All I can say is Wow. This thing is such a pleasure to use. Right off the bat, the following things are worth the upgrade:
So far I’ve only shot it with my 50mm f/1.8 lens.
I’m tired of the soft photos from the D200, even with sharpening cranked up to the max. The pics out of SWL’s D40 last weekend had more sharpness and pop. Great color. Screw it. I put my D200 up on eBay, renewed my expired Craigslist listing and moved it from ocala.craigslist.org to tampa.craigslist.org. I want the hot color of at least the D40 and the dynamic range (ADR) of the D300. That’s the D90.
UPS just dropped off my 50mm lens. I used to own one of these and sold it for $90. Should have kept it. Since I haven’t sold my 35mm f/2 yet, I ordered a UV filter just now.
I’m sick of waiting for the flash to recycle taking pictures with my 18-70mm Nikkor indoors. We lost so many pictures at a recent Christmas party at Eugenio’s house this way. So I just ordered a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF D from Amazon for $109.99. I used to own one but sold it for $90 after I had my fun playing with it (manual focus only) on my D40.
We used to have a Casio Exilim EX-S500. It did well by us. Very portable, okay pictures. Very good video. Then I took it to Weeki Wachee and Zip-Loc let me down (three bags, three soaked items.) The camera was not serviceable after that. We dried it and dried it. When I finally disassembled it, it was clearly beyond salvage. My biggest complaint about this camera was that you couldn’t change the zoom level while video was recording.
So today, at Ritz in Ocala, we got a Casio Exilim EX-V8, highly regarded by Ken Rockwell, that I’ve coveted for some time. But the S500 was good enough to make the EX-V8 unjustifiable. Until the S500’s untimely demise.
So far, so good. Turns out the EX-V8 even has a constant light for video! That’s something my Canon ZR-200 MiniDV camcorder doesn’t even do.
Regarding zooming during video recording, the EX-V8 does this extremely well. Not only does it have two speeds of zoom depending on how far you push the slider, it is virtually silent. I can’t hear it zooming at all. And the zooming is not in steps, it is smooth. And 7X!
This will be a great backup camera for photo work and a good primary audio recorder, taking the S500’s place, for business meetings and product review meetings with clients. Keeps folks honest.
The EX-V8 is not currently available direct from Amazon (only through Amazon merchants) and costs $244 from them right now. The Ritz store I bought it at had only this one and the floor model left and I’ve found none from known good sellers online lately. It is discontinued. The next one in this family (EX-V9?) may turn out to be fantastic but I doubt it will cost only $200 and probably (hopefully) won’t do anything I need better than the V8. I certainly don’t need more megapixels. Any improvements in video recording would be great, but probably not worth the extra money for me. But time will tell and this is a great camera for the money today. Did I mention 7X zoom? Nice.
My Hoya circular polarizer arrived today. UPS put it in the US mail. The 67mm-to-77mm stepup ring arrived today, too.
The polarizer feels well made. It’s a little scary how exposed the glass surface is (it’s not set deep in its ring). But I’ll surely get used to it.
I’ve wanted a circular polarizer for my Nikon DSLRs forever. I even wanted one for my Olympus E-10. But this post from Jeffrey Friedl’s blog pushed me over the edge. The first pic (the table, pizza, glass of water) is all it took. Within about a week, I bought a Hoya 77mm Super Multi Coated Thin (no front threads) Circular Polarizer Filter from Amazon.com, fulfilled by Adorama, for about $85. Its price goes up and down. Right now (less than 12 hours later) it’s $115.95 so I bought it at a good point.
I saw a D200 on craigslist yesterday for $800. Looked like a good deal. I contacted the guy. Nice guy. Said he’d be in town (Ocala) the next day — Saturday, today — around 5pm. So I sold my very new D80 last night on eBay with a one-day auction. It sold today and I went and got the D200. The D200 is fantastic so far. Totally pristine. He’d had it a year and a half and said he bought it from someone else. So I’ll assume it’s about two years old. I’m stoked.
This is a replacement for the 50mm f/1.4 that I bartered. Initial impression: Fast and colorful. I like it. Nice to be able to get closer to subject while maintaining the same frame I want.
Yesterday, after much research into the seller and due diligence — and hand wringing. And pacing. And late nights — I bought a 2006 Honda F4i motorcycle. This is my ideal bike. The only way I could be happier is if it was a 750 but Honda doesn’t sell one of those.
In addition to a large sum of money, I put $1000 of camera equipment in trade. I sold my D40 body, which was already for sale, my 18-200 VR fresh back from Nikon for an AF fix and working better than ever and my 50mm f/1.4. At this point, the only camera I can shoot with is my little Casio Exilim. I don’t regret the trade one bit. I’ll probably just pick up an 18-55 Nikkor for a hundred bucks and be back in business.
Here is a comparison of the Nikon digital cameras I’ve owned. My wife had a 3MP or so point and shoot Nikon Coolpix 3200. It’s not included. Comparison includes D40, D70, D80 and Coolpix 800.
