Casio EX Z120
This one is a technical stinker (focus, grain, and exposure problems, not to mention it's crooked)...but it's growing on me.

Just to review, I bought a Nikon D80 about a week and a half ago. I didn't opt for any of the kit lenses; as far as I know they are the 18-55, 18-70, 18-135 mm lenses, all fine lenses to be sure. I decided on the Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4.5 DC MACRO lens; a good multi-purpose first lens.

I'm thrilled about my purchase of the D80 (although still have naughty thoughts of the Nikon D200); not too troubled though. I find the D80 very responsive, has excellent colours, features, and design. As many have pointed out, it's a great walk around camera; the D200's little brother.

As far as lenses go, I've got my sights set on the AF-S DX VR 18-200mm F3.5-5.6G IF-ED Zoom-Nikkor; otherwise known as the Nikon 18-200 mm lens. It's about $750 listed in the US, but is in short supply. Great lens, Nikon just didn't make enough of them; the consequences: sometimes hard to find or inflated price (1,000,000 korean won at one place I frequent in Seoul, South Korea. That's about US$1,084 based on today's exchange rate. Yikes!...Still tempted though.

I have owned 5 cameras in my life. My first was a little APS camera about 5 years ago. I can't remember much about it. I do remember running out of APS film on one of my travels in a foreign land and ended up borrowing a buddy's Nikon film SLR and was floored at the difference in picture quality. I think that was when the seed was planted.

My second camera was also my first digital; the Sony DSC-P5. I bought it new, just when it came out in 2001 I think, and paid way too much for it. It was the going rate at the time but this was also about a year before camera prices plummeted across the board; ouch!

Yes, a wonderful thing happened about 4 years ago, according to my reckoning. There was either an explosion of camera products/technology or prices just dropped significantly on most models of most manufacturers making advanced photography accessible to the average person. Thanks to that point in time, DSLR cameras, that were once priced in the thousands of dollars are now superseded by newer models warming the hands of amateurs and semi-professionals alike, including yours truly.

In any case, I found the P5 to be very slow (even at the time), not very crisp, and blasted reds too much. Night shot was pretty good for a point and shoot and it had video with audio. Sony generally puts a pretty good feature set in their cameras so it's a tempting buy for first-timers.

That P5 is still in my drawer, somewhere in my apartment. My APS is somewhere in my parents' house; film is probably near impossible to find for it. If I wanted to use a film camera today, it wouldn't be APS for sure, sorry buddy!

My third camera was a Canon S3 IS. It's still a relatively new camera, but I just owned it for a short time before giving it to my significant other since she didn't have a camera. It was also about the time that I decided to move on up to DSLR. By this point, the photography bug had it's teeth sunk deeply in me. That wasn't too long ago, so as you can guess I am still wet behind the ears.

Around that time (towards the end of this past summer) I had decided on a reasonable arsenal for myself: I would eventually have a decent small point & shoot for every day pocketability and a nice big juicy DSLR for more serious stuff. I proceeded to buy the Casio Exilim EX Z 120 (point & shoot). Of course this camera was already a year into the market when I bought it new but it offered a good combination of features: relatively small, AA batteries (with good battery life), good image quality, decent manual controls, cheap, and fast. I had a lot of fun with it and I still use it on occasion, but as you can probably guess, the D80 came not long after.

I had been pining and researching cameras, both the point & shoot variety and DSLR's, for about a year before I finally bought the Nikon. In the process, the DSLR's that I looked at seriously were:

Nikon D200, Nikon D80, Nikon D70/s.
Canon EOS 30D, Canon EOS 20D, Canon EOS 400D, Canon EOS 350D.
Pentax K100, Pentax K10D.
Samsung G10
Olympus E-330
Sony alpha 100
...and a variety of others not so seriously.

Nikon was always a strong contender, and I eventually narrowed it down to:

The three Nikons, Canon 30/20 D, and the Pentax K10D. In the end, Nikon's image quality and mystique hooked me in. If the Pentax K10D had come out when expected (early Nov...delayed to Nov30...delayed further) it might have given the Nikon a serious run. To me, the Pentax sounded like a complete package but I just couldn't wait any longer, and I wasn't sure ultimately what the picture quality would be like, impressive feature set (22 bit colour encoding, anti-shake up to 4 stops down, and self-cleaning sensor (I think you get a maid with every K10 body...hehehe just kidding!)) notwithstanding.

Actually, the Samsung G10 (which is a rebranding of the Pentax K10D and hence is exactly the same camera as the Pentax) came out about a couple weeks ago but I just couldn't get myself to point a Samsung DSLR (not really renowned for cameras) proudly at people; it sounds silly not to buy a camera for reasons of vanity but I guess Nikon was just calling with more passion.

So down to three Nikons. I went to this one place in Seoul (not for the heck of going to Seoul nor only for the camera---I happen to be in Seoul at the moment (it's a long story)) that quote the following prices for the bodies alone.

Nikon D200 body only--- 1,250,000 korean won (US$1,355 by today's rate)
Nikon D80 body only--- 820,000 korean won (US$889 by today's rate)
Nikon D70 (not 's') body only--- 530,000 korean won (US$575 by today's rate)

All really good deals. I felt a little guilty considering the D200 since my budget was limited and this is my first DSLR. The D70 is a screaming deal, still a great camera, but in the end I decided to go for the D80 because it had native B&W shooting, seemed more portable, was newer, and seemed the closest to the D200 without actually being the D200.

I really like my D80, no regrets. I'm sure I would have been equally happy with the D200 and D70/s as well, though. Not to mention, I am excited about being welcomed into the Nikon family of lenses. The third party lens makers (Sigma and Tamron come to mind) are just icing on the cake.

Today I bought a Fujiyama 72 mm multi-coated UV filter; haven't really tested it yet. I decided to hit the blog as soon as I got home, but I'm going to have some fun tomorrow.

Howdy folks!

Pardon the rather terse intro post a few days ago. Anyway, just call me Max. I'm the blog. The human contributor(s) is/are a bit on the shy side so he/she/they prefer to maintain a certain amount of anonymity. I don't mind much since this site will mostly be about the pictures. I know...I know...pictures can reflect a fair amount about the photographer, but in this case a little mystery is good for the soul. So feel free to keep guessing about the photographer(s) but don't let it get in the way of your appreciation of the photos.

From this point on, I will blur the line between blog entity (that's me, Max) and the photographer(s) by rather annoyingly using the pronoun 'I' liberally with little regard or explanation as to who it is really referring to. Suffice it to say that by the time an article or photo makes it to this blog it will likely begin with what 'I' did today.


...strictly speaking I'm interested in photographic art, so some of the images you see here may be technically crap (focus, grain, angle, lighting, and exposure gone all 'prodigal son' but usually they'll have some quality that intrigues me (the blog, Max).

That's it for now. Stay tuned.

You can call me Max.

Max says, "Welcome to Max. This is largely a photo blog."

Max continues, "I am a photographic artist. I recently purchased a Nikon D80 DSLR, so you can think of this site as the toilet into which my D80 vomits it's lovely multi-coloured, and sometimes B & W, glory."

Max adds, "On occasion I will post photos from other cameras."