Been to great places with "Baby de 1st", nope, not the 1st guy I date, Baby de 1st is my Nikon F80. It was the 1st piece of solid gadget I ever owned with my own $$$. I spent my initial salaries of 2 months (OK, what's left of it after the monthly expediture) to purchase the black beauty in cash (coz typically if pay by card, there'll be some charges), every single dime from my own blood and sweat and dignity - I'll explain this later.
The Nikon F80 is a 35mm format SLR, and the kit came with a 28-100mm zoom lens. From the day it was taken out of the signature gold box, we were inseparable (che wah, must add in a little sentimentality) as it was the only valuable material item I wholly owned. Like most new photogs, I basically snapped everything from running water from a pipe to the ceiling fan. 1st experiment, shallow depth of field, something a point-n-shoot can't do. 2nd experiment continuous shooting mode, multiple exposure, and so on, if you take pictures you kinda know the drill, hehehe. The catch was, the films are not exactly 10sens a roll, nor the processing fee economical. So I started keeping a notebook on exposure and bracketing. And the framing? you betcha, it's not easy to find a film developer who knows how to crop to our wishes.
So I basically became a "stingy-pot" when it comes to taking snapshots. Unimportant, dull scenes? Nah, I'll give it a miss. Neighbourhood kids? Nah, they are other people's kids, no need to take. The greens on the way up Mt Kinabalu? Nah, can see the same sort of grass in Klang - no need to lift a muscle to take the camera outta the bag. So you see, eventually, I missed out on a lot of possibly good pictures. To pay for the film and processing, I couldn't afford to own a scanner so the pics are stored in photo albums or just stacked in the Kodak envelopes from the developers. F80 was my constant companion on trips. It hung on on my neck like a necklace which probably explains why I seldom wear 1. I liked the sound of the exposure click, I like the feel of its solid body (ahh, this is beginning to sound like a corny exotica novel), and the sore it inflicted on my neck and shoulder after a day's trip is so much more tolerable than a mozzy bite.
I was holding on to F80 until 1 day, the mode dial failed to lock. The exposure mode went berserk, if you just slightly touched the dial, it will go from aperture priority to shutter speed priority and to manual, etc. Sent my baby to Nikon to get it fixed but the quote came as RM400++ (Nikon really sucks at servicing their products, they have limited service centre and the servicing fee is horrendous...so take care of your Nikons ya, the only reason we own Nikons is due to their lens). I thought, I'll just save that and be very careful with the exposure mode - managed to get around that after some time. The next pang of terror came went the coating of the F80 became so sticky, probably from poor storage condition and also I overlooked to clean the metal ring connecting the body and the lens, it was probably corroded by saltwater from one of the beach trips.
On one of the meetings with my photog sifu, he pointed out that it's about time I get a DSLR. It got me to thinking that maybe it's time to move on, to go into the digital era of the art of light. To throw my oldskool stubbornness, to embrace white balance, on-spot checking of picture taken, shots of everything that could turn out to be quite a masterpiece. Went hunting for a new DSLR, thought of giving Canon a chance but it's still familiarity the Nikon system that ended up with the choice of D80 - since I've got my old lens, went to get just the body.
Aiya, how come the pics doesn't seem to go as wide angle as it used to be? 28mm was pretty good with minimum distortion previously. Ahh, the discovery of "crop factor" of CMOS sensor against 35mm film. Dang...felt like a big sack of rice just fell on my head. Wide angle is one my my fave views, the little distortion that gives the oomph to a somewhat flat shot.
This year (2009) we planned family trip to Siem Reap. I would really knock my head against those laterite lime walls of the temples (and possibly land a spot in the tourist jail for smearing the artifacts with my blood) if I can't take wide angles and longer focal length. There might be tons of tourists swarming the attractions and the shortie here will have no chance at all. Thus my perfectly good excuse (Ben will definitely has something to say about this, well, too bad...keke) to get a zoom that can cover wider and further. Ta daa...my 18-200mm ED VR Nikkor. The motor is so silent the mozzies will be envious. The con part? The lens + D80 body = more pain to the shoulder. Before that, got to highlight that Ben is so sweet to get me a Lowepro bag for my birthday 2008 - my fav accessory as it's just nice for my size :->
My old accessory flash unit can no longer be used on the D80. I was advised to turn it into a secondary flash unit (some more $$$). Same with the old Hoya HMC CPL (62mm), in last minute desperate move (but very very bad move), I've purchased a green label Hoya CPL. Turned out it almost "burnt" my Siem Reap pictures as it softened the pictures, very bad, must always get at least a good coated filter.
On my to-have list:
a) Accessory flash unit - I think I'll go for 3rd party, there are some good ones in the market
b) CPL of good grade - Nikon's CPLs are quite good it seems but the pricetag also as eye-opening la..
c) Super wideangle zoom lens - As the Nikon super WA zoom is crazy mahal, I'll look for 3rd party maybe a Tamron
d) Prime lens - 50mm/f1.8 is the cheapest and with good review. This should be affordable.
I've got to come up with an entire chapter of stories dedicated to the ever life-saving PS and LR softwares (whether you hate or like them - but you can't ignore them) on digital photography. Also on home printing, photobooks, facebook, flickr, etc a.k.a. publishing tools. I'm getting a bit lazy for now so just leave it as is till I gather more strength to write about those.
Let me set my priorities 1st..too many topics to blog - even blogging is new to me. Maybe just realized I need to keep up with the younger gen ppl.
Cheers & Click!!
