New camera

A recent mishap where somebody drove their car over my backpack containing my camera, breaking the lens out of the mount (luckily a plastic lens) and breaking the command dial (making the camera rather useless) made me realize I need a second camera. I usually borrow or rent a second camera for events but otherwise have been very happy with what I had, even if it was only a 6 MP machine. For landscapes I would often use film anyway or stitch multiple images together and the very sharp 6MP allowed for surprisingly large blowups (I've gone to 20x30 and they still look great and surprisingly sharp). Anyway, since there is a great deal from Nikon that is active on Adorama, B&H, ritz, etc, where you get $300 instant rebate on the D300 together with the 18-200VR, I went for it. Note that Adorama has already run out of them in just a few days! This camera is astonishing. I used the D200 and Canon equivalents, but this camera beats most of them in use and feel. I wonder what a D3 would be like? Next to being great in use (the AF system is a dream), it is sharp to the pixel (at least in RAW) and that screen is superb. Also, its jpeg engine is astonishing. I was playing around with it yesterday and shot this mêh scene of a child's slide on our deck. I am astounded by the color. Especially since this was pretty boring hard light.



That's straight (except for scaling and sharpening for the web at a larger size than you see here (follow the link) by LR2 beta) out of the camera. Some more here:







Now you have seen a lot of the silly stuff in our garden ;-)