Saturday in the Park with Rheana and my new Camera

So I have begun the purchases of all the new gear, its all very exciting and I will write reviews of it all in the next few weeks.  Unfortunately the D3s is on back order so I am waiting for it to come in.  However I have purchased my second body, the D300s, which is pretty cool, and not having the D3s is forcing me to get to know the D300s, which I am loving!  So here is my first review of the Nikon D300s and Nikon 70-200mm VRII lens.

I took it out for its first spin today with my sister, Rhys, and Rheana in Central Park.  I also used my new lens, the Nikon 7-200mm.  I am really REALLY loving the lens!  Being able to zoom in to 200 and stay at 2.8 is amazing, I’ve been using the lens for 1 day and already I don’t know how I’ve lived without it.  I had never bought a lens that expensive, and didn’t really understand until I had it out there in the park why it is worth every last penny.  I’ll be heading west in June and I can’t wait to really see all of its capabilities and get to know the two teleconverters (1.7x and 1.4x) that I bought, and I will share the experience with you all.

The D300s seems to do everything and more (like HD video!) than my D2x did plus as an added bonus it is much smaller.  I was happily surprised by how light weight the D300s body and the 70-200mm VRII lens is, after lugging around the D3 and 500mm lens in the Arctic this seems so light!  It all fit perfectly into my Kelly Moore camera bag, which I continue to love and and spread the word about because it is brilliant!  The new style that came out is so cute, if you haven’t bought one yet definitely go check it out! I haven’t used any of the video yet on the D300s, so nothing to report on that.  The camera is pretty similar in basic function to the D2X, the one thing I miss is the second shutter button on the side of the camera for vertical shots, the D3s will have it, but I kept hitting the side of the camera today and not understanding why pictures weren’t being taken, not too big of a deal, just something to get used to as I usually don’t think about what I’m doing and just intuitively do it with my camera, small change, not too bad.  The speed of the shutter is awesome and the metering and focus so fast which is great because so is the lens.  I had a little trouble focusing the lens as quickly as I hoped on closer objects, but super fast on farther objects, I think that’s just one of the draw backs of a starting focal length of 70mm and again I will just get used to it and have my old trusty 18-200mm on hand for closer shots.  The cropped frame doesn’t bother me too much because I’m used to it from the D2X, I am excited for the full frame on the D3s and I think I may become spoiled by it, but for now the cropped is not a problem.  I think that’s all I have to report on it today.  More to come soon on other purchases!

 I’ll be going on a big road trip with my dad the second week of June in Colorado, Utah, and (with mixed feelings) Arizona.  I have an image in the Animalia show at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, opening June 4th, so I will be heading west for the opening, and then my dad and I will roadtrip the rest of the week from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and then to the South Rim and finally fly home to Los Angeles for a week.  I am very excited to test out the new camera and lens and it will be a great chance to test the power of the teleconverters.  I also am working on some new lighting set ups, so it will be fun to play with that on the trip also.  My dad and I had a talk about our feelings about going to Arizona, I really didn’t want to support their economy in any way to show my support for the Anti-SB1070 movement, but we aren’t really going to be living it up in Arizona, and it’s not the Grand Canyon’s fault that it’s in a state of prejudice bigots.  My desire to see the majesty of the Grand Canyon is conflicting with me being a card carrying member of the ACLU, but I am hoping that I can write about and photograph the experience and share it with you all here as a journalist to show the injustice occurring in Arizona and maybe, even if its only in a small way, help show people how unjust this law is.

Not intending to get on a political diatribe, back to camera reviews!  Here are two of the first images from my new setup.   More reviews and photos to come later this week!