photography whatsoever, you might want to go somewhere more interesting!

Last year I bought myself a second-hand Nikon D70. I already had a Pentax dSLR with a 18-55mm lens and a 50-200mm zoom and it suited me fine. I was happy with the pictures it took and how it felt in my hands. But the Nikon was one of those too good to be missed offers and it was a case of "want" rather than "need"! It came with a Nikkor 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED lens which really is a stunning lens for general use and takes some cracking shots.

But the areas of photography that I most enjoy are candid and reportage, and for that you really need a zoom lens. I had tried out a friend's Canon 20D with a 70-300mm zoom.....and boy did I want the Nikon equivalent lens! I could have picked one up for about £70 but that was just a standard lens and I decided that, because of the weight of the lens, I needed to have VR on it - that's vibration reduction or image stabilisation - to help reduce any element of camera shake. Unfortunately that sent the price up to over £400, and I couldn't afford that.

Then two things happened. I got a Christmas bonus and I found the lens online at OneStop Digital at under £300. I'm cautious about buying expensive stuff online but quite a few people on the photography forum that I use, Pixalo, had used them and they came highly recommended. Dear reader, I crumbled and bought it. And it's arrived! I am now the proud owner of a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED VR Lens. I want to go and play, but unfortunately the British weather doesn't and it is chucking it down with rain and blowing gale here.

Which is just an incy wincy bit frustrating.

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